Josh Wooley

mikaru @ 2004-09-12T15:58:00

2004-09-12T22:04:58Z

Futurama is one of the best shows ever made, and IMO, the best animated show to be produced in the US. Brilliant and hilarious, and also sad. Veery veeery sad.

Check this site out: it's got some of the best moments from the show on it:
http://www.progressiveboink.com/archive/futurama.htm

Especially awesome Futurama Moment #1. I caught that episode the last night I had off before I switched from working the graveyard shift to a day shift, and I freakin BAWLED at the end of it for like half an hour. I dare you to even read the description, and look at the pictures, and not cry. Hell, I just looked at it, and I'm crying right now.

Damn I love that show. Too bad Cartoon Network only shows it at like 3 AM, or I'd watch more of it. Stupid FOX for cancelling it. I did find out why it was cancelled though - check this quote from Billy Fox (one of the voice actors) -

"Fox was trying to kill Futurama from the very beginning I'm afraid.They didn't have control over it like their other shows(eg. The Simpsons,Malcolm,etc.) So when it started to become a hit without their input,well,let's put it this way,networks don't like looking usless or embarrased.So they kept moving it around,showing it at different times and so on.The good news is that the Cartoon Network bought all the episodes and is going to start airing them late this month,I think.The bad news is I don't think they're going to make new shows."

This from Matt Groening, the creator of this rockin show -
"I don't think Fox understands the show, they haven't really supported it... Fox gave it a bad time slot and zero promotion for the last three years."

That's why this show isn't on FOX anymore. Stupid bastards.

I'm gonna go sob in the corner now. :sniff:

mikaru @ 2004-09-01T21:48:00

2004-09-02T03:51:01Z

Life is interesting. I've made several observations lately.

You never realize how important a body part is until it's hurt. I screwed up my back at work pretty bad last week. I'm not entirely sure how I did, but I did and it sucks. I was taping a box closed, I set the tape down to one side, and felt a pop in my back which immediately started hurting, along with some off-and-on pain in my left leg. The doctor said it was a "minor lumbar strain" and told me to take some uber strength Ibuprofen. My back was a bit sore for the rest of the day, and was ok on Friday. It got pretty sore on Saturday, and a bit worse on Sunday. Monday was a whole new can of worms though, and it hurt a LOT worse, and the pain was all over my lower back and down my left leg. After a few hours of work, I went back to the doctor who rediagnosed it as an "acute lumbar strain, with possible pinching or damage to the sciatic nerve." (The sciatic nerve is the long nerve which runs out of your spine and controls your legs, kidneys and such - for those of you who don't know). He told me to keep up with the Ibuprofen, and also to take some Vicidin or Percocet (both of which I have) as needed for pain. He also set me up with some physical therapy to get it fixed. It's gonna be a long road ahead.

I've also noticed that people like to sing. I've also determined that there are five types of people who sing:
1 - Professionals.
2 - Aspiring Professionals. Things like school/church choirs, garage bands, etc.
3 - People who sing when they're alone - people who don't think that they are any good, or who know they're crap and sing alone so as to not bother others.
4 - People who have been told they are good by a family member or close friend. They seem to have a strange line of logic about this, as they seem to think that if their family member/close friend likes their singing, then *obviously* everyone else will too.
5 - People who either don't know they're crap, or don't care that they're crap and sing to satisfy themselves, and everyone around can just cope, since what the singer wants is obviously WAAAY more important than what everyone who has to put up with the garbage wants.

I'm not a big fan of amateur singers. They're usually way off key, sing way out of their voice range, are often tone deaf, and are too oblivious to the feelings of anyone but themselves to notice or care.

Oh well. I'm tired and grumpy, and once again, Kylie is asking to eat some of our food. This is really starting to piss me off. She works less than 100 yards from the farking store, yet she's constantly eating our food. 20 years old that girl, and she can't even be bothered to buy her own damn food. Pissing me off something fierce.

mikaru @ 2004-08-12T23:10:00

2004-08-13T05:34:48Z

Well, I haven't updated for a while. Might as well post some stuff and get it off my chest.

Well, Lisa and I were supposed to hang out tonight, but she's not home (or at the very least not talking to me on AIM). I know she has cancer, and I know she gets sick a lot, and that's why I feel bad for being upset about it. She's blown me off regularly since I met her, so I'm not real surprised by it.

Kylie's cat is driving me insane. The kitten is five months old now, and is hyper and misbehaves constantly. She gets up on the kitchen counter, eats our cats' food, terrorizes our cats, uses couch pillows and the carpet (and the screen when we leave the patio door open) for sharpening her claws, destroys my shoes and generally makes a pest out of herself constantly. Kylie seems to be doing very little about these problems as well. She's so absorbed in her computer that she doesn't pay attention to her cat except to feed it and pick it up and pet it once in a while. She doens't seem to grasp the fact that kittens need lots of attention. Julia and I brought this up to her the other day, and she sat down and played with the kitten for several hours. The next day, about an hour. In the last 4 days combined...maybe an hour, instead tying a shoelace to her chair and thinking that's fine. The kitten is freakin terrified of me because I'm the one who's catching her doing all this stuff that she's not supposed to be doing (and she KNOWS she's not supposed to be doing). On the rare occasion that Kylie pries her attention away from her computer and notices her kitten on the counter or something, she simply picks it up and tells it in a calm, reassuring voice that she's being bad. That's not going to do a damned bit of good, seeing as cats don't understand language. (go find a cat and say something like "you're a good cat" in three tones of voice. Nice and friendly, flat and neutral, and loud and mean.) If Kylie doesn't get her shit together and start actually raising the kitten, then we will have a chat, and one of three things will happen:
- she will start raising the kitten properly,
- she will get rid of the kitten,
- we will get rid of her.
The cat has been nothing but stress for Julia and I, and Kylie either doesn't notice (which wouldn't surprise me at all) or doesn't care.

I'll finish up this rant later. Gonna do something else for a bit.

ARRRRRRRRRR!

2003-09-05T01:21:00Z

ARRRR

Avast! It be two more weeks until Talk Like A Pirate Day! ARR!

There be more info here! ARRR!
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html

Here be examples of how to talk like a pirate:
Before:
Hello, stranger. How far is it to the bank? My companion would like to make a withdrawl.
After:
Aye, ye scurvy dog! How many leagues to th' buried treasure? Me mate, ol' Rumpot, wants t' sieze all yer doubloons.

Before:
Excuse me, officer. Is that the local constabulary? I would like to communicate with the natives.
After:
Arrr, ye whoreson' blaggart? Be that th' bloody Kings' men? I be needin' t' send 'em all to Davy Jones' locker.

ARRRRRRR!

Why does everyone use me as a sounding board?

2003-07-03T04:42:42Z

Why exactly does everyone whine at me when there's something wrong, no matter how miniscule it may be? Eneasz loves to complain to me about how his marraige is failing and how Monica accuses him of cheating on her so regularly, you can set your watch by it. He also complains to me about not having any money. HE complains to ME about this! He alone makes about $6,000 a year MORE than Julia and I COMBINED, plus he's got Monica's comperable income on top of that (the two of them combined make nearly $80,000/year!), yet he's constantly up in arms about how he's broke! He just got a brand new townhouse, bought a brand new car a year ago, has $200-300/month to spend at Black Dawg, eats out for lunch every day, can pretty much buy whatever he wants whenever he wants to, and yet he says he has no money... If I hear him complain about that one more time, I'm going to shove my foot so far up his ass he'll be able to trim my toenails with his molars.
There's this girl Jody who sits next to me at work. She doesn't do SHIT at work. I think she does about 5-10 minutes of work per day. Mondays are a spectacular example of what she does during the week. She has class from 9-10:30am, so she comes in around 12-12:30. Claims she got to work at 7 (which I know is horseshit, since half the time I get there at 7, and she's nowhere to be found) and has been working like mad all day long. Sits at her desk, checks her voicemail and calls her husband and office friends. About 15 minutes after she comes in for the day, she leaves for lunch and usually comes back about 1 1/2-2 hours later, oftentimes with food, which she will then eat while surfing the internet and talking to her husband or friends on the phone. Then she'll do about 5 minutes worth of work, and get on the phone to schedule an appointment, or a wedding (more on this in a second), or something else which takes about an hour and 12-15 phone calls. Then she'll screw off on the internet for a while, then complain about how tired she is and how she has to go to a meeting, and then goes home at 3:30-4. I know when she has afternoon "meetings" and turns her computer off and makes sure to turn her lights and everything off that she's not coming back. A couple of times, I've even been called by her boss when he can't find her. The rest of the week is a lot like monday, except replace "meetings" with "morning class" and it's pretty much exactly the same. Anyways, she works part time on the weekends as a wedding photographer. She makes some fairly decent pay doing this, about $150-250 after taxes per wedding. She also goes to college. And she has to maintain her house. She's got WAAAAAAAY too much on her plate, and she knows it, because she alternates between whining at me about how she's got too much on her plate, and how she's so stressed out about having too much on her plate. I've got people I barely know at black dog whining at me about stuff (not at people in general, they'll actually pull me aside sometimes to complain about how so-and-so is a prick, or whatshisname smells like ass, etc)
Do I just have a sign on my back that says "whine at me, I don't care" or something? This is really getting old, and I'm rather sick of it.
Back to more Diablo. About the only thing I have right now that's keeping me sane...

Blah

2003-06-20T03:50:21Z

Right. So I need a new job. REALLY, REALLY, REALLY bad. I don't care what at this point, as long as it's not a Dept of Defense contractor (Lockheed Martin, Boeing or Northrop Grumman), and as long as it pays at least $11.50/hour, otherwise I can't pay the bills. I'm not even particularly concerned with how far it is, as long as it's less than an hour and a half commute. So much crap there. Remember the long rant the other day? Cris, my asshole boss, can add the following things to his list of stuff that he's done to infuriate me:
- Letting me take a half day, but going for a long lunch 2 minutes before I was to leave for the day, causing me to miss my appointment with the financial aid people at Front Range CC.
- Going for a long lunch for the second day in a row, causing me to not have anything to eat from 8 AM when I got there until nearly 2:30 when he got back from lunch.
- Getting my ass chewed out by a program director for some roundabout bullshiat problem that he was supposed to solve two weeks ago.
- Being a general asshole and 'reiterating' on his speech about 'professional courtesy'. As I've said before, I'll show him professional courtesy when he stops treating me like a 4 year old.
- Insulted me in a horrible fashion today. His kid is roughly my age and extremely irresponsible. He can't hold down a job for more than 3 months, he can't pay his bills, his car has been reposessed twice, he knocked his girlfriend up when they can't even keep their home phone running for two consecutive months, and for some reason, Cris compares me to this retard. Said "it's like being around him all the time still, even though I threw him out of the house years ago."

If anybody knows of any job openings where they work, and I mean ANY job openings, let me know who to send my resume/apply to and I will do it as soon as possible! (email me at joshua dot K dot wooley at lmco dot com) I assume you're all smart enough to figure that one out. :-)

On to different stuff. I've been a pretty big Rugby fan since I first caught a game on Fox Sports World about a year and some ago. That channel is the one channel on TV that I actually miss. Rugby is a great game, and it's fun to watch. At least, it is to me. I'm not a big sport fan. Rugby and Australian Rules Football are the only sports I can actually stand to watch. American sports are boring as hell, soccer is better, but only if you can catch matches from England or Spain. I was horrified to find the New Zealand All Blacks (their national team) lost to England in their test match last week. The All Blacks have essentially dominated international Rugby since they came on the scene in 1905. Nearly 100 years of being at or very near the top of the list. The ref was apparently easily amused, and blew his whistle about once every two minutes to call a variety of crap penalties. Anyways, the point I'm getting at here, is before every game the All Blacks play, they do this really cool Maori (the native culture of New Zealand) war dance called the Haka. It's not the most impressive looking thing in the world, but it'd scare the hell out of me with 15 HEEEEEEEEEEUGE Rugby players doing this. Keep in mind, that I'm about 6'2" by about 165 lbs. I'm short for an average Rugby player, with many of them standing well over 2 meters (6'6") tall. 165 lbs? Ha. Most of these guys have 165 lbs in their legs. If I were to put another 100 odd lbs of solid muscle on, and be able to run 10 miles in an hour, intermixed with long periods of sprinting, then MAYBE, MAYBE I could be a crap Rugby player. Want to see what I'm talking about? Go to this page, and download one of the zip files. It's down towards the bottom of this page. I reccomend the Addidas 60 second commercial. That's a good one. You'll need Apple Quicktime Movie Player to watch it though, but that's not a hassle.

NZ All Blacks.net Downloads

I went back to RPI...er...Sirna yesterday while I had some time (...see above) and met with some of my old friends. Most of the people I knew are gone, but some familiar faces are still there. Damn but that was a fun place to work. Even though I emailed them my resume, it's extremely unlikely they'll call me anytime soon. NOBODY in that company is hiring people right now. NOBODY. Although, I'm still tempted to walk up to Howard (the CEO) and throw myself at his mercy and beg for any sort of job, even an internship where I make $5/hour. But, that would make me look extraordinarily foolish, so that's not really an option. Got to chat with Denise for a couple of minutes too. Damn I miss her. (No Julia, I don't like her! REALLY!) She's got such a positive outlook on life, and it's EXTREMELY INFECTIOUS too, so even though I only got to chat with her for a few minutes, I felt a lot better. Had I not been able to talk to her yesterday, I probably would've told my boss to go jam some large object up his arse today. Until today, I hadn't seen her in nearly 6 months. Way too long. I wish I could meet her for lunch once in a while, but I can't. She's such a good person, always there for people, always willing to listen and help. Helped me a lot when I was working there. She convinced me to go back to kung fu last summer, even though I only ended up going for a couple of months cos I got laid off. She also led a MAJOR 'petition' (as it were) to get me re-hired on there within a week of me getting let go. She collected a sheet that had 110 signatures on it, out of 130 people in the company. Unfortunately, my boss was not one of those who wanted me to come back. When the second round of layoffs happend a couple months later, and he and Ron-the-retard (the ass who got me fired in the first place by feeding our boss a line of shiat that I wasn't doing jack-all during the day) got laid off, Denise redid her petition and got 82 out of 103 people to sign it. She took it off to Marvin, who was my boss' boss. He said "who the hell is this? I don't know him. I'm not going to hire him back either. We'll manage." She still keeps trying once a while though. Brought tears to me eyes to see that many people cared about me, and wanted me to come back. :sniffle: Alas, the company is now down to 65 people, and it seems a majority of those who wanted me to come back have left.

Ok, back to Diablo 2. Time to pound things into the ground. Sad as it is, that's about my only way to deal with the stress from work anymore...

rant time

2003-06-13T04:38:34Z

Yep. Today sucked a lot of ass.

Julia's friends/sister came over last night. As usual, they ignored my two requirements for having people over. 1) they be quiet. Keeping me up for an hour yelling and screaming, and waking me up twice is not being quiet, and that certainly didn't help today any. 2) they don't make a mess. I got home for lunch, and the house was a bloody disaster. Dirty dishes everywhere, food left out, pop cans and trash all over the floor. They spent a couple of minutes moving the mess into the kitchen, and cutting my lunch break short to take out the trash, but the computer room is still a wreck, and I'm sure the living room is too. I haven't been out there in a while.
Got shafted really good at work a couple of times, so my ass is a bit chapped from that whole mess. The first time, the boss is pissed off from yesterday cos I took a 40 minute lunch and failed to tell him I would be gone an extra 10 minutes. So, he sends me this rather nasty email entited "things you need to do to remain employeed" saying that I need to report to him when I get there, and I need to tell him when I go home, and I need to tell him when I'm going to lunch, and I need to ask him if I want to take a long lunch, and I need to ask him when I go across the street to deliver the packages, and I need to tell him when I want to go take a leak, etc, etc, etc. There are other guys in the stockroom, and until today it wasn't really an issue that I just tell one of them that I would be gone for a bit to deliver the mail or whatnot, but now that's not good enough. If I want to spend 30 seconds draining the snake, then I have to spend 10 minutes walking around the building trying to find him so I can tell him what's going on. Really irritating as hell. He also sends me another email saying he's been getting complaints about my "professional attitude, or lack there of". He says I need to be curteous and polite to everyone all the time no matter what. He refuses to tell me who has complaining to him, so I can't apologize the people I've offended. I have a good idea who he's talking about though, and I figure they are
- him My wit has been getting a tad quicker, and I'm picking up on this whole give-everyone-shit attitude that floats around there. Looks like he's getting pissy from being on the other end for once. He can blow it out his ass, as I'll be curteous and polite to him when he stops refering to me as a "piece of shit" (I kid you not. At least once a week... "Josh, you piece of shit, what's going on?") ASSHOLE! Oh, he's a racist too.
- Chuck, one of the other stockroom guys who constantly makes fun of me and gives me shit. At least I know he's joking about it. Another racist.
- Frank, one of those old bastards who's been working in the same company doing the same job for the last 50 zillion years. He's a prime suspect since he's constantly asking me if I have any packages for him, sometimes he'll ask 4 or 5 times in the course of an hour. NEVER being content with my answer, he always procedes to rifle through the packages I have around my desk that I'm working on in hopes of proving me wrong. I've recently started greeting him with "no frank, I don't have any packages for you." and it looks like he's getting pissy about it. Frankly, he can stuff his head right back up his fat ass for all I care. Fucking racist bastard...
- Dave, Cris' boss (Cris = him), for a variety of reasons I'm sure. This man has no sense of humor. I've never heard him laugh, and the only time he ever smiles is when he's about to bitch at me for something. Yet another racist.
- Ron, my manager, due to my general lack of enthusiasm. He also has no sense of humor. He also has no sense of smell. I refer to him as "zombie boss" as he smells like he's been decomposing for quite a while. His hygiene skills definetly leave somthing to be desired. He likes to try and shake my hand all the time, but I'm very reluctant to as I don't want to get shit all over me. Guess what? He's a racist too! (for the record, everyone I work with is a racist.)
- Jody, the bitch who stole half my cube a month and some ago. She overheard me talking to someone about how she doesn't do anything except talk on the phone all day, so she went and bitched to everyone about what an asshole I am. Not sure if she's a racist, but I wouldn't be surprised.
That was all shaft #1.
About a month ago, some part came in that was super-uber-extra-rediculously hot and this woman requested I give it to her straight away when it came in, and they'd catch the paperwork up after. I stupidly believed her, and gave her the part. She tells Jody (see above) to enter the PO into the system so it can be recieved and everything will be fine. Jody does nothing with it for more than 3 weeks, then tries to blame everyone else for it, hence the conversation mentioned above. Because I said it was ok, guess who's ass got chewed for it? Mine! Nobody apologized or anything for it. This is the second time in a month I've gotten fucked for trusting people. I'd love to say "that's it, i'm not trusting anyone ever again," but I can't do that. It's in my nature to help people and try to make their lives easier, which is probably why I've been screwed twice. I'm sure it won't be the last time either.
Hooray for shaft #2!
That's about it for shitty work stuff, except that I got confused for a sounding board by both the woman who gave me the shaft with those parts, and Jody for quite a while. Really pissed me off, but there's nothing I can do about it.

Here's the worst thing that happened today, and actually that's happened in a *LONG* time. Back in school, I was a math god. I was doing high school algebra in 3rd grade. I could look at any equation and solve it in my head in a matter of seconds. I always impressed my math teachers (except the last one I had who threw me out of her class because I got every question right on a test that "required" a graphing calculator, and proceded to do it again right in front of her when she told me she thought I cheated on the test.), and was well liked by them.
As you may know, I'm trying to go back to school in the fall, and if I can get some financial aid for cost of living, I'd like to go full time, but that's not real likely, and even if it were, taking out $25k/year in loans isn't going to work. I'll still have to get financial aid to go part time though, as 3 classes is about $650 + fees + books.
Back on topic... I had to go take the assessment test to figure out what classes I need to enroll in. It's some goofy computerized test. It starts with reading comprehention (which I kick the crap out of and don't have to take a class for that), then goes to sentance structure (which i breeze through, and get to start in eng comp I instead of having to go through 2 other classes), then it goes to the math part... The first few questions are fine, and I blow right through them. Then all of the sudden, I couldn't recognize a thing, more or less remember how to solve it. It just kicked my ass. That was stuff I was doing in my head in junior high when most HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS needed calculators to do it! And I couldn't remember ANY of it. Saw a real simple fraction equation, and it was like trying to read a foreign language. It completely blew me away. I feel like crap. It's extremely depressing to completely lose the one thing you could do better than anyone else you knew. I figured I'd blast through the math section, and everything would be fine. I could start taking required courses for the associate of science degree straight away, instead of getting a score so low that I have to go back and take PRE-ALGEBRA! Thats 3 full classes below the requirement to actually take most of the stuff on the degree. Can't take any chemistry (which is what I'm going to school for), physics, geology, biology, or any of the other required math classes without first taking a full year and a half of pre-requisite classes. And I'm thinking it's going to be less and less likely that I'll get cost-of-living aid, as that is a hefty chunk of change. I'm almost tempted to say "fuck it" and throw my hands in the air and walk away from it, but I know that won't do any good. I've got to get back to school so I can get away from the hellhole that is Lockheed Martin. NEVER, EVER, *EVER* WORK FOR LOCKHEED MARTIN! **EVER** It'll be the worst job you ever have.

I'd better get some sleep so I can go back and deal with the assholes at work for another day.
I feel like shit...

Word yo.

2003-04-30T23:47:26Z

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Extreme
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Test

That is one HEFTY chunk of html. Egads. A fancy little test though. :-)

Yup

2003-03-27T05:33:00Z

Mm-hmm.

Does anybody know where to find a good a good remix of Kung Fu Fighting? I've been searching since I heard a brief clip of one on the Shaolin Soccer trailer, but all I can find is some guy trying to turn it into a song about dancing (WTF?) and some goofy remix that's just...odd. Sort of a techno thing, I guess, but it's still not very good. All I want is the original Kung Fu Fighting, a bit faster with a fancy drum/bass line in the background. Kinda like the Inspector Gadget remix. Damn that's cool... It's great in a car with a good stereo system. It's one of those things you can't help but headbang to. Especially if you were a child of the 80's and grew up watching that show all the time. Go-go-Gadget-copter! :-D

I'm sort of bored today. I wish I could get back into Kung Fu. I REALLY do. But I can't afford it. Not since the car died. This time for good, it seems.

Oh well. It's late, and I should go to bed. Except that I won't, cos I want to play more Master of Orion 3. Damn fun game that, even with all it's problems. I'll have an even harder time prying myself away from it once the patch comes out and fixes some of the major bugs.

Oh. And if you read this, please post a comment. I'm awfully curious to know who does read this, especially as rarely as I update it. :-)

Oh. I just thought of somethine else.

2003-03-12T05:09:24Z

We're paying our government officials FAR too much money if they have to waste taxpayer money coming up with names like "Freedom Fries" and "Freedom Toast" instead of french fries and french toast... Yeah. Way to show those French! They're sure to join the pointless war now! We sure showed them, right Dubya! While we're getting rid of anything thing French, let's not forget to pack up and return the STATUE OF LIBERTY. After all, it was a gift from the French!

Source:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=512&ncid=1278&e=4&u=/ap/20030311/ap_on_go_co/freedom_fries

Enjoy the stupidity!

Damn. And here I was in a good mood. This manage to turn itself into a particularly nasty (and LONG) flamewar on one of my favourite web sites, www.fark.com. Check it out if you're interested, but don't say I didn't warn you. Idiots abound in the Fark forums...
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=465400

That site is definetly worth checking out. Sometimes stupid, sometimes strange, but always funny.

What a peculiar day.

2003-03-12T05:00:25Z

Yup. Actually, it wasn't too bad. S Its been busy as hell at work lately, so the slowness today was good for a change. I know, I bitch when it's slow. I bitch when it's busy. I bitch all the time. I should probably stop that. I'll add it to my list of things to do.

Excuse me for a second while I go slap the damned cat. She's in heat. For the 8th straight day. For a cat who weighs less than 3 lbs, and who's meowing can normally barely be heard, she's fuggin LOUD when she's in heat. She's woken me up twice this week. Every time you close a door or turn a light off, she starts wandering around going PRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOWW PRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROW, REALLY FUGGIN LOUD. If it wasn't so damned irritating to listen to, watching her present to everything from the rat, to the coffee table, to guests (she does it to Kylie constantly for some reason), to anything else other than Neko might be funny. Stupid damned cat... >:-|
...
Right. That's better. No, I didn't actually slap the cat. I just snuck up on her and scared the hell out of her and she went and hid under the couch. She's quiet when she's under there.

Not much been going on lately. I watched American Pie again last week. One of the funniest films I've seen in a long time. I think only the second one was funnier. I need to remember to rent that one and watch it. Not get all reminiscent next time too. :-) I started exercising again last week too. Doing some circuit training in the mornings. It works good, and it only takes about 20 minutes. Nothing quite like starting a new exercise program to realise just how out of shape you are. :-) Going to start going to the gym three times a week as well, to do more cardiovascular training. Weight training isn't really necessary at this point. I plan to go back to kung fu here before too long. As soon as we get everyone paid off, which HOPEFULLY will be before summer! :-/ (Sorry Lisa! I know we owe you heaps of cash! We'll pay you as soon as we can!)

I realized something the other day too. This year is the 30th anniversary of Bruce Lee's death. I wish I had money to go to Seattle and visit his tombstone. One of those things I want to do before too long. He's a personal hero of mine. Reading his books and such, I've learned a lot.

Anyways, back to today. This really silly thing happened, though I'll probably be the only one who thinks so. I've got some weird sense of humor where I find certain things far funnier than I should. )If you've seen Operation Condor with Jackie Chan in it, you'll remember the fight scene in the wind tunnel. Funny as hell. Every time I watch that, I fall off the couch with laughter. Julia says it's worth watching just to see me roll around on the floor like that.) I guess I'm just dumb. :-) Towards the end of the day, Cris, the guy who was until recently known as the "jackass stockroom bloke," and I get to chatting about random stuff. A few weeks ago, he went in for surgery to get some lump removed from the side of his neck. He had some complications and had to have an emergency tracheotomy to keep him alive. Being a heavy smoker, this didn't work too well, so now that he's back, he's working on quitting. He started using those Nicotine patches not long ago. Apparently, one of the side effects of these things is "vivid dreams." Like me, he never remembers his dreams. Until he started using these patches. Now, he keeps waking up from these weird haluciations and shit he's having at night. So, getting tired of it, he decides to crawl his way into work a bit early today. He gets there, and all is well, until around 4pm. Apparently, he went to take a wiz, and was having some trouble with his shorts. Turns out that he, a man of 40+ years, put them on backwards when getting ready this morning. This might be one of those situations where you have to know the guy for this to be funny... He's a big burly guy. One of those guys who doesn't take shit from anyone. Who NEVER admits that he's wrong under any circumstances. To hear him talk about how he had to "drop trou" to take a wiz becuase he didn't possess the common sense to check for direction when applying clothing is just hilarious. The fact that he didn't notice this until at least 10 HOURS after he got dressed is icing on the cake. :-D I will remember not to let him live this one down for quite a while.

I dunno. I guess I'm just stupid. Back to Master of Orion 3! :-D yay!

I'm bored today

2003-03-06T02:41:49Z

Well, actually I have to go pick Julia up from work soon, and I don't have time to get into Master of Orion 3. Damn that's a fun game, but it eats time like nothing else.

ANGER
1. Who did you last get angry with? My boss. He's an asshat. A stupid one at that.
2. What is your weapon of choice? I'd have to go with the ol' staff. Non directional weapons are great (meaning there's no single pointy spot. I can hit you with any point of it and it'll still hurt like hell. :-)
3. Would you hit a member of the opposite sex? Not unless it was absolutely neccesary.
4. How about of the same sex? Not unless it was absolutely neccesary. Violence only causes more violence, and solves nothing.
5. Who was the last person who got really angry at you? Good question. The boss probably. :-)
6. What is your pet peeve? People who can't think for themselves.
7 . Do you keep grudges, or can you let them go easily? I'm famous for my grudge holding abilities. :-D

SLOTH
1. What is one thing you're supposed to do daily that you haven't done in a long time? Uh... Water the bamboo?
2. What is the latest you've ever woken up? Uh? Not a clue. Lately, around 10 am.
3. Name a person you've been meaning to contact, but haven't: Denise. A good friend from RPI.
4. What is the last lame excuse you made? I'll do it tomorrow. :-)
5. Have you ever watched an infomercial all the way through (one of the long ones...)? Nope. Not once.
6. When was the last time you got a good workout in? This morning.
7. How many times did you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock today? Just once actually

GLUTTONY
1. What is your overpriced yuppie beverage of choice? Jamba Juice. Yum.
2. Meat eaters: No problems there. Humans are omnivores. I eat meat, and I like it.
3. What is the greatest amount of alcohol you've had in one sitting/outing/event? I got drunk ONCE when I was 18. NEVER doing that again. Since then, 1 beer and 1 glass o' wine.
4. Have you ever used a professional diet company? Nope.
5. Do you have an issue with your weight? Stupid as it sounds, yes. :-/ I'm up to 180 lbs, and that's the heaviest I've ever been.
6. Do you prefer sweets, salty foods, or spicy foods? Spicy foods all the way. I never have liked sweets or salt much. With the exception of Honey Roasted Peanuts. Yum.
7. Have you ever looked at a small housepet or child and thought, "LUNCH"? EGADS NO. "stupid retarded xxx" maybe, but never lunch/dinner or any other food related thought.

LUST
1. How many people have you seen naked (not counting movies/family)? 2! Aren't I special?
2. How many people have seen YOU naked (not counting physicians/family)? Er... 2?
3. Have you ever caught yourself staring at the chest/crotch of a member of your gender of choice during a normal conversation? Constantly. :-/ I'm getting better! Honest!
4. Have you "done it"? Being married and all, I should hope so.
5. What is your favorite body part on a person of your gender of choice? What can I say. I like boobies! :-)
6. Have you ever been propositioned by a prostitute? Not to my knowledge
7. Have you ever had to get tested for an STD or pregnancy? No. Pregnancy would be a bit...odd, as I don't posess the neccesary parts to get pregnant.

GREED
1. How many credit cards do you own? Not a one.
2. What's your guilty pleasure store? Valhalla's Game Center. Yay Warhammer!
3. If you had $1 million, what would you do with it? Buy a small house, and a new car that gets good gas milage, keep about $200k in the bank, and spread the rest to friends/family/charity.
4. Would you rather be rich, or famous? Rich, though I wouldn't be for long. See above. :-)
5. Would you accept a boring job if it meant you would make megabucks? Not if there was something better available.
6. Have you ever stolen anything? Nope.
7. How many MP3s are on your hard drive? None! There isn't a damn thing on my hard drive, becuase it's a PIECE OF SHIAT! >:-|

PRIDE
1. What's one thing have you done that you're most proud of? Getting off my ass and getting into Kung Fu.
2. What's one thing have you done that your parents are most proud of? Learned to think for myself.
3. What's thing would you like to accomplish in your life? Kung Fu master!
4. Do you get annoyed by coming in second place? As long as everyone involved has fun, I couldn't care less what place I end up in.
5. Have you ever entered a contest of skill, knowing you were of much higher skill than all the other competitors? Probably, but my focus when entering costests is always to have fun, not win.
6. Have you ever cheated on something to get a higher score? Nope.
7. What did you do today that you're proud of? I got up and exercised first thing even though I only got about 5 hours of sleep.

ENVY
1. What item (or person) of your friends would you most want to have for your own? Nothing. I'm happy with what I have. :-)
2. Who would you want to go on "Trading Spaces" with? Eneasz probably. We'd probably spend so much time farking off we'd never get anything done though. We'd be saying things like "I don't think this color looks good. it reminds me too much of xxx's crappily painted warhammer army." :-D
3. If you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be? I like who I am, thank you. :-)
4. Have you ever been cheated on? Not that I know of...
5. Have you ever wished you had a physical feature different from your own? Not really.
6. What inborn trait do you see in others that you wish you had for yourself? Willpower. :-) I have a lot, but not enough.
7. Do you wish you'd come up with this survey? Not at all.
8. Finally, what is your favorite deadly sin? I dunno. What a silly question.

Seven Heavenly Virtues

FAITH
1. What religion do you follow? Athiest
2. What religion were you raised as? Athiest
3. Do you believe that forgiveness is a religious property, or a human property? Human, of course.
4. Do you believe in magic? Not as such, no.
5. What was the last promise you broke? I'm sure I told Julia I'd do something, but haven't done it yet....
6. Have you ever said the words to a prayer and not meant it? Nope. Never prayed once.
7. Do you believe that anyone could be perfect? Not for long. The lack of inperfection would destroy them shortly. One extreme can not exist without the other to balance it.

HOPE
1. Did you get everything you wanted over the last holiday season? Yup. I got to be with my family and my friends. :-)
2. Regarding your future, what is the best thing you could hope for? To be happy and healthy.
3. Do you let yourself get your hopes up for something even if you know that there is a large chance of failure? Not as much as I used to, but still sometimes. I'm working on it.
5. Have you ever bought a lottery ticket? If so, how close did you come to winning? I used to buy scratch tickets with the loose one's I got when I cashed my paycheck. I won $40 once. :-)
6. Do you gamble? If so, what game or activity? Only with the occasional lotto ticket!
7. Have you ever had something called off on account of bad weather, but then gone ahead and done it anyway? Not within memory, but I never have liked organized sport.

CHARITY
1. What causes do you support? Not enough.
2. What causes have you given money or time to? I've given blood twice now. :-) Working on the 100 club (Only 20 more years to go!)
3. Have you ever worked in a soup kitchen or done another kind of outreach for the homeless? No, but I should.
4. Would you ever consider joining the Peace Corps, Amnesty International, or another travel-inherent worldwide charity group? I would consider it, but weather or not I would do it is the question. Depending on where I went, I might not ever want to return. :-)
5. Do you give money to the homeless on the street? If I have spare cash, yeah.
6. Have you ever helped out a friend with basic needs, like rent or food? No, but nobody has ever asked. If they needed it, I'd do it.
7. What's the greatest extent you've gone to help a friend in need? Friends in need don't tend to ask me for things, or generally let on that they need help. Either that, or I'm oblivious to it all. :-)

FORTITUDE
1. What are you most afraid of? Losing the ability to think formyself.
2. What did you do today that was really brave? I crossed the street. :-) It's a marked crosswalk in the middle of the road, and people usually don't stop for it.
3. Who is your favorite superhero, and why? Bruce Lee! Oh wait, he wasn't a proper superhero... But he's still my hero. :-)
4. Would you put your life in danger to rescue someone? Almost everyone says yes, but it comes down to it, very few do. I honestly don't know.
5. If you were to face the Wizard, would you want more courage, more brains, or more heart? Heart. Learning compassion is far more difficult than learning something from a book.
6. Have you ever gotten stage fright? Not really.
7. Do you consider yourself to be a leader or a follower? A leader when I have to be, otherwise a follower.

JUSTICE
1. Have you ever been summoned for jury duty? Nope.
2. If they reinstituted the draft (for both genders), would you go, or would find some way out of it? I would find a way out. Forcing the general populace to fight wars is among the stupidest things I've ever heard of. Especially in a country as militaristic as the United States.
3. Do you support capital punishment (the death penalty)? Absoutely not. It has no effect on crime. It makes a hypocrit out of the entire justice system. "You killed someone, so we're going to kill you to prove to other people that killing is wrong."
4. Which should be guaranteed legal: The entire bill of rights. Made legal that's not? Drugs. If they were regulated and controlled like alcohol, not only would it reduce crime, but the government would probably make a fortune.
5. Do you believe that Dubya is rightfully President of the USA? No. Had he not done such a FANTASTIC job of completely DESTROYING the economy while pressing one war after another, I probably wouldn't care so much who had won the election.
6. What was your favorite media circus trial? Never bought into those.
7. Have you ever written a letter to a politician? Yes indeedy.

TEMPERANCE
1. What do you have the hardest time moderating yourself on? Warhammer
2. Do you collect anything? Warhammer stuff.
3. Are you addicted to anything? Warhammer stuff, and kung fu.
4. Have you ever put anything on layaway or used an installment plan? Nope
5. What's your preferred method of paying for things? Cash if I've got it. Otherwise, the trusty bank card comes into play.
6. Tell us one thing you wish you hadn't let yourself do: Let my friendship with John get wasted because of Kitty.
7. Do you feel that you obsess over things? Occasionally.

PRUDENCE
1. Who is the wisest person you know? My father.
2. Have you ever participated in a vigil? Nope.
3. Do you take advice when it's given? I'll always listen, but I won't always put it into effect.
4. What area are you wisest in? I don't really consider myself wise at all. I'm too young to have much in the way of wisdom.
5. Do you drive defensively? Depends on what you mean by "defensively". Do you mean proper defensively where you try to avoid getting in accidents and drive safe? Or the Lakewood definition of "defensive" where it's just another word for agressive?
6. Have you ever had unprotected sex outside of marriage? Yup.
7. What did you learn today? I learned that Bowl Noodle are surprisingly tasty for an instant ramen product. Yum. (Aah! It's spicy too!)
8. And of course, what is your favorite heavenly virtue? I dunno. Uh... Prudence I guess.

Ok, that took forever. Ah well.

What an odd day...

2003-02-13T04:33:24Z

Seems like everyone I talked to spilled something. I got to work and almost immediately fumbled my container o' green tea. Eneasz commented that he spilled a cup of coffee all over himself, being the genius that he is. :-) A guy I work with manage to spill his coke all over the floor when he got back from Burger King. My boss dropped a pot of coffee on the floor.

I've been reading a biography of Bruce Lee lately. I just finished it up. Not a bad one, but I'll have to see if I can find others. Learned a few things too. His need for perfection coupled with the sucess he earned from films nearly drove him insane. However, even though I was born 8 1/2 years after he died, and never knew anything about him until I was about 18, I feel...humbled whenever I read about him, or see a picture of him, or watch one of his movies. I can't explain it. There are several things he has said that have stuck with me from the moment I heard them.

"Don't think. Feel. It is like a finger pointing a way to the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all the heavenly glory."

"A man must constantly exceed his level."

"Be formless. Shapless. Like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. Put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. Put water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow, or it can crash. Be water my friend."

I guess I'm just a nutter. I'm working my willpower towards kung fu training. Once I get back into school, I plan to train at least 3 hours a day (including class time) 7 days a week, plus other exercises such as weight training and cardiovascular fitness training.

w3rd yo

2003-02-12T02:44:44Z

Behold! The return of my Livejournal! I haven't updated this thing in months. Forgot I had it for a while there. :-)

And of course, no return to LJ would be complete without pointless quiz results, so here you go.

Nunchakus

What weapon should you be?
brought to you by Quizilla

An update as to what's been happening in the world of Mikaru perhaps? Fair enough. Uh... I lost my job with RPI in August so the CEO and the rest of the upper management could keep their absurd bonuses. The CEO's bonus alone was more than TEN TIMES my annual salary, but that didn't stop him from laying me off. After a few months, I thought I might be able to get my old job back. I knew my old boss would never rehire me, becuase then he would be admitting he was wrong, and he's about as likely to do that as Dubya is to vote for the environment over his big bussiness buddies. Last week, I heard from a good friend there that RPI just laid off another heap of people. Including my old boss, and Ron the Retard who actually got me laid off in the first place, by telling the boss that all I did was fark off all day. Thus the chances of me getting rehired inreased by a large number, and I was happy. I learned yesterday by talking to this same friend, that another person who got laid off was the girl who took over my position, and she was only part time. So, that large number got multiplied by zero. RPI is soon to be no more, I'm sure. They've got less than half the number of people there now than when I started in September of 2001.

I had to stop going to Kung Fu as well because of this. Only in the last week have I gotten the interest to go back again. There's this new school around that I want to look at before I go back to the Chinese Shao-lin Center. I'll check it out and see what it's like.

Got a new job in Sept of 2002 working for Lockheed Martin. It's doing the same thing I was doing for RPI, only more paperwork. Lots more paperwork. This job would only take an hour or two a day if it wasn't for the reams of paperwork I have to fill out. Even still it only takes 3-4 hours. I think I need to find a job that actually requires eight full hours of work a day. Something about the boss' attitude doesn't seem right lately. The last time I got that feeling was in August of 2002 (see RPI above...) I'd hate to lose my second job in 8 months because there isn't enough work for me to do. Really irritating when that happens. I'll keep plugging along though.

Not sure what else has happened that's productive. Oh! We moved! In November of 2002 we moved to Boulder. Those of you who are reading this already know that. :-) It's a great place. The same size as our last place, but it seems bigger. Instead of having a oddly large living room/dining room, it's a decent size, and the bedrooms are much larger. We've got our own washer/dryer too which really kicks ass. Central heat, a second bathroom, HEEUGE windows, a patio, new floor/walls/fixtures/countertops/etc too. They got redone last year and nobody has lived in this particular one yet. It rules! I love it!

I also got this monsterous wood desk from work last week. This thing is BIG. A good seven feet wide and about three feet deep. I can easily fit all my warhammer stuff in threre, plonk my computer on it (if it worked) and still have plenty of room to model/paint. It kicks ass. It's kind of scratched up and has some dings and such, but for what I paid for it (exactly $0) it's a hell of a deal. Even though it weighs fully double what I do (and I'm up to 180...) and took me two hours of disassembly and reassembly to get it in the house. Well worth it.

I suppose I should go cook dinner. Food = good

Blah

2002-08-24T06:48:35Z

So I lost my job the other day. A complete surprise too. We all knew the company was going to lay off roughly 1/3 of the people there, but nobody expected me to be on the list. Not one person I told thought I was serious when I told them about it. I didn't get laid off, as such. But, here's essentially what happened. The company was looking to cut costs. I busted my ass every morning to get my shit done as soon as possible, to help others out in my department. When Denise, the safety officer needed some help, she would call me up, and I'd do it. When Mark, the guy in the media kitchen who did some basic science and washed glassware asked for help, then I would go do it. Somehow, this got translated into i-work-in-the-mornings-so-i-can-sit-on-my-ass-and-do-nothing-all-afternoon. My guess is Ron is who went spreading that rumor to the boss. He asked me about it, and I admitted that I was almost always done before noon, but told him that I helped other people out. The other people confirmed what I was saying, and added that they were very appreciative of the help I was giving them, especially Denise. She's often behind, and even though I don't have a fancy degree, or know all the regulations on such, I can do the basic junk that clogs her workday, like typing stuff, filing papers, harassing other employees who are doing stupid things (like eating in the labs), and the like. Anyways, since the boss was convinced I didn't do shit, he calls me into his office during the fateful Tuesday, and makes me the following "offer":
The Boss: "Your position here is being affected by the restructuring, somewhat."
Me: "what do you mean by "somewhat."
The Boss: "Well, here's the story. We want to drop you to 4 hours a day."
Me: "WHAT?"
The Boss: "you've been telling us that you normally don't have a full day's work, so we decided to cut your hours."
Me: "So you want to drop me to 20 hours a week."
Boss: "yeah."
Me: "What about the benefits? I assume I won't be able to keep those?"
Boss: "probably not, no."
Me: "I didn't think so."
Boss: "We want you to continue coming in at 8:30, but leave by 12:30. Is that ok?"
Me: "Hell no that's not ok! That's BULLSHIT! You expect me to lose half my hours and all of my benefits and still want to come to work here?"
Boss: "well, actually. We were going to cut your hourly wage by 10% on top of that."
Me: "WHAT THE HELL?!? Are you SERIOUS?"
Boss: "this is a very difficult time, and we have to cut costs."
Me: "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"
Boss: "well wh..."
Me: "What about a severance package?"
Boss: "nope. if you don't take this offer, you're leaving of your own free will, and we're not obliged to provide you with a severance package."
Me: "WHAT THE FUCK? THAT IS BULLSHIT AND YOU KNOW IT!"
Boss: "well, I'll see what I can do."
Me: "You'd better get me something."
Boss: "I'll go talk to the HR droid right now."

At that point, I abruptly left the office. Everyone thought I got screwed. About 20 minutes later, I get called back into The Boss' office.

Boss: "I talked to the HR droid. We can get you the standard severance package everyone else is getting."
me: "which is...?"
Boss: "4 weeks + 1 week/year you worked here. When were you hired on?
me: "middle of January."
Boss: "so that would be 4 weeks."
Me: "then why is everyone else who's worked here for more than six months getting an additional week?"
Boss: "oh, I forgot about that... I meant 5 weeks."
Me: "Right. Give me the damn severance."
Boss: "that was an awfully hasty decision."
me: "there was no decision. What you said earlier was bullshit. There's no way in hell I'd make an hour long drive up here for $40/day with NO BENEFITS AT ALL."
boss: "well, at least you had the choice to..."
me: "bullshit. there was no choice. You made that offer knowing full well I wouldn't accept it. You were just hoping I wouldn't ask for a severance package."
Boss: "This was a hard choice to make here."
me: "Mm hmm. I'm sure it was."

So, i got a severance package. Which is good. I'm not upset about that. I'm upset about not having a job anymore though. I don't know what to do. I feel like crap. I've been pretty much depressed since Tuesday. Losing your job is stressful. After death of a loved one, and divorce, it's the 3rd biggest loss someone will go through in their lives. I'm trying to take a few days off to collect myself, but it doesn't seem to be doing any good. I'm just overwhelmed. Oh well. Writing isn't fixing anything. Which goes to show that one solution does not fix every problem. Just because writing about something works for you, doesn't mean it will work for everyone.

Blah. 12:45 am. Julia doesn't get off for another hour. I'm tired....

My turn

2002-08-08T05:11:14Z

A year ago, I:

1. Got married.
2. Was dreaming about kung fu constantly
3. Was spending most of my time and money on Warhammer
4. Had no job, therefore no money.
5. Was actually sort of happy, unlike most of you. :-D

Yesterday, I:

1. Took the day off work cos I felt crappy.
2. Slept in WAAAY too late.
3. Didn't get anything done.
4. Practiced kung fu until I pulled a muscle in my upper arm.
5. Sat around doing nothing.

Today, I:

1. Worked.
2. Saw one of the most loved employees at my company up and quit for "personal reasons"
3. Lost to Julia in a game of starcraft. .
4. Talked to Lisa for a while on AIM before her mother took over the computer.
5. Felt low for the second day running. Something that hasn't happened since Christmas...

Five things I would buy with $10,000:

1. A trip to China.
2. Tickets to China so my friends could come
3. Assorted Kung Fu weapons
4. A heap of Warhammer stuff.
5. A heavy bag and other workout related materials.

Top five locations I'd like to run away to (but not stay):

1. Hong Kong
2. Rural Japan
3. England
4. Rural China
5. Hawaii

Five things that make you laugh:

1. Julia.
2. Lisa
3. Doing stupid things.
4. Watching other people do stupid things.
5. The dumb cats.

Six things you hate:

1. People who can't think for themselves.
2. Extremists.
3. Lakewood.
4. Getting up at 6:30. I am not, NOT, *NOT* a morning person.
5. Corporate America
6. War
7. "W" Bush

Five things in your room:

1. A bed
2. Dirty clothes.
3. Books I've been looking for.
4. Books I should read.
5. Me (in a minute anyways)

Right now you:

1. Are about to get ready for bed.
2. Filling this thing out.
3. Wish I could spend my days living in the hills practicing kung fu.
4. turning WinAmp on so i can say what song I'm listening to.
5. Listening to Linkin Park

Five things you can do:

1. complex math in my head most people need calculators for.
2. A menial job with no potential for career growth for a company that might not exist in 2 years.
3. keep myself entertained at above mentioned job. barely.
4. 15 pushups in 12 seconds. :-D
5. Keep my chair warm.

:snort: I hate my job. It's really starting to suck. It's boring as shit. oh well. better get to bed so I can wake up and do it all again... I don't mean to sound egocentric, but i feel like i'm wasting my brain at this job. the most complex thing I have to do is stack a cart. At least i have a job. gotta be thankful for that. hopefully i'll have one in two weeks too... stupid company about to do mass layoffs... fuckers. I'll get into that another time.

Quiz time

2002-08-07T04:22:23Z

What's *Your* Sex Sign?

yeah! Hooray for sensuality! :-D

Take the Purrsonality Quiz!

Hmm. Fair enough.

Your magical style is Magus.

What type of Magic do you work?. Take the Magical Style Quiz by Paradox

interesting...

You are an angel.

What legend are you?. Take the Legendary Being Quiz by Paradox

Silly quizzes. For a minute there, I actually wondered how they could get it so accurate, then I remembered I'm the one answering the questions. :-D Boy do I feel dumb.

What Was Your PastLife?

Yup. Ok. That's enough for me. :-D
Dammit, there's ANOTHER fire truck coming here!? WTF is going on today? That's the 5th fire truck in the last 4 hours! We've had 6 cop cars out here, and 3 ambulances too. ...must be something stupid in the air. Either way, I want to get out of this complex ASAP

Time for a nice long rant about the retarded school system.

2002-08-06T02:14:45Z

So. I was driving home today, in the midst of a hoard of retarded drivers, listening to the radio. Generally, I listen to 850 KOA (yes, that's on the AM dial, and something I swore up and down I would never do...) for traffic and news updates on the way home. I'll usually switch it to a CD or KBPI after 15-20 minutes. Just when I'm about to switch it over, some woman calls up the station, and they resume discussion (I'm assuming this, as all I had heard up to that point was news/weather/traffic bulletins) on the school system, and why kids are doing poorly. Anyways, this woman says that kids aren't being challenged enough, and I nod in agreement. Then she whips out a slip of paper, presumably containing the list of "required supplies" for her second grader, and lists some of them off. Most of it's basic stuff. #2 pencils, pens, notebooks, paper, binders, A CALCULATOR, folders, erasers, etc. I almost lost it right there. A FUCKING CALCULATOR! FOR SECOND GRADERS! When I was in second grade, I was supposed to be learning things like 39 + 23 = ? or 43 - 28 = ? And now they need CALCULATORS for their kids!? When I first saw the word calculator on my list of required school supplies, I was a JUNIOR IN HIGH SCHOOL and it was required for ALGEBRA II/TRIGINOMETRY! NOT BASIC ADDITION! And people wonder why kids don't care about school anymore, and why grades and test scores are dropping. Kids aren't actually learning how to think, they're learning how to use things that do the thinking for them, such as calculators.

I read in a recent study that 80% of all students entering Kindergarten aren't prepared to learn, ie: they were chucked into pre-school when they were a baby, and they think its just another daycare center where they get to goof off and do nothing all day. That's EIGHTY PERCENT! 80/100 kids! Ridiculous! In that same study, it says 33% of THIRD GRADERS CAN'T READ! 9-10 year olds WHO CAN'T EVEN MAKE IT THROUGH "SEE SPOT RUN!" WTF?!? That's fucked up. Know three kids around third grade age? Chances are one of them can't even read the sign of the street they live on! This is even better. 60% of Fourth graders can't identify their state on a map. Give them a blank map of the US, and 6 out of every 10 will pick the WRONG STATE! How are these kids getting through school? I know! It's because teachers don't care! It's not that they're cruel, heartless people. It's not that they hate their job. They just don't make enough money to care anymore. Most new teachers make less money than the guy who EMPTIES THE FUGGIN TRASH CANS AT NIGHT! A co-worker of mine recently passed her education exam, and was able to enter a student-teaching program. She talked to a variety of teachers, some that had been there for years, and others that had recently started. And the overwhelming response she got was "unless you really, REALLY love teaching, it's not worth it." One of them said that he was offered a position teaching 4th graders in an elementary school in an upper middle class neighborhood, for the salary of $17,100! That's about $8.25 an hour!!! And it's not just the pay that sucks. You get shit from EVERYONE. Parents constantly berate you for a variety of reasons, ranging from their kid being picked last in the sport-of-the-day in gym class, to little Susie being called on once too often in class to answer a question, to little Johnny getting in trouble for picking his nose and wiping on another student, etc. Parents are incredibly protective of their little worm children, and anything resembling the thin end of the wedge, and they get up in arms immediately. I'm completely amazed that people still teach. Out of 12 years of school, I remember 3 teachers as being good. I remember a lot more of my teachers being rude, surly, and uncaring. Not so much by choice, but it's hard to be sweet, caring and helpful to a kid who at 10 years old can't read what you've written on the chalkboard, while at the same time, wondering how you're going to pay your bills, and worrying that someone's irate parent is going to burst through the door yelling, screaming and throwing anything nearby at you for something their kid did.

Be sure to keep in mind that the next time you use a phrase like "any third grader to do xyz task" they probably can't. That's the problem with a Xerox education system. Everyone is the same. Everyone learns the same. Everyone does everything the same way. Either that, or they fail. Take me for example. I'm the proverbial paper clip that got wedged in the copier. I screwed it all up, and in return, I got discarded for the norm. Confused? Let me explain. I've been shafted by the school system many, MANY times.

In first grade, my thought something might be up with me, when she noticed that 1/2 her students couldn't read, and those who could were reading things like "everybody poops" and "my first book" whereas I was reading things like "The tales of Huckleberry Finn", and "Sherlock Holmes' greatest mysteries, volume 1". So, she talks to the school counselor. Well, the county counselor, who was shuffled between 5 other elementary schools. After a brief interview, an IQ test was stuffed under my nose, which i promptly scored about 155 on, putting me in the Genius category, which begins at 142. She shows that to the teacher, who shows it to the principal, who says "that's great. go back to class." That's Shaft #1.
A couple years later, when i'm in third grade, and most students are struggling to learn things such as 3280 + 8313 = ?, i've stolen my brother's Algebra book, and am learning how to solve equations such as 4x+3y = 18y-6. So, my third grade teacher, who calls the county counselor over, and once again, an IQ test is shoved under my nose. I score a similar score, around 155. The counselor shows it to the teacher, who shows it to the principal, who palms it off on his secretary, who sends it back to the counselor. The counselor decides that she's going to put me into the gifted/talented program for next year! "yeah!" i'm thinking. Finally, a chance to learn at my own pace, to actually have sort of a challenge in school, and to be able to think! All right! So, 4th grade comes around, and I sit outside the room where the G&T program was supposed to meet. I got to school rather early to talk with other students and the teacher for a while. The door was locked, and the lights were off, so i assumed I was just early, so I plopped down and waited. ...and waited while the bell rang. ...and waited while students walked by, on their way to their classes. ...and waited as nobody else came to the door... and waited as teachers walked by... Finally, after what turned out to be THREE HOURS, one of the front desk secretaries asks me why I was sitting in the hall. I told her I was waiting for the G&T program. She tells me that it had been CUT FROM THE BUDGET FOR NEW HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL UNIFORMS!!! Then she looks up my name, finds my teacher, and tells me to go to class. I get to class, now 3 1/2 hours late, and tell the teacher what happened. His response is a stony glare, and he points to a desk WAAAY back in the corner of the classroom and growls "sit there." He never says another thing to me for the rest of the school year. Never answers any questions, calls on me with answers, or anything. So, I sat there and learned Geometry out of another one of my brother's textbooks, while checking out stacks of books in the library. That's Shaft #2.
In 5th grade, I discoverd something that helped me strugle through school once again. Music. Wanting to be like my older brother, I took up the trumpet (after first trying the Baritone and saxophone), and practiced hard. I got good at it. So much so, that towards the end of the school year, the 3rd party music teacher said he only remembered one other student from another district that was as good as I was. Oddly enough, that student turned out to be none other than my older brother. So, anyways, I practiced throughout my 6th grade year, and was really excited about music. The Junior High rep stops by, and answers some questions about various classes, and gives us the what-do-you-want-to-take sheets to fill out. I talked with the counselor, and discovered the elusive Gifted & Talented program was still going in middle school! Score! So, I fill out my sheet with various math classes, band classes, and of course, G&T. I'm thinking things might start improving. WRONG! 7th grade comes around, and I go to pick up my schedule. Not one class I had signed up for was on my schedule. When i asked why, I learned that the G&T Program had been cut AGAIN, THIS TIME FOR NEW SPORTS EQUIPMENT, SUCH AS BALLS, PADS, AND THE RESODDING OF ALL THE LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL FIELDS, and most of the band classes I had signed up for had also been cut for the same reason. Sports are important, after all... >:-( Shaft #3.
So, I suffer through my 7th grade year. Nothing cool happens. I'm feeling very bad with school, and become completely miserable. I get shuffled off to a therapist, which I'll go into more detail later on. I ditch my first day of school on a cool, cloudy tuesday in early october. I promptly get caught, when the school calls my dad to find out why I never showed up. Got in lots of trouble, and the school admin seemed to not care in the slightest about my previous IQ test scores, nor my complete lack of interest in anything school related. They couldn't understand WHY I was upset. NEVER EVEN CROSSED THEIR MINDS THAT I DIDN'T LIKE SPORT! So, just before I get to 8th grade, I find there's a drafting/shop class I can take, so I sign up for it, cos I like building things. That turns out to be the greatest time I've ever had in any school situation. I blew through the drafting part of that class in a mere 2 1/2 weeks, where it usually takes the average student 8 weeks. So, I pretty much had the entire shop to myself for 5 weeks. I built so many things during that time. Clocks, model rockets, a bunch of forged aluminum things, like anvils, keys, and other trinkets, shelfs, plastic footballs, learned to weld, CO2 cars, among other projects. I ran up an astronomical tab for materials in that class, but my parents were ecstatic, since for the first time in years, I found something I really liked about school! It was great. I actually enjoyed 1/2 my day of school, since I spent the two classes prior to that looking forward to it! Getting ready to go to high school. So, I sign up for every shop class I can get my hands on, and there were plenty of them, along with a heap of advanced math classes. It was really obvious, that I was aiming for some sort of engineering education, that it could've been seen by anyone. Guess what? 9th grade comes around, and they start remodeling the school, so no shop class that year. Bummer. No advanced math classes either. When i asked why, they discovered I had a "history of stealing math textbooks from older brother"! The ones I was reading in 3-6th grade! I knew all they were teaching, but I wanted it on paper. But, that wasn't going to happen. Apparently, they didn't appreciate some 13 year old punk signing up for CP Calculus, and I got stuffed into a normal algebra class, to be bored out of my mind. Shaft #4 + #5.
Back to that shop class thing. Sign-up sheet for 10th grade rolls around, and there's no mention of ANY of the classes I wanted to take! NONE of them! I asked agian? Guess what...? I'll give you two guesses as to what happend to the program. Yes, it did get cut from the budget, and YES IT DID GET CUT FROM THE BUDGET TO FUND NEW FOOTBALL UNIFORMS *AGAIN*!!! Twice in 5 years I got the shaft for NEW FUCKING FOOTBALL UNIFORMS!!!! Shaft #6.
So, by the time I get into 10th grade, I couldn't care less about school. I hate all my classes. My teachers are all fucktards who get pissed at me for knowing all the answers and such. I'm miserable as hell. I ditch class constantly. I never do any of my homework. When prompted by various school officials, my response is "why should I care? everytime I get excited about something, it gets cut from the budget for some football related thing." My HS counselor asked me what the big deal was. This woman had plaques and trophies, and all sorts of such from her more athletic days in high school and college. So, I explained it like this: You're a star athelete I see. You look like you're really good. Imagine being told that despite your obvious skill, instead of starting on the varsity team, you're shuffled down to the freshman team. The team with 3rd generation (ie: 6 year old) uniforms. And you get to practice 10 minutes a week, and the rest of the time, you get to sit on the bench. You can't practice, because you already know all the plays, and all the moves, and everything. "You don't need to practice. Just go sit down." you're told on a regular basis. After a whlie, you'd get really bored, and stop caring about being such a good athelete, right? That's exactly how I feel. Her response to this is: "so you want to play football...?" At that point, I left the office. I couldn't even find someone who understood what it was like. Shaft #7. So, despite my obvious intelligence, the school system screwed me so bad, and so frequently, that I just stopped caring. That's why I graduated a semester late, in the bottom 20% of my class. Not because I wasn't smart. Not because I had some sort of learning disability, but because I didn't care. There was no reason to care in my mind. This is probably why I'm reluctant to go back to college, even though I know it'll be different. I don't know. I just hate the school system, and yet there are people out there trying to take money AWAY from it, and put it to more "useful" things, such as WAR.

Ok. That's enough of that for a while. I feel better. Julia's right. Writing is good for you.

My turn for the weird survey thing

2002-07-28T06:21:32Z

I...
I AM: Mikaru
MY HAIR: Striped. It needs to be dyed again. :-D
I'M WEARING: Shorts.
I'M EATING: Nothing
I'M DRINKING: Water
I'M LISTENING TO: POD - Alive. Uplifting metal. Weird, but it does exist!
I'M FEELING: Content
I'M THINKING: Jamie = bitch
I'M GOING TO: Sparring class tomorrow!
I SEE: A tree swaying gently in the breeze, flexible yet strong.
I NEED: Nothing.
I FIND: Meditation = good. More people should do it.
I WANT: My black belt!
I HAVE: A good life.
I WISH: People would back away from organized religion and learn to think for themselves. Not just accept what's written in a book, because that book is supposed to be holy, or listen to what a man says, because the man is supposed to be holy.
I LOVE: Julia, My friends, kung fu.
I HATE: Kitty, Jamie, corporate America, and "dubbya"
I MISS: My parents. I haven't seen them in a while.
I FEAR: More people will hop on the non-thinking bandwagon and just do what they're told is right.
I SMELL: like laundry soap
I THINK: When necessary. Otherwise, it's just clutter.
I CRAVE: Nothing
I SEARCH: For inner peace. Kung fu = good. I can see why it works so well with Zen Buddhism.
I WONDER: Is Hello Kitty sad? She never smiles
I REGRET: Dating Jamie.

Its our anniversary!

2002-06-30T17:51:53Z

Yay! It's been a whole year. It's so hard to believe. I've never been as happy in my life as I have been in the last year. I just can't really imagine living my life as miserable as I was before. It's amazing what finding the right person will do for you. It's so great to have someone to come home to, and spend time with, and share all the things I wished I could share before. To have someone you can be completely honest with. To have someone you trust completely with anything. It's the best feeling in the world.

Julia -
I love you. I love you more than anything. More than I have ever loved anything, or ever will again. You've made me as happy as I could ever hope to be. Happy anniversary baby. I hope you've enjoyed our first year of being married as much as I have. I know in my heart that we'll be together for the rest of our lives, and it makes me so happy.
Josh

mikaru @ 2002-06-26T19:50:00

2002-06-27T01:48:33Z

I'm hungry... dammit. This sucks. Julia's friend Kylee was supposed to come down tonight. She was supposed to be here like 2 hours ago, but she forgot what day it was. So, for the last couple hours, she's been sitting around waiting for her grandfather to come home, so he can take her down here. She didn't want to take the bus for some reason. I think she said something about it taking forever to get here. Guess what? If she had left, then she already would've been here by now, and I'd be out getting food. But no. I can't really eat anything until I know what's going on. If her grandfather gets there, and they leave within a few minutes, then she'll be here in an hour and fifteen minutes or so. I really like having to wait 10 hours between meals. It sucks. Oh well...

Julia also just found out that the hotel for Nan Desu Kan was full, and got all upset. She blames the bank for not sending her an updated card, but they did send her a new one like a month and a half ago. It's really her own fault she didn't do anything about it. Now I have make her get on the ball, and reserve a room at a nearby hotel, before that one gets full. If it's not already.

Now she's on the phone gossiping with Jeff, her friend from PA. That's cool and all, since they haven't talked in a while, but this also means that she'll probably be on the phone for at least an hour. I dunno. I'm just grumpy because I'm hungry.

The hell with it. I'm going to go make some hot dogs. Then when, or if, Kylie does come over, which I don't think is terribly likely at this point, I won't be starving.

must...not...kill...cat...

2002-06-24T23:13:51Z

Note - Assume this entire message is in BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS because that's what I feel like writing, but I don't want an entire post of BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS. Perhaps I'll just use BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS whenever i use the words"BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS." :shrug: whatever...

What is wrong with this retarded cat? I swear, Neko is the STUPIDEST animal I have ever seen. Take our other cat, Yoguruto, and put her on a blanket, and roll it up, and she can find her way out. Take the rats, and do the same thing, and they can find their way out. Take my parents dog, Pup, and do the same thing, and guess what? He can find his way out! Neko? He just sits there. Eventually, he starts to cry. He'll sit there for hours until someone moves the blanket. You don't even have to roll it up. Just lay it on top of him, and he can't figure it out. Even a really thin sheet in a well lit room, and it's so far beyond his intellectual depth, he's in danger of getting eaten by sharks. Another test of his "intelligence"? How about a paper bag! Set the paper bag down on the floor, as if you were putting groceries in it. Nice big open space at the top. Put ANY animal you can find in there, and I guarantee it can find it's way out. Except for Neko. He has NO CLUE how to get out of the paper bag. Hows this? Put him in a room, with a door that opens inwards, and leave the door about an inch open. He can't figure it out. He'll just sit there and cry, or close the door. How about a room with a door that opens outwards? Still can't get out.

Anyways, back to the BOLD CAPITAL LETTERStopic. When we first got that bastard, everything was fine. Then one day, out of the blue, he started peeing on cloth left on the floor, but only if it was there for days at a time. Then he started peeing on our bed. So, we closed the bedroom door (which sucks, cos it makes our entire apartment hot and stale...) All was fine, assuming you didn't leave cloth on the floor for more than 10 minutes. Then it got to the point, where as soon as he saw cloth on the floor, he would run over, piss on it, and run away and hide. He does have enough intelligence to know that he's not supposed to piss on things, but is no where near smart enough to STOP DOING IT! Now, he's decided that corners are good places to pee. His favorite one is the corner RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR BEDROOM DOOR so whenever I wake up in the morning, I get a good strong whiff of cat piss. Nothing wakes you up faster than the strong odor of cat piss. Forget coffee. So, I've tried everything I can think of with that cat. Julia just ignores the entire problem, so she's not really any help. I tried ruffling him up, as if i were drying him off, but with no towel. That didn't work, and just got him terrified of me, which he is permanently now. Then, i tried spraying him with water. That didn't do anything except get him to hiss and growl at me. Then I tried putting him in the cat carrier every time he did it, and he would cry, and howl, and whine, and after like 2 minutes, Julia would make me let him out. Then he would go hide, hiss, etc. Surprisingly, he actually stopped for a couple weeks, or did it fairly soon after I left, so there would be no evidence. About a week ago, he started doing it again. It's really gotten out of hand. I can go to bed at 1, wake up at 6:45, and find not one, not two, not three, but SEVEN OR EIGHT puddles of piss on the floor! Three in one corner, three in another, and one or two scattered about in other corners. We've tried putting stuff there, he just pees next to/on the stuff. I haven't got the slightest idea what to do with this cat. Cat-away stuff doesn't do any good. He smells it, sneezes a few times, then squats right down. The litter box is plenty clean, getting scooped every day, and dumped/refilled at least every three days.

I just don't know what to do. It's frustrating as hell. Anybody got any ideas? Other than just dropping the cat off in the park and claim he ran away? (No, i don't actually plan on doing that. I asked a half-dozen people at work, and that was one of the unanimous responses I got.)

mikaru @ 2002-06-21T17:27:00

2002-06-21T23:25:31Z

So. Yeah. Nothing really useful happening, but I just feel like typing. Since nobody reads this, I can actually type whatever I want to. But, I won't. Because even though nobody ever LEAVES ANY BLOODY COMMENTS, i know people read this. So, I can't post whatever I want, or I'll piss someone off. That didn't make much sense. Kung fu is going well. I haven't learned a whole lot of new stuff. Yesterday was surprisingly tiring. I didn't feel that tired when I got home, but boy am I hurting today. My calves are so tight, I can barely go up the stairs. Only got a half-assed class again last night. That's the second Thursday in a row where the lower belt class has gotten cut short. I know the classes at the school always run late, but last night was completely ridiculous. It's supposed to be Practice hour from 5-6, Brown belt class from 6-7, then white/yellow/blue/green class from 7-9. Master Sharon was there last night. Practice hour ended up lasting until nearly 6:30, which isn't that big of a deal. Then she brought the lower belts in around 7:30, and crammed 2/3 of the school onto the back 1/3 of the floor, so all us lowbies were really uncomfortable. She was talking about assorted things, be it Kwan Tao's, Broadswords, Tonfas, then she started talking about how she and Master David used to have a paper route early in the mornings, and how they were learning at school, and she just kinda rambled for nearly an hour and fifteen minutes. I have nothing but respect for her, but it's sort of frustrating when you've been warming up and practicing for an hour, only to sit in a crowded school listening to stories about day old donuts and cobblestone walkways. By the time the lower belt class started, it was 8:40. 20 minutes before class was due to end. So, we got a really hard warm up, followed by about 30 minutes in smaller groups, and a quick five minute cool down. Our class was essentially cut in half. There were a few people who had to leave before class even started because Master Sharon talked so long. :shrug: Oh well. If we didn't like it, we wouldn't pay for it. ^_^ I bought a staff the other day too. It's fancy, and I haven't even hurt myself with it yet! ^_^; On the other hand, I haven't actually learned the blue belt staff form yet, so I've just been doing the yellow belt material with it. Which kinda sucks. I hope I can find some people to teach me the other blue belt material. I've been to three classes now, and in all three, we've gone over the same things. Lohan's, Chin Na, and Sparring Techniques. Same thing that happened to me in yellow belt. I spent more than a month in the class, because for three weeks, I couldn't get anybody to teach me anything other than... Lohan's, Chin Na, and Sparring Techniques. Blue belt stuff is a lot more complex than the yellow belt stuff was at least.

I dunno. I think I'll go play more Baldur's Gate II. That game kicks ass.

w00t!

2002-06-10T01:17:46Z

:: how jedi are you? ::

Baldur's Gate II = good

2002-06-10T01:06:16Z

Might as well start using this thing more often. I got it for a reason, after all. I think... :shrug: I dunno.

So, i've been playing lots of Baldur's Gate II recently. I bought it like a year and a half ago, played it for a few hours, then just stopped. Then I let Eneasz borrow it. And forgot about it for nearly 8 months. Then finally, I remembered it, and got it back. So, i stuck it in the drive, and played with it some more. It's damn cool. I was playing an Elf Sorcerer, which was cool, but at the same time, really annoying since I couldn't learn new spells... All was going fairly well, until I decided to do some "routine" hard drive cleaning. Having a demo in my games directory named BG2 and Baldur's Gate II in BG 2, I got confused and deleted the wrong damn directory. So, i lost my character, and had to start over. Something I haven't really minded. I've found a lot more of the sub-quests that I didn't earlier, and I'm doing much better as a Monk character. Damn cool. Ah well, I'd better get back to playing.