Archive for August, 2001
August 1, 2001 at 04:00
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- Last day at the office! Had my exit interview, filed some last-minute expenses, and lugged a ton of stuff home from the office. Total elation.
- Alice is staying with us for a couple of days since the movers have her bed and her flight isn’t until Friday. I’m told that she played Bust a Move for many hours yesterday, so I trust she’s feeling welcome.
- Mike is in Ottawa celebrating his second anniversary with his lovely wife. Alice and I went shopping, lugged it all home, and scavenged for dinner instead of making real food.
- The catalogs and application for a handful of Ontario law schools arrived with startling speed. I’m impressed.
August 2, 2001 at 04:00
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- Very hot. Please make it stop.
- Too hot to concentrate very long on getting anything done, so I answered some contract negotiation email and read my book most of the day.
- Ultimate practice was incredibly windy, and so not terribly useful. We congregated at Mondo Fritz again and then gave George some tech support.
- Hot and tired. Shower and bed.
August 3, 2001 at 04:00
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- Alice went to bed before I got home from ultimate practice yesterday and disappeared before I woke up this morning. I didn’t get to say goodbye! We’ll miss you, Alice!
- one afternoon four thousand men died in the water here
five hundred more were thrashing madly
as parasites might in your blood
August 4, 2001 at 04:00
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- Started browsing the InterMezzo code, trying to re-acquaint myself. Lots of changes, lots that stayed the same. Peter made InterMezzo-as-root-FS work while I wasn’t looking; very nice!
- Looked over Zach’s new gpuppeteer thing; it’s pretty cool too, if not terribly user friendly just yet. I miss hacking Chainsaw with Zach.
August 7, 2001 at 04:00
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- Made travel arrangements for a day in New Jersey later this week, to talk with a company about a long-term contract, or perhaps even a salaried position. Too bad they’re in New Jersey, but everyone has their price, even me.
- Played a frustrating game of Ultimate; we’d complete one pass every time, and then that person would just totally panic and throw a boomerang or even miss the dump. Sigh.
- Finished Max Payne. What a beautiful game. Weird story, but excellent graphic novel art, and the most usable game engine to date. Go buy it.
August 8, 2001 at 04:00
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- Jesus christ, it’s 08 August 2001 already?
- It’s so hot in the office room that a bag of chocolate chips melted. Nothing that a 36 degree day can’t handle. Of course, it’ll cool off on Friday when I’m in New Jersey (while it’s 36 there).
-
I just wanted to tell you that your pussy has
been reported to smell like smoked white fish.
thank you for your time.
yours truly, yahoo staff.
Some people send the weirdest spam from “fuck@off.net”, and of course, I get all of the bounces.
- Deb and George came over for dinner (hooray!). We were going to grill some skewers of beef and vegetables, but we were totally out of propane so we ordered thai food instead. Oh well.
- Just one month until (time_t)1e9
August 13, 2001 at 04:00
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- Flew home from New Jersey after a surprisingly nice weekend. Southern New Jersey (and Philadelphia, too) get an unfair bad rap. They need better publicists.
- A kind and wonderful person by the name of Bang Nguyen mailed my Blackberry to me. A cheque is on its way–I want to encourage this sort of behaviour. Thank you thank you thank you thank you.
- I can feel myself getting sick, hour by hour. My throat is sore and closing up, my sinuses are filling, I’m sneezing and tired. Poop.
August 14, 2001 at 04:00
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- Incredibly sick. Mustn’t move. Can’t talk. Sleep now.
August 15, 2001 at 04:00
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- The fever broke last night, with the aid of Theraflu, the best medicine ever invented. God bless Novartis.
- Everything from my knees down hurts; I have no idea why. Maybe I developed arthritis overnight.
- At least the outside temperature has been below 30 for the last couple of days. Being sick totally negates any ability that I otherwise have to ignore the heat.
- Getting a daily subscription to the Globe and Mail in New Jersey is rocket science. I think I’d have to buy a printing press and start a subsidiary.
August 16, 2001 at 04:00
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- A little bit less sick. I even took a shower.
- shaver thought of such a good idea while we were watching a TV special on The Tragically Hip: software that would plot the week’s websavers against various bands’ concert data. Oh, the Hip are playing in Edmonton on Saturday, there’re tickets available, and a websaver from Montreal? Book both and a hotel, *click*.
- The left mouse button, after two years, has finally started to die on my laptop. It’s such a pain to send it back, but it’s really time. Sigh.
- Vendors are selling 64MB DIMMs for four US dollars. It’s only a matter of time before there are designer quarter-gigabyte business cards.
August 17, 2001 at 04:00
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- Another day, another box of Neo Citran. A bit less phlegm today. It’s the little things.
- Made some changes to my nonrecursive Makefile setup after I found some really beautiful stuff in the vlc Makefiles. Their gmake-fu is much stronger than mine, which is pretty impressive. Their DVD player is no slouch either.
- Being sick and immobile for a few days gave me a chance to really think about some things, figure out what I want to do next. How’s that for foreshadowing?
August 18, 2001 at 04:00
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- I miss my good friends Chris and Patrice. I should go visit them before I start working again.
- It’s time to go make brownies, because brownies taste good, and they’re almost indistinguishable from real food from a distance.
- Every time I listen to Beautiful Midnight now, I think about driving all of Janice’s earthly possessions, and also her son, to North Carolina, mostly in one stunning 23-hour leg. I know that Mike and I will do someting like that again, against all better judgement, and probably with more sleep. Maybe soon, when I move.
- Our kitties are so cute.
August 19, 2001 at 04:00
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- I had high hopes for salmon sashimi for lunch, but the couple pieces that I tasted weren’t as fresh as I’d hoped. Oh well. I threw it in some spicy honey mustard marinade to grill up tomorrow.
- Made some yummy pickles, assisted greatly by the mandoline.
- Futzing around with dosemu, which seems to be just as annoying to configure as I remembered. If I’m smart, I’ll burn all of these files to CD once I’m happy with them…
August 20, 2001 at 04:00
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- Nat’s new activity log mostly serves as a reminder of two things: I need a new camera. I hate writing in bullets.
- Had dinner with George, Mike, and Adam at Geisha near the old office. It was as slow as I’d remembered, but we didn’t have anything to hurry to. Not bad. Strange dessert.
- Mike and I came home and played some AOE2, quite a lot more than anticipated. Our third game against 3 AI opponents stretched to 5 hours, largely because of some incredibly conservative play for the last two. In retrospect, it probably could have ended in 3, 3.5.
August 21, 2001 at 04:00
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- I miss my friend Nat so much. I’m not just saying that because he’s reading this, either. No. I really miss him. He should come visit. Websaver!
August 22, 2001 at 04:00
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- It’s more or less official now; I’ve signed with Tacit Networks (nee Tacitus Systems, which was really a better name, but such is life). Peter and I are reunited after two years, and our combined armies will… do something. I flew down to meet the team a week or so ago, and I’m very much looking forward to working with them.
- Preparations are underway for my relocation to southern New Jersey, which has significant benefits such as TiVo, low taxes, and the English language. It has unfortunate down sides, too, such as cars and ugly money that’s impossible to tell apart. Maybe we can make some kind of deal with the US where we get an infusion of TiVos and English language materials, and they get to model their currency after ours. Write your Congressman!
- I took the time to send polite, if pointed, feedback to an annoying headhunter, which is a bit out of character. I’m not sure why I didn’t just procmail them into late next week; I guess I thought they needed help too badly to ignore.
- One of these days, I swear, I’ll take the half hour and reformat my activity log. One of these days.
- Spent a good chunk of the day thinking about moving logistics. Moving sucks and I hate it. At least I don’t have to pack anything–I did that before I moved in with Mike. If there was packing to be done, it would be professionalmover time, no questions. “Someone else packs, or I stay in Montreal,” I would say.
- I want to get out of the rental trap, but I don’t want to spend weeks hunting for and purchasing a house or condo, so I know I’ll just end up in another lease. Maybe I’ll find a short lease and use that time to look for a real place–but then I have to move again. Fuck!
- If I lease something, though, my nearest neighbours have to be separated from me by something more than a wall. I have to accept the fact that sometimes it is required, by law, that I play Matthew Good Band or watch Terminator 2 at a volume of more decibels than most people have IQ points. “Sorry,” I will tell them, if their poodle explodes from the bass, “that’s the law.”
August 23, 2001 at 04:00
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- Sometimes, late at night, I forget what day it is.
- September 4 is moving day. I probably would have gone late next week, if it weren’t for the US labour day holiday next Monday. Only the insane are on the road labour day weekend.
August 24, 2001 at 04:00
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- Still waiting for my last paycheque and expenses from Zero-Knowledge, 23 days later. La la la.
- I’m back in the “let’s just move and get it over with” mode, despite not really wanting to leave Montreal. I’m really good at moving every year, though, more often than not to a place where I hardly know anyone.
- Chris Faherty of Sparrow fame noticed the BlackBerry serial protocol paper and posted it to a developer mailing list, thus forcing me to update some of the more glaring known errors and omissions. Still a large handful of updates to make, hopefully this weekend.
- Seeing his name reminded me that I need to finish my latest Sparrow hack, so that it’s usable again. Part of me is tempted to clean up our patches and send them to Chris, another part of me thinks that time would be better spent rewriting more of Sparrow. I don’t know that I have the patience to reverse engineer the PIN and “More” commands anytime soon.
August 25, 2001 at 04:00
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- Made some updates to the protocol doc, did some Cassis hacking. I think I’ll release 0.1 tomorrow, if I can get a couple solid hours of polishing and documentation in.
- Stephanie returned home today, radiant as always, and with a new guitar. It reminds me how much I want to learn to play my accordion, yet haven’t found the time.
- Dinner at Lezvos with Adam, Deb, Mike, Tyla, Steph, and George. Probably the last time I’ll eat there in a long while. sniff.
- Adam returned with the four of us and we watched Die Hard–such a good movie.
- Wouldn’t you know it; I need one of the only three US Customs forms that you can’t get on the web. Eight million forms, and I need one of those three.
August 26, 2001 at 04:00
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- Much Cassis hacking; backup/restore now works, for a single database per file. Some console cleanup, some documentation and pre-release cleanup. I just need to add license information, a README, and release.
- Played a few cooperative games of AOE2 with Mike; they took longer than we’d anticipated again.
- George came over for yummy grilled pork skewers with a Portuguese bread salad, corn, vegetables, and a not-bad-at-all $10 Costco Bordeaux.
- The cats are being cute again–enjoy it while it lasts, you guys, you’ve got 7 more days of togetherness. I think I’ll have to get another playmate for Simon once I’m settled, he’ll be unbelievably bored.
August 27, 2001 at 04:00
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- Fixed up and released Cassis.
- I’m going to miss this kitchen so much. I’m spoiled rotten.
- Those A&E pig fuckers replaced the 23h00 showing of Law and Order with some new Sandra Bernhard talk show. Argh, I need a TiVo.
August 28, 2001 at 04:00
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- The Blizzards are coming to town for the evening! Hooray!
- Someone took the last toilet paper roll from the Toilet Paper Repository without telling anyone, so we’re now dangerously low. I am cross.
- We watched The Usual Suspects with the commentary, since the Blizzards hadn’t seen it. Such a good movie, and a commentary track that’s actually entertaining a second time, let alone a first.
August 29, 2001 at 04:00
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- Hooray, my final paycheque and expenses have arrived, only 28 days after I left the company.
- Joe: just so we’re clear, I hate PHP with an overwhelming passion. I won’t describe again the horror that installing PHP4 was, it would just make me irritable for the rest of the day. Suffice it to say that PHP4 is the end of the PHP line for me.
- Ate coleslaw for lunch. Normally that would be pretty disgusting, but this is coleslaw made largely with olive oil, so I don’t feel bloated and guilty. God bless Mark Bittman.
- Is it wrong to want a Passat?
August 30, 2001 at 04:00
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- I’m glad to see that djb still doesn’t get it. At least some things never change.
- Mike and I convinced Steph that it is a violation of US Federal Trade Commission regulations to publish or advertise a URL containing a space, after we saw one on TV. It was really hard to keep a straight face.
- Saw Jay and Silent Bob with them. I think we were all disappointed. I certainly didn’t think it was as good as the first four.
- Maybe I’ll settle for a Jetta.
- Oh my god, it’s 03h00 already and tomorrow is my last free business day in Montreal. Sleep sleep sleep.
August 31, 2001 at 04:00
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- Shaver has informed me that the inventor of boat-conveyor-belt sushi presentation died yesterday in an Osaka hospital of cirrhosis of the liver. It’s time to go have sushi for lunch, in his memory.
- Very yummy lunch. Deep sushi coma.
- Got a handful of errands done with Mike, which included another infuriating banking incident. Everyone in the whole goddamn Canadian banking industry is a retard. So, so deformed. Every motherfucking one of them.
- Deb, Steph, Mike, and I had dinner at Milsa. I’m going to miss that place, especially the crazy little waiter guy.
- We all came home and watched Grosse Pointe Blank. Probably my favourite John Cusack movie.
- I’m still pissed about the banking. When I move back to Canada I’m not putting a single dollar into one of these pig fuckers unless I’m a majority shareholder. I’ll wire money back and forth to the US; I don’t fucking care.
