Monday, March 20th of the year 2000
Oh my. Some of my life long dreams are coming true already. Being a cyberneticist and biomechanical engineer at heart, this story about how an implanted chip allows a paralyzed man to walk again just blows my mind. I have a huge log of concepts and projects for this field, and I had no idea we were this far along!
11:20 AM
The UMich networks have been sporatic, at best, over the past week. Today I trying to be my usual multitasking self and had about 3 browsers, my email client, and a telnet session all open. I guess the network lag upset Windows 2000 because I got a Blue Screen of Death saying there was an error involving tcpip.sys (a main network/internet driver)! Windows 2000 never crashes on me. Other than that error I had with Quake III about a month ago, I have crashed maybe three times. 63,000 bugs? No.
Sunday, March 19th of the year 2000
That was not dementia (see last post). What I experienced was the pure beauty of the psyche. Throughout the day, my mind was working near full capacity. Thoughts on such various topics as destiny, my personal present, and the citric acid cycle opened consciousness. During the night, this accelerated mental ability melded with desire and creativity. The dream was the product of it all, and was wonderful in its nonsensicality.
1:27 PM
Eight hours of class work. Eight. No wonder the feeling of today is apathy! Yesterday, with the mind in overdrive working on physics and biochemistry, old memories surfaced. Oddly enough, they all manifested into one very long dream last night. For those of you that know my dream history, you realize that I rarely have dreams, let alone remember them vividly, let alone have them last all night! Lucid dreams entail being conscious that you are dreaming, and thus allows a certain amount of control over what happens. The dream last night seemed to be a preprogrammed version of lucid dreaming. It was as if I scripted out a perfect dream.
In general, imagine the greatest love you have ever felt for someone. This is the feeling I had through out the entire night. The cause of this feeling was in the plot: Walking around with my soulmate. Here comes the odd part: the subject of the dream was someone I know second hand, a friend-of-a-friend sort of person. In reality, I have never met her, I know very little of her, and she is definitely not my soulmate. Is this what dementia is truly like?
Saturday, March 18th of the year 2000
What have I been reduced to? In an attempt to save enough money to live this summer, a complete moratorium on spending is in effect. No more meals out of the building when a meal credit can be used in the cafeteria, no new clothes, and the worst: no new computer parts! Instead of going out and spending money on food, I have been snacking on whatever is available here in the room between meals. I am down to string cheese and peanut butter for snacks. Without bread, the peanut butter is being consumed directly with a spoon. I know the low point will be hit when all is left are the cocktail olives...
1:54 PM
Oops! About 6 of us went to the Blind Pig last night to see the funk band Deep Banana Blackout. Turns out, two of our companions were underage and a third did not have ID. Instead, we stormed Amer's and ordered them to make us sandwiches. The person who waited on us was quite cool, allowing us to choose the music (Zeppelin and the soundtrack to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). After that, 2010 was the movie of choice. Having loved 2001, high anticipation followed for 2010. It failed to hit the mark, but interesting nonetheless. Today, I am going to spend all of my time looking at furniture pr0n.
Friday, March 17th of the year 2000
This just blows my mind. The course guide for Fall 2000 was released early. I checked over all of the classes I could take for next semester, then realized that I must be getting near the end of my program. I looked up the requirements for the biology degree, looked over the requirements for the University as a whole. I only need to take 8 more classes before I can graduate. Remember here, this is only my second year of school. I would be able to graduate an entire year early. This sounds great, but there is a catch. I love computers more and more every day. My Linux skills are increasing every day, and the possibilities are amazing. Web design/programming is very interesting, and learning much more would be a logical choice. Instead of graduating a year early, I think I will graduate a year late and pick up a second degree.
9:43 AM
Dolly has a few cloned mammalian companions now. Joining the ranks of the artificial: Millie, Christa, Alexis, Carrel, and Dotcom. Dotcom? Christ. These pigs are quite healthy, and much study is going into animal-to-human organ transplants. It is believed to be possible that the genetics of the pig could be altered such that their organs would be readily useful to humans. And if our little piggy sack of human organs doesn't quite work out, they taste just the same... I wonder how much they would charge for pork chops from Dotcom?
Thursday, March 16th of the year 2000
How is this for a coincidence: Someone I know placed this quote in their online profile : "There's nothing in this world don't think I need." Yes, incorrect grammar, but it is supposed to be like that. I read that line, and I knew it from somewhere. I listened to some of my Millencolin MP3s, and there is was in Material Boy! Here is what makes this oddly coincidental: Earlier this week, I had sent her an email with the title Material Boy since I was discussing my need for new inline skates. Around the same time, she was given a burned CD that contained random songs, one of which was Material Boy. She had no idea that it was the song Material Boy, nor that it was by Millencolin. To add to the oddity, the burned CD also contained classic rock. Not too many people are like me and have such eclectic tastes.
12:45 PM
You know that need for a new hard drive I expressed earlier? I think I have found the one I want. 75 gig hard drives are now being developed by IBM. This takes the crown from Maxtor and their 60 gig drives. Personally, the Maxtor DiamondMax 40 drive looks quite nice... 40 gig for about $275!
12:30 PM
Wow, just what I needed... Last night around 10:30 PM, I attempted to work on my physics lab formal report. When I realized that I could not even focus on a piece of paper two feet from my eyes, I knew I needed sleep. I slept for about 11 hours, skipping my 8:30 AM class today. I can always get the notes later, and I feel so much better.
Wednesday, March 15th of the year 2000
April 3rd is destined to be an important day for me:
- My CRISP appointment is for this day. This is my registration for classes for next semester. I look forward to this day for an entire semester.
- My third paycheck from my current employer will be available. Some how, I screwed up some data on the time sheet for the first two paychecks, so they were postponed. I will get 1.5 months worth of pay all at once!
It's not terribly efficient, I have to recompile the index each time I update, and it has a stupid CAEN ad at the bottom, but this website is now searchable!
5:15 PM
Wow, I really need to get my new hard drive so I can install Linux! There were absolutely no problems today at work (actually, I am still there), so I could do whatever I wanted. Since all of the useable machines were taken up, I went to the hub room and played with the toy Linux terminal we have. There is such a wealth of features that I had no idea about. For some reason, no GUI was setup on the machine, so I got to explore the command line interface. Unlike DOS, *nix multitasks beautifully. On top of that, I found a ton of internet tools I could hack with. In just the two hours that I played with the terminal, I feel my knowledge of Linux has doubled. Pretty sad, if I must say so myself... but life is sad (see previous post).
3:48 PM
Self-esteem : zero. I did not actually get rejected by a female today, I just was not given a chance to ask the right questions or present the right possibilities. Maybe the signals were just crossed this time. Luckily the semester has 5 weeks remaining. If not, oh well, there are 3.1 billion other women.
11:45 AM
It doesn't really effect anything, nor will this address stay the same after this semester, but my site is now accessable at http://141.213.181.68.
11:38 AM
Most of the updates on this page have been on the backend. I have been attempting to get some submittable forms working, but the personal UMich server does not allow any outside cgi. Grr. Then I started playing around with hosting the site off this computer (which was amazingly easy to set up). The cgi I wanted to use utilizes Perl, and I cannot think for the life of me how to execute perl files on a non *nix system. I know in *nix, just use usr/local/bin/perl... but for Windows 2000 I have no idea! Thus, no matter how I try, I will have to use boring forms...
Tuesday, March 14th of the year 2000
Attempting to look up an acronym caused my mind to get trapped in an infinite loop. Reading a scientific journal article, I came across the acronym TCA. I jumped over to Acronym Finder and punched in TCA. One of the answers was "Three Character Acronym"... I honestly could not resolve that for at least a minute. My mind was thinking, TCA = Three Character Acronym, yet TCA also is a Three Character Acronym. Ugh.
Monday, March 13th of the year 2000
I know what I am doing when I get out of college!
3:47 PM
I could host this website off my computer. I have been considering playing around with IIS for Windows 2000, but then I realized that my IP address will be changing in less than 6 weeks. On top of that, I will be going back to modem access. There is no way I would be able to keep a constant connection. I will also have to relinquish my FTP server, which gets about 5000 users per day on average. Thank goodness I will be getting a cable modem from MediaOne next semester.
9:46 AM
Jake liked his women how he liked his kiwi fruit; firm yet yielding, sweet yet tart, and covered with short fuzzy brown hair. I am so overtired that I found that quote hilarious. My sleep last night was so sporatic, it almost seemed like I was on caffeine. Today is a big day, maybe this is why my body is choosing to fight me. More updates later.
3:28 AM
My mind is racing even whilst I sleep. The visions of class work so recently completed, the idea that they were so recently initiated; The hope and dream that my internship ideals come through and I end up in Chicago for the season, on my own; lastly, the fairer sex resides in my psyche to tantalize me with luminescent emerald eyes, soft blonde hair, and a gorgeous body. Good night to one and all.