The Way Things Are Going, They're Gonna Crucify Me #

Ah... life sucks.¹ I thought that maybe it would get better, and it did, but then things just got worse. This October is a rollercoaster ride, and I don't think it'll be stopping any time soon. I just hope that I stay strapped in....

I don't know what else to say, except that I'm getting the feeling that everything personal of mine should be removed from the World Wide Web. That includes the various instant messaging and chatting protocols, as well. If I keep it all business, nothing can blow up in my face quite like it seems to.

And you know, frankly, I don't even wanna talk about it. But that's just me all over, isn't it.

Sigh.

Addendum, 2005-10-07: It may just be that High School sucks. But, then again, they're one in the same at this point, aren't they?

We All Live In A Yellow Submarine #

Woah! That was a quick month!

Yeah, so, I've pretty much been working. Mostly every day. Let's go through the highlights.

August 16th was the C.U.R.B. ride, which benefits those with physical disabilities in Long Beach by getting things wheelchair accessible. I think it stands for Citizens United to Remove Barriers. It's on the shirt from last year's ride, but I can never remember off the top of my head.

Work at LongBeachRadio.com is coming along, albeit extremely slowly. I've gotten a basic site up thanks to some ad hoc hosting. Keep in mind that I, or we, are still looking for just about anyone to help. Disc jockeys, podjockeys (New word? Maybe.), as well as behind-the-scenes people. In fact, I'd (or we'd) really appreciate it if someone could donate a location for us. I'd rather not have to do it out of my house. Also, I hope to have a bunch of subscriber-only features, such as video, that need people to create them. If you're interested in any of these, or you have more ideas, send your résumés to gordon@longbeachradio.com. (Keep in mind that you need not have a résumé to join our ranks. At least, not yet.) It would be preferable that you're from Long Beach, or, at the very least, from around the area. (Atlantic Beach, Lido Beach, Point Lookout, Island Park, and Oceanside are the limits when it comes to "around the area".) Oh, and if you think I should be saying curriculum vitæ, you're probably not right for the job. Donations of equipment (doesn't matter whether it's new or used, as long as it's working) are also accepted. As for advertisements, let's get the show up and running first. I don't want to make any promises that I can't follow through with.

Next on the agenda here: tomorrow's my last day at work. Reason being? School starts in a week from tomorrow. And I haven't really had much off time all summer. I'm not a robot, you know. Which leads to my class schedule. Due to some technical problems with the server that I usually host my personal stuff on, I haven't been able to upload it anywhere, yet, so you'll have to ask me if you want to know. (Incidentally, when the server comes back up, the file will probably be here.)

I saw this ad today in a magazine I was reading at work, and I just loved their concept. Not the concept of their product, but the concept of their ad. Combining speed and security. And, so, I unveil to you, my new mascot: What I find odd, though, is that the magazine came in the mail today, but the link leads in the ad leads to a 404 page. From IIS. Which is horrible in every way possible. Including both speed and security, AFAIK. But it's from SafeNet, which seems to be an encryption company or something. I don't know. This is the link, if you want to check it out. Maybe it'll eventually give them some revenue or something.

I think that's about it for now. I think I had another subject to touch upon earlier, but I can't recall it at the moment. One last tidbit, in case anyone's wondering, I have AP Chemisty first period. So, if that's the only part of my schedule you wanted (I don't know, it seems important), there you go. Until next time (at which point I will no doubt touch upon Van Dyke's sudden departure as chairperson of the Foreign Language, or, as Restivo says, the Languages Other Than English, department).

I'm So Tired #

I don't understand it. During the interim between blogs, I felt like I was missing an output medium. But now that I have a new blog, I never feel like writing anything in it....

Instead of going day by day in a perfect example of the personal description of my life that I promised I'd shy away from, I'm just going to cover the important things.

Let's see.... I think I left off waiting for my professor (heh) to respond to my e-mail. By now, she's answered me many a time and I'm nearing the end of Week 11 of 12 of the course, even though it's been less than 5 weeks since the start. I have, however, been stalled at that for a while because I have to draw a flow chart and I don't feel like it—it's not something I can breeze through.

Also, the CMSform^E Conference 2005 that I may or may not have mentioned seems to have been a bust; at least, the latter half was. We discussed a bit about the new layout and what would be needed before we can release 0.1.0 gold, but it didn't seem like it was enough. On the last day, we had some fun and used Skype to have a cross-continental aural conversation: me in New York, MHobbit in Indiana, AlleyKat in Denmark, and Rondom in Germany. (That reminds me... I still have to edit the recording... Ugh.)

I'm not sure where in the new job I left off, but I've been working for a few weeks now. Of course, "new" is not the best term, because it's the same job I had last year. Or, rather, it's the same office with the same boss. My actual job is a bit different...better. This time, I'm actually in charge of something, instead of sitting and answering phones all day. (Strangely, answering the phones there don't bother me much anymore....) So, yeah, all the e-mail going in and out of the City of Long Beach (as well as the inter-office instant messaging) is under my control. Well, that's a relative term. I'm in charge of the software operating it. And, I must say, Ipswitch is not the best at letting me do that. Actually, it is, but it's just not the best software for the job. Let's just leave it at: Ipswitch is not the best for anything. Period.

Also on the ever-growing agenda is Long Beach Radio and the site that is going to host it. I've been wanting to have a Long Beach radio station for a long time now, and I made a pathetic attempt in the past (WMAY ring a bell? Didn't think so.), though having it hosted on Homestead didn't help my efforts much. Recently, I've been getting into listening to Podcasts (blame Josh) and the idea for a Long Beach radio station was resurrected. Of course, there's little more than the idea for the existance of one. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what's going to be on it (the station and the website), and whether there should be video extras, as well. Maybe the video version of a sound clip heard in the broadcast. And how often would I put out an episode? I was juggling monthly, weekly, and daily, with weekly being the strongest and most logical contender. Would I be hosting it alone? And what about music? Do I really want to be all talk? Who listens to all-talk radio? Especially about a city that no one seems to like (don't ask me why). Any and all suggestions welcome. Oh, and résumés, too.

And that leads me to my final bit of news. I recently purchased a Panasonic PV-GS250 from Beach Camera. They had it ready for shipping a mere two hours after I ordered it (and this was after work, so it was in the early evening). No tax or shipping charges! They shipped it via FedEx and it arrived today, over a day earlier than expected. I am, however, still waiting on the 2 3-packs of MiniDVs I ordered from Circuit City. They wisely chose to ship via snail mail with the United States Postal Service, who are known to take their sweet time in delivering things that you're waiting for... though insignificant things usually get there within a day or two. So I have my wonderful, lightweight, shiny camera that has all these nice features and came with a neckstrap, remote control, and external microphone, among others, and I can connect it to my TV, but... I can't actually record anything. So, yeah, it's currently a useless shiny object. That cost me $789. And that better change soon, or else I mightjust have to blog again.

Now to just throw in a personal note, family is coming in from Florida and Colorado the next couple of days, so there shall be an interesting week ahead.

Happy... um... Internet browsing?

Sugar plum fairy, sugar plum fairy #

The package finally came to day, just as it was scheduled to. What package, you ask? Why, the introductory materials for my course at Stanford, of course. What course at Standford, you ask? Why, the online course for an Introduction to C Programming, of course. Technically, my term doesn't start until July 1st, but why delay when I can have this all banged out in a couple of days? I mean, by now, I'm well into Week 5 of the course. I've been submitting the source code assignments to my instructor (Shilpa Thakkar) and I just heard back from her. All of the code I had submitted got a response of "good work!", except the first one, which got "good wrok!" and another which got "well done!". I'm not kidding. Those were the exact spellings and capitalizations. And after all that, I then proceeded to get an e-mail from her saying that I was not on her class list (or whatever she called it) and asking me when my term started. Now, in and of itself, that's a very legitimate question. But wouldn't you haved looked and asked it before checking and replying to all the other e-mails? (Of course, I should probably stop complaining, before she banishes me to the land of people who start online courses early and forbids me to continue....)

But that's just the first part of this post. The other part of this post has to do with the fact that I shall be starting work once again this Thursday. Working in the same office that I did last year. Now, for those of you who are unaware, I quit that job. But, my dad has reassured me that I will not be sitting there answering phones all day, which, as you should know, is one of my nightmare jobs. I hate talking on phones. Apparently, Jamie has plenty of back-burner jobs lined up for me. Which, I hope, is a good thing. Let's just hope it has nothing to do with printing and folding any mailings. Because that is really, really, really boring.

And that about sums it up for now. I'm waiting on a response from Ms. Thakkar regarding my starting early (and getting over one-third through the course). Have a good night.

The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off #

I recently finished watching this documentary (which apparently won the International Emmy Award for Best Documentary in 2004) on TLC about Jonny Kennedy, a 36-year-old man who suffered from Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa. The documentary was very moving, and the poor guy had a wonderful sense of humor through all of it. He'd had the genetic disorder all his life and it seems he decided to document his preparation for death after he was finally diagnosed with skin cancer and given a year to live. He shopped for his coffin, had it custom-designed, and asked various people to speak at his funeral. He also tried to raise money for the foundation that he was involved with (DebRA) by doing various interviews and gatherings (and even jumping out of an airplane). Unfortunately (or fortunately, for him), he died during filming in 2003. If you're looking for a charity to donate to, I'd say this is a pretty viable choice.

But that's not the reason I made this post. The reason I made this post was because it seems that the American... err, United Statian... public is really mentally deficient. Jonny was an Englishman and the entire documentary (I think) was filmed in England. And, being an Englishman, Jonny spoke with an English accent (which, judging by the similarity of it to Paul McCartney's accent, I would say is Liverpudlian, though that make be completely wrong). Now, last I checked, most (or, at least, many) of the people in the United Sates speak English. But the whole documentary had subtitles! Are people watching this moving actually too dense that they can't distinguish their own language? Aside from the (stereotypical) English phrases, such as, "Jolly good", there really wasn't anything that wasn't understandable. There wasn't even any mention of a "lorry" or a "lift". It was all made up of English words that are common in all English-speaking places. Please, someone tell me that they are underestimating the United States population and that people can actually understand speech with an English accent.

People's comprehension of language disappoints me more and more every day. (Oh, and, if need be, replace all mention of an "English" accent with a "British" accent, if that is the proper term. I'm never sure anymore....)

There are places I'll remember all my life... #

Welcome to my new blog. Since I decided to discontinue my old one, I feel like I have no place to put things of importance. However, this new blog hopes to be less of the personal stuff and more about the ranting. There are a few things on the agenda, mostly language- and technology-related, but I felt I'd start things off right with a post devoted entirely to the new blog.

As you have probably guessed, the title is inspired by the Beatles song. I chose it for a few reasons. For one, it goes along the lines that I accidentally started with my first blog, "A Day in the Life of a Teenage Programmer". That parallel to a Beatles song was not originally intended, though it seemed to be more and more relevant. Another reason was for the subtitle, "I've loved them all" (which is part of the URL, and if it's not already in the header, I hope to get it there soon). I chose that part because it was recently said to me that I "have no beef with anybody", which is, for the most part, true. I mean, I hate the entire human race as a whole, but there are few individuals that I have negative thoughts about.

So, yeah, that's about it. Welcome to the new home of my thoughts. (Well, I guess it's more of the new vacation home of my thoughts....)