Sunday, December 16, 2001 11:44 p.m.
Pats win ugly, Andrew eats meatballs at party, it's cold outside.

Tomorrow: hopefully things arrive.

Saturday, December 15, 2001 11:39 p.m.
I was waiting on the bridge for a boat to pass through, and a white owl swooped down and landed on the fence next to me. It sat, staring out at the water, for a couple of minutes, then abruptly glided off into the night.

Saturday, December 15, 2001 06:22 p.m.
Application "Andrew Sarazin" has closed due to a segmentation fault.

Friday, December 14, 2001 10:21 p.m.
Just chatted for a while with Remi and Seth. Good to see Seth's still alive... hadn't heard from him in a spell.

I just remembered the gift that I ordered for Liz that I thought wouldn't arrive by Xmas. I still don't think it will, but now at least I remember that I ordered it.
I remembered this as I walked into Staples. I like Staples for some reason... it strikes me as a friendlier place than Best Buy. And the customers always seem strangely calm. Anyway, they completely redid the store and I was questioning reality when I walked in... it just had NO RESEMBLENCE to the old store.

Got fetchmail running on this machine, sort of. That's a good thing. I'm planning on reinstalling after the upgrade but at least I know it can be done.

I forgot the strange feeling of contentment that creeps over me when I'm using a window manager that doesn't annoy me. Things just seem easier.

Enough geekiness. Christmas is soon and Andrew is happy. LOTR is soon too... sounds like fun. And soon Susie will be home and I can torment her. Woo hoo!!!!

Friday, December 14, 2001 03:08 p.m.
All righty. Let's get Mozilla up in this hiz-ouse.

My DIMM is in da house. Strange. That's the first time I've ever had a second-day package arrive next-day. Wonder what happened. Of course, it's useless to me, as my mobo hasn't yet arrived.

Apparently we're going out to see Ocean's Eleven tonight. Should be fun. I should probably do some laundry, but I think the dryer downstairs is still jammed. Sigh.

Friday, December 14, 2001 12:36 p.m.
Liz's thing is taken care of and my computer is now happy with text mode. Not bad for a Friday morning.

I wonder if I will get any happy fun packages today.

Friday, December 14, 2001 09:37 a.m.
Aaah. I feel MUUUUCH better this morning.

My DIMM is in Portland. Already?

Friday, December 14, 2001 12:53 a.m.
Mmm... my blog looks quite nice in Links. QUITE nice.

My next task... figure out why my monitor will only display when X-windows IS running. Doesn't sound like the kind of problem one would expect to have, does it.

That, and I have to deal with this bill for Liz. I'm putting it down here so I won't forget.

Another of Liz's presents arrived today. I hope she'll like it. There are several presents under the tree right now, one of which is from Liz to me and looks kind of like a gnome's house. Or a baby's coffin. I'm not sure which is more disturbing.

My DIMM is still in Casper. I bet it's cold.

Well... I just profoundly embarressed myself. Let's just say that my dial-up is now happy with my Linux and vice-versa, and that the solution was decidedly simple in nature.

I am editing this in Links (NOT lynx) which is quite a neat program that I'm glad to be re-acquainted with.

My DIMM is currently in: Casper, Wyoming.

Thursday, December 13, 2001 11:30 a.m.
Uuuuughhghh.

I think I must be really out of shape. Because I was all over town yesterday, and I had a LOT of trouble waking up this morning.

Didn't mention last night was a painless procedure installing the CDROM in Linux was. Screw in, plug in power, plug in IDE, close case, turn on, done. I suppose it's that easy in general, but I was happy.

Thursday, December 13, 2001 12:37 a.m.
So I broke down and bought a CDROM drive today. I figure my computer is really kind of handicapped without one. The guy in the store was kind of befuddled... he was really concerned that I was getting a CDROM drive and not a DVDROM or CDR/RW drive. I gave him a dirty look.

A motherboard is on the way that will allow the system to be upgraded a little more. I'll need to get some memory for that, but that's no problem... memory is cheaper than a side of fries these days.

If all that goes well, I'll probably wait a while to get anything else. Given time, I'll upgrade 1: the CPU, 2: the video card, and 3: the monitor, which is really the worst item right now but is expensive.

I bought the CDROM drive during a Christmas shopping spree with Liz and Elise. They both seemed pleased by their luck, and that's a good thing.

And now I go to sleep.

Wednesday, December 12, 2001 12:19 a.m.
Oh, and Andrew like Liz too.

Tuesday, December 11, 2001 11:40 p.m.
We got a christmas tree. It was a surprisingly painless process. And I got a bunch of Christmas cards done today, in a rare spurt of non-slack. Tomorrow, we go Christmas shopping with Elise (or so I have heard).

Had an excellent game session just now. Andrew like RP.

Tuesday, December 11, 2001 11:39 p.m.
This Beautiful Squirrel Crystal will be yours for a mere $4.95!

Monday, December 10, 2001 02:58 p.m.
Hey Remi. Are you aware that your old comic URL is now a porn site? I thought that was kind of disturbing.

Had some nasty dream-age last night, but I'm feeling pretty good today.

Sunday, December 9, 2001 04:17 p.m.
Pats win again! If you're reading this Matt, I guess you lost your bet. :)

Had a nice chat with the aforementioned Matt this afternoon, and I'm (finally) doing some laundry. Tonight, cookies!

Sunday, December 9, 2001 10:26 a.m.
Well, well... it's a snowy day here in Maine. Nice powdery stuff. The bridge was up on the way back from dropping Liz off, which was... exciting. :P

The people under us moved out and left all their windows open. Not sure why. So, we'll have new neighbors soon.

Do you ever have one of those moments where you discover something really unexpected and you want to yell, HOLY CRAP! but it's 1am and you can't, so you just kind of mouth it?

Simile for the day: "It's like something you'd win from a company that's no longer in business."

Saturday, December 8, 2001 04:12 p.m.
Well, it looks like it's finally getting cold here. Thank god. That warm weather was freaky.

Spent a while last night thinking about economical ways to upgrade my resurrected computer. Decided that it was probably pointless, considering that I don't really have anything demanding to run on it.

Well, I could use a CDROM drive that works. And a new monitor... I'm currently using the 486's monitor, which is REALLY old and kind of green-tinted... ew. But besides that... eh. You know?

Anybody out there have experience with the ways of modern dial-up ISPs? I've had two up here... both have this problem where A: when I connect using Windows, the "Logging on to network" box stays up for a while after the connection starts working. That and I can't get a connection at all in Linux (at least so far.) When I open a terminal and log in manually, it says "Starting PPP" and then immediately pops up another login thing. Weird.

Jim- you'll have to let me play with your new toy sometime! :)

Sounds like cookies and other goodies are in the offing tomorrow. I'd better clean things up a bit.

Friday, December 7, 2001 02:49 p.m.
I had an interesting morning today. Jim took Liz and I out to Brunswick where we went to a used bookstore and this really weird junk store with lots of computer and electronics stuff. It was kind of a strange black market sort of joint. I've heard they're going to be more organized after Xmas, so I'll have to go back.

Then, after a nice brunch, I went home and fooled around with the mice and keyboard I'd purchased. On a whim (and because I got a monitor with that SX), I hauled my old P200 upstairs, fixed it, and turned it on! It works! For now.

Thursday, December 6, 2001 04:55 p.m.
Munching upon Jelly Belly...

Liz and I have gotten a lot of reading in lately. It's very nice...

I'm a bit concerned that some things I ordered for Liz won't arrive by Christmas, due to the crazy mail situation right now. Guess I'll just have to cross my fingers.

Dumb versus Funny.

Thursday, December 6, 2001 02:32 a.m.
So I now possess the ultimate in sucky computers (excepting perhaps the PCjr): a 486SX. WOOO!!! Anyway. The VESA local bus video card is the size of a shopping mall. It also has a 2400 baud internal modem and a card that I honestly haven't identified. I think it may be some kind of alien artifact. If anyone out there has a really old IDE CDROM drive, let me know... it might be fun to see if I could get it working. Ooh, and an ISA soundblaster. And then I could play circa 1990 games on this thing, which would be amusing. I really need a DX2/66, though... owning a computer without a math coprocessor (or whatever) makes me feel kind of weak.

That and having this thing running gives me this irrational desire to call BBSes, which is a problem because I think they are no more.

It appears that I am summoned to the sleep zone.

Tuesday, December 4, 2001 10:30 p.m.
Recently finished reading Emma Bull's War for the Oaks. Good book... very evocative. Suffers a little from "first novel" syndrome, but that's ok. Makes me want to go out and buy Changeling, which is the last thing I need.

Strange how easy it is to read books written in that modern, conversational tone. Well, not easy, exactly. More like "conducive to quick reading". Which isn't exactly an endorsement, but oh well.

Tuesday, December 4, 2001 10:26 p.m.

If I were a work of art, I would be Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory. I am a surreal landscape composed of several disjointed and bizarre components. I like to keep an eye on the time, although the very concept is fluid for me. People are never sure what they are seeing when they look at me. Which work of art would you be? The Art Test

Hee hee hee! Hopefully that won't break the page.

Monday, December 3, 2001 11:02 p.m.
Mmm... Amelie.

Monday, December 3, 2001 12:12 a.m.
Ugh. My intelligence has been insulted several ways tonight.

First of all, we watched this Elvii as criminals movie. Physical PAAAAIN. I mean, I don't even know where to START.

Although, Ice-T appearing at the end for the sole purpose of killing lots of people was kind of amusing.

Then there's this whole Segway/Ginger thing. Apparently this scooter thing is going to transform us into happy utopians. Of course, I think scooters look moronic. Also, we have auto-balancing technology already. It's called LEGS!!!!! GRAH!

I mean, I wouldn't be pissing on Dean Kamen's head, but A: he has a pretentious name, and B: hype makes me want to poop on people.

Time for bed. Ding!

Sunday, December 2, 2001 04:25 p.m.
Wow. GREAT Pats game today. Nuff said.

Sounds like Liz and I will be out on the town tonight. Or something like that.

Sunday, December 2, 2001 11:43 a.m.
Liz and I were late getting up this morning... it was too coooooold.

Maine is number 8 in overall health, according to the United Health Foundation. Not bad. Certainly better than 15 Virginia or number 28 Maryland, and just above Colorado at 10. So, apparently Maine is the healthiest place I've lived so far. Why am I not surprised to see Maryland that much lower than Virginia... mainly violent crime and infant mortality. IE: mainly because many Maryland residents are violent sociopaths. :)

Saturday, December 1, 2001 11:27 p.m.
Was anyone else strangely satisfied that Navy was crushed so utterly today? Probably not.

My sincere sympathies to anyone who happened to be under the @home empire as it fell heavily to earth. Here's hoping you'll be back online soon.

Liz is verrrry tired. Hopefully she will get some good sleep tonight.

So... the time is coming when I will have collected most or all of the Vance that is either easily acquired or worth acquiring in the first place. Should I go for the stuff that I can't read anyway because it's too valuable (and by all accounts, isn't very good either)? I think not. Should I collect multiple editions? Eh. Maybe only to have readable, cheap copies of certain books (my copy of The Blue World is in terrible condition). Who knows...

Friday, November 30, 2001 10:37 p.m.
We had a nice dinner this evening with Liz's parents and sister.

Later, I was browsing about and stopped by at Remi's Comic Page to see if he'd uploaded anything besides his damn fine 24-hour comic. I happened to follow a link of his to a serial called Oddjobs and discovered something seriously, seriously cool. How did I manage to miss this? It's everything I wish other webcomics would be. (And there I am referring, of course, only to webcomics drawn by people I DON'T know).

Do you find it very annoying when a sports announcer repeats something he/she said? Anyway.

Liz is watching brit comedies in the other room. She seems be having a nice evening, which she most definitely deserves.

Relive the distinguished history of SNK.

Now Liz is here and reading my stuff.

Thursday, November 29, 2001 02:35 p.m.
Nice morning, terrible weather. Slushy and wet and cold and ick. It's now down to 65 in the apartment, which is where I like it. Usually the heat coming up from below makes it more like 70-73, which makes me feel stuffy, and reduces the impact of a really nice hot shower.

The one segment of HTML I really haven't done is forms. This is because I can think of no purpose for forms on any of my projects. I should probably figure out how they work at some point, though.

I have a desire for hot chocolate and little marshmellows. Perhaps I shall pick some up when I go to eat lunch with Liz.

Thursday, November 29, 2001 11:03 a.m.
It snowed! Well, a little bit anyway. Now its mixed-precip. Which is lovely...

Wednesday, November 28, 2001 03:44 p.m.
Well, the apartment is now clean and spiffy.

Suz- I'm glad you like my blog's new look! The picture that's up is a picture of you getting your hair done for the wedding.

In a few moments we will have tea and bread and jam and brownies.

Wednesday, November 28, 2001 11:30 a.m.
I had a dream last night in which Prince Charles was assassinated. We never figured out who did it though.

We're having a high school teacher of Liz over today for tea and all that, so we need to get some cleaning done. See you on the flip side.

Wednesday, November 28, 2001 01:28 a.m.
You know, Liz keeps revealing new and interesting facets of her personality to me. Like the fact that she is the mortal enemy of fruitflies.

Tuesday, November 27, 2001 10:30 p.m.
Elise's picture has been replaced as per her request. And because she AIMed me another one.

Pitas is starting to annoy me. I have a fair amount of trouble logging in sometimes, and my blog also seems unreachable at some times. But I'm not really excited about the prospect of switching horses. I just wished it worked a bit better.

A lot of great movies coming out soon. I'm looking forward to it.

I really need to get on the whole "Xmas gifts" thing. It's getting closer to December than I'd like. I think I'll go do that now.

Tuesday, November 27, 2001 07:54 p.m.
If you look over on the right, you might find a few more bloggers linked. Again, if you don't like your picture, mail me and I'll try to find a better one.

I kind of like the strange little pictures I have right now, though I'd like a quirkier picture of Suz.

Liz and I went to Spy Game today. I went in without any expectations and was moderately impressed. Good, well-paced thriller with a lot of tilty Bruckheimer-esque photography that surprising kinda works in the movie for once. And it's good to see Robert Redford in a badass role again.

Tuesday, November 27, 2001 12:29 p.m.
Okay, so I was flicking channels before the game last night, and I came upon "Star Trek Celebrity Weakest Link". Which sounds scary, but turned out to be damn amusing, in a kind of silly way.

Some comments:

1. William Shatner is officially scarier than the Weakest Link lady.
2. Some of those Star Trek actors are pretty sharp. They made a LOT more money than is usual on that show.
3. Denise Crosby is kind of cute nowadays.
4. Armin Shimerman(sp?) seemed like a cool guy. Weird how much he looks like his character OUT of the makeup.

Monday, November 26, 2001 06:53 p.m.
As Liz noticed, Jim's Blog is here. If Jim or Elise were to get me a picture, I could stick them in my list.

Liz likes the formatting on my link page, with the pictures on one side. So perhaps that will become the blog's format soon. Whoops, I posted something about the format! I suck. Anyway.

Monday, November 26, 2001 03:50 p.m.
There seem to be rumblings of a blog from the mysterious Jim. Perhaps a little bird will tell me where it is and I'll be able to link to it.

Went to a NAPA auto parts store today (to buy motor oil). I like that store... I kind of wish there was a store like that, except for computer parts. Or least I wish there was one around here somewhere.

Interesting phenomenon: preconceived notions about cities you've never been to. I find them to be incorrect, generally in dramatic ways.

Monday, November 26, 2001 11:40 a.m.
I shall blather on even more!!! My links page now has stuff in it, and has a slightly different format than the other pages. Just trying to figure out which one I like better.

Ok, and I promise: no more boring entries about the page layout for at least a WEEK after this.

Monday, November 26, 2001 11:05 a.m.
Ok, so the links aren't quite as fixed as I thought. Man, can I be clueless sometimes. Fortunately I figured things out, so soon they should be visible in ALL situations. Heh.

My links page should be non-empty soon.

Monday, November 26, 2001 09:59 a.m.
Ok, now that links are somewhat fixed, I present Book Organizer. It's not perfect, but hey, it's free. That's the great thing about freeware, isn't it? It's a wonderful surprise just to get something that meets your needs.

Speaking of which, I'm thinking of putting up a list (in my now-empty links page) of nifty freeeware apps I'm using at the moment.

The Pats won yesterday, and Brady is QB for the rest of the season. If he keeps going like this, Bledsoe will be packing his bags...

Liz was up late last night fooling with her art page, and she seems to be happier with it now. I was obviously REALLY tired when I made her original page, as it had all sorts of weirdness going on. I think I tend to make things too complicated for myself.

Monday, November 26, 2001 12:22 a.m.
Sleepy time for me. I found a neat freeware app. for organizing my books today. I'd link to it but I haven't fixed the links on this page yet.

Sunday, November 25, 2001 04:33 p.m.
Ok, it's up. There are a few issues with the new setup (mainly link color) that I'm too tired to deal with right now. There was originally a neat border around the blog area but it's been pulled due to being a pain. And I've been on the computer ENTIRELY too long today. Ech. Off now.

Sunday, November 25, 2001 04:14 p.m.
Ok, this page will show up with the new look very soon, if not already. Yes, once again I fry your retinas with my colorblind madness. We'll see how long this one lasts.

By the way... if you don't like your picture, let me know and I will switch it up.

I will make a blog entry about non-blog related things soon after this.