The Robot's Thoughts

The last time I partied with Alan in the VIP lounge of Deja Vu, it was his 26th bday, not 27th. Just wanted to clarify and apologize to anyone i made feel OLD. :)

Holy shit! I can't believe this blog has gotten more then 1500 hits. Where are these people coming from?
Well, I hope you enjoy reading this.
Also, tuesday morning people. POST A COMMENT!
Otherwise, I will be forced to stop spitting in every 50th hoagie purchased by a certain eating machine.

Also, I updated my template to include actual links to things like NEWS, Comics, and friends of mine. If you're reading this and bored, click on sinfest.net -- its a great comic.

God I hate doing IT work for where I work. IT work always means cleaning up somebody else's mess. Today is was that the oracle installation on the production server hijacked port 8080, so the webmail client wasn't working. It took over 6 hours to figure this out between two engineers because we kept googling for the mail server name and the error messages. Eventually we just dropped the name of the company that makes the mail server, and found Oracle error messages. Changing port numbers resolved it.

But even after that escapade, where we fixed various other niggling problems with the network, I feel dumber for having spent that long fixing someone else's dumbass problem. The mail server should've been "less stupid". Oracle should've noticed a conflict. Something.

So, I have an audience that reads this blog daily but they don't post feedback comments? What's up with that? You know you don't even have to be registered in order to comment on a post.

Soapbox, my mailing list (which people are free to join -- come back lina!) died yesterday. I've ressurrected it on christopherwilson.net -- another advantage to owning your own name. We'll be accepting new members soon, so if you want to join an initimate forum for political discussion and intellectual discourse with low signal to noise ratio, then post a comment and let me know. We'll work something out.

In order to solict more responses, I thought today I'd start putting up a "Song Of The Day" from my 100% Legally Obtained Music Collection (*wink, wink*). This track is by the group Air, off their album "Talkie Walkie", and it RULES. So check it. Listen to it before the boss gets in. It could help make your day. I'm trying to pick the tracks in my music collection which I listen to over and over and over because they're addicting to me for some reason.

I'm interested in everybody's feedback to it.

Another thing I've noticed today in music is its become to cool to cover somebody else's hit from the past decade. Everyone's doing it. A Perfect Circle is covering "Imagine". The Berlin Project is covering "Hey Jude". Marilyn Manson is covering Depeche Mode. 311 is covering The Cure. Its the new trend. If you don't know the mildly obscure, yet still good song that's just old enough to be forgotten yet still alive enough that people remember it, you're just not worthy of radio play.
So now, on the "New music first" stations I can hear shitty covers of the music playing on the "Best of the 70s, 80s, and now reluctantly due to station management policy, the 90s."

And people say radio is dead! No matter how putrid the airwaves get, Clear Channel will still find a way to make a profit, so they will continue to induldge in necrophilia.

I'm going to buy new batteries for my iTrip FM, so that I use my iPod in my car again. That, along with getting Lisa's laptop on Ebay, are my goals for tomorrow when I get back from work and feel like touching a computer again.

This is all I'm going to post for now. I'm trying to save up my creative juices for some poetry projects I'm picking up. One of them I'm calling "Ten Poems about One Night Stands" -- its a reflection of the good and bad of all the hook ups I've done in the past. The lessons learned and the mistakes made. I'm reluctant to comment any more on it, save that I want to get it just right.

I've hung out with people this weekend who have said, and I quote, "I check your blog everyday at work and I get pissed when you don't update."

Those sound like fightin' words.

So I am resolving to actually try to update my blog daily. Oh yeah. I'm sure this will last pretty long, just like me quitting smoking.

But I think this is a little easier then quitting smoking. Because I incessantly rant all the time anyway.

This weekend I went bowling with Joel, Jason and Lumi out in Cranberry. I had no idea that Cranberry was that far away from Pittsburgh. Quite a commute. As bad as mine, if not worse. I didn't even break 100 bowling. But like everytime I go bowling, it was a good time, because bowling is only have the battle: You get to bullshit, drink and smoke. And it feels like you're doing something more then hanging out. It feels like you're bowling.

Before bowling we grabbed dinner at Jason's favorite place: Cranberry Applebee's. Don't make fun of him. Its actually quite the Applebees. I got so full I couldn't really drink. This "less filling" argument is starting to make sense to me. The meal was fantastic, as was the company. We bashed a certain professor who's calling in life is to "power up" on hoagies instead of lecture.

Sunday was that day of chores: Working out. Groceries. Cleaning. Dishes. Beer shits. The typical sunday.
Later in the evening, I hung out with Erin and Lisa, and we watched Lilo and Stich. Apparently, I'm missing a major drama fest now that I'm out of school. Which brings me to my next subject:

I'm out of school. I'm paying off Pitt. I have a good, steady job. A good set of friends. A nice place.
I am comfortable. I am content but not complete.
And this leads me to thinking. Which is why I haven't posted that much. I've been thinking. Its kind of a calm before the storm, its double checking to make sure the lightbulb in the thinking cap is screwed in, but I've been thinking about things.
Here's a few:

"In the end, will you wipe him when he's done?"
A question posed by one of the older employee's at work. Its the question she asks any girl in her church before they get married. Because you never know. Tragedy strikes. Sometimes it strikes our loved ones. And that doesn't change anything, or its not supposed to, but how do you really know? Think about the most loved person in your life a vegetable. Having to take care of that vegatable. The spark in the eyes gone. They're not brillant at breakfast, witty or sarcastic to the news, they can't even remark about the weather.
All you have to live for is remembering good times.

Its fucking scary and its a terrible downer. And I'm blogging about it for a monday morning. But its thoughts like that which stick with you when there's accidents on the parkway two days in a row. Bumper to Bumper traffic, everyone pissed off and rushing, because somebody had to be stupid and get themselves killed on the way home from work. Or maybe not kill. I don't know for sure if the accidents were fatal. I didn't stick around. I pulled off to the nearest restaurant and just waited out traffic.

My friend casper said it best about situations like that, "You feel like a gold fish stuck in a toilet bowl."
I hate that feeling. I imagine everyone else does, too.

But where I'm at in life right now involves a lot of thought. Because as John Lennon said, "Life is what happens while you are making plans." And things may not turn out the way we plan. So I'm thinking about options. Choices. Oppertunities. That kind of thing.

I want to do whatever it is in my power not to squander this precious gift of life which I've been given.
I want to make each kiss as unique as a snowflake.
I want to make each smile shine bright like a sunrise.
I want to be there for my friends when it counts. No matter the cost.
I want to understand others before i open my mouth to try and teach.
I want to feel my lover's breath on the back of my neck, first thing in the morning.
I want to live in the now as much as I plan for the future.

Sometimes it takes an accident of action to remind us to wake up when we're asleep at the wheel while we're speeding down this road of life. That its more about the route we take then our bearings or blessings. The magical detours are as part of it as the main drags. The destination's all the same, really. So be sure to enjoy the ride.

On average we only live 27,000 days. Sound short? Its because it is.
Carpe Diem, reader and friend. Carpe Diem.

Danni and Van have the same birthday, and this time, Danni turned 21.

Such a night of crazyness. A party of 15 showed up for dinner at Fat heads here in south side before hitting the bar.
From there we hit Mario's, for the complimentary blow job shot. Van and Danni had a whipped cream fight after they took the show no hands, and I had a front row seat. Julie surprised Danni by showing up at Fat Heads after saying she wasn't going to make it. At Mario's, I bought her a Sex On The Beach shot and we stole the glass thanks to my cargo pants pocket.

From there we hit Jacks, and me and Annette, who haven't really hung out since Alan's 27th birthday party in the VIP lounge of Deja Vu, drank Vodka and 7up.

From there we went to Jekyl and Hyde's. I'm sorry Chuck, I broke my promise to have you be the one to bring me there. It was a birthday party. I wasn't in charge of itinerary. I did enjoy the Jack The Ripper drink.

Believe me when I say I will be back there.

Then Julie wanted to dance, so we all went to Tiki lounge. I got a little scraped up there from a fall (more like a push). but I was drunk and didn't feel it until tomorrow.

It was just a great night. I can't really relate it in words. The energy of the whole night can't be described. I waited too long to write this, but needless to say that every moment of it was incredible.

Its beautiful what a conspiracy of friends can accomplish for the delight of one person. It should happen more often.

10 days since last update.
People at work are on a code death march. Oracle is so hardware intensive that its just not running fast enough. And there's been a re-org. Layoffs. A lot of the data processing people were let go. They've never laid off a developer. They said not to worry.

Still, I'm a little nervous. I'm not really attached to a project right now. And they're not putting me on the asset project, which means they're smart enough to know hwo to manage software projects -- putting more people on a late project only makes it later.

Tonight is Danni and Van's 21st and 22nd birthday, respectively. I'm going out with them at 8. It should be a GREAT time. I hope Julie can make it. She's been out of town dealing with family. One of her family members died.

Anyway, just a quick update. I'll be sure to start doing this more often. Its only 4 more days till I have broadband.

I got home last night, ate dinner, and slept until 5am the next day.


I was that tired.

So much craziness at work. Everyone's rallied to make everything for this conference perfect. Deadline is 5pm today.

But at least its payday. Time for a new cell phone, new computer parts.

And a shopping spree at the Shadyside Apple store on Saturday.

I can't wait till payday. I'm working on configuring one of our bigger, badder workstations to function as a demo for the upcoming EPRI conference, and Murphey, curse his name, is throwing a monkey wrench in everything.
Oracle doesn't buffer much of the file system into RAM, so the Web Apps we want to demo are slow. This gets the lead programmer pissed off. The network to BV is extremely slow today, so all the MDBs we want to FTP down here are going extremely slow.
I love programming. I hate IT. IT stuff is dreg work. You don't feel like your working, you don't really feel like you're accomplishing something, and you spend way too many times watching progress bars.
I'm convinced that windows, especially the server blends, are configured so that nothing will work right out of the box so the MSCE certification is worth money, if just to prove you can put up with the aggrevation of configuring a windows server.

In other news, I'm looking for someone who wants to work out around 6 or 7 o'clock at Bellefield Gym, and someone to go running with me when the weather's nice. If anyone's interested, leave some comments. I've modified my blog so that anyone can leave comments, not just blogger members.

Outie.

I'm using the blog-by-email system blogger.com has established, so here goes nothing.
This is the first fall where I've been "done" with school. It feels great in the sense that I have money coming, so I get to go home and lust for all the cool geeky toys I was never able to afford while living as a college student. Digital Cameras and Camcorders. Flatscreen TVs. BTO Gaming PC. Dual G5 PowerMac Tower. WRX.
But that's not really why it feels great. It feels great because I'm busy during the daytime the same way I was in school. Except that I'm not in benedum. There's windows. Sunlight. Its nice. And there's a lot for me to learn and do here.
The one thing I do miss about school is that most of my friends are still in it, so I see them less. With some individuals, that's a very good thing. For others, not so much.
And there's so much to do right now while I'm getting myself established. Ray (Rea?) is giving me furniture. My parents are bringing more furniture up. So I have to finish unpacking all my the nick nacks (like my dreamcast) and set them up properly, so there's room for my parents to stay this weekend. I have to get my phone and internet.
Ah, well, the search query is done. Back to work.