Monthly Archives: August 2004

The worst depression I ever faced was when I switched anti-depressant medication from something ineffective to Effexor® which made me feel worse than when I took nothing. I even called the advice nurse and she gave me the number of a Suicide Prevention line. Yeesh. That was nuts. My ex-girlfriend convinced me to take anti-depressants. My life has been kind of adrift (at least I had a girlfriend at the time) and my career had been circling the drain for over eleven years, and so she thought I should talk to my doctor about antidepressants. Well, they did change my attitude to, “Whatever,” and I was really indifferent to most … Continue reading →

Actually, the weekend wasn’t that bad. Today was pretty calm (i.e. nothing happened) but yesterday I saw some friends, mainly because I helped one of them move, and in the evening I had a beer with my stockbroker/stock analyst friend Sun. Well, I had a beer and she had a root beer. She had to go see her Korean parents, and so she probably had to go through some sort of purification ritual so they didn’t suspect she was learning bad ways from the yellow-hairs. Helping my friend move was odd in two ways. One was most everyone’s boyfriend seemed incredibly effeminate. In fact, if I had just met them, … Continue reading →

Monk is on! The season ended, but the episode tonight is the one I missed. Note that I said “the one” I missed. I don’t get out much on Friday nights. Not many women at the gym today. Nothing to distract me on the elliptical trainer except, well, a horrible parody of a football game, otherwise known as pre-season football. I don’t exercise to see the women — I ran hundreds of miles through an industrial area after all — but it’s a bonus. There were some models at the Center for Eating Disorders across the street (also known as a modelling agency) but in general I get to see … Continue reading →

Went to a ham radio club meeting tonight, and not much happened. Otherwise: went to work, ditched everyone for lunch (I don’t like the expensive Chinese restaurant they wanted to go to), and found out that amongst the technical geeks at work, I spent the most time there. Since I’m salaried, that means I made the least per hour. I’m sure I’ll be punished for that in some other way as well. But really, nothing exciting happened. And while my sister seems to have 8 people signed up for her free iPod deal, I have zero. Heh. She always was more popular.

Big drunk pirate, more like. I spent the last two evenings watching Pirates of the Caribbean. It turned out to be a very silly movie and I enjoyed every minute. I was only disappointed because I heard that Johnny Depp played Captain Jack Sparrow as a bit more swishy than he did. I loved the affect that he did project, though. And of course Pirates of the Caribbean is my favorite ride at Disneyland. I’m sure I’m not alone there. So I went to the gym and was asked, “How was your workout?” I dunno. I lifted some stuff that didn’t really need lifting (not like stacking stove pellets for … Continue reading →

Didn’t post much last week because I just didn’t have much to talk about. Get up, go to work, go to the gym, go home. For some reason, it just seemed like that’s all it was. But I did go to a couple of barbecues on Saturday. First was my buddy Greg’s usual ATF party. It’s really a company thing, his buddies from work and whoever is being rotated through from their Malaysian subsidiary come up, drink beer, eat smoked ribs, and watch the Malaysians shoot the machine gun. It’s all quite legal, unless there’s some law against all the ribs I end up eating. There was a lot of … Continue reading →

We went to El Gaucho for lunch once. It’s known in town to be an incredibly expensive steak restaurant, but you can get lunch for about $15. We figured the hamburgers would be good there and gave it a try. Unfortunately, the burgers were disappointing. You could order them rare, but they all came medium, and there must have been a sale on salt because everything was very salty. Today we went to Red Star, another expensive restaurant attached to an expensive hotel. This time the burger was fantastic and even cooked fairly rare. The onion rings seemed to be frozen, but were delicious. The only problem we had was … Continue reading →

Radio is like fishing, I figure. Most of the time you don’t know if the fish will even be there. Tonight I talked to a new country, Romania, and also talked to Italy, France, and Poland. It was a fun night. And I finally made it back to the gym. The intriguing woman was there, working her “ass off” as it were. I was there for over an hour, and she was on the exercise bike for most of that time. She spent about 10 minutes on the treadmill, and then disappeared. Why do I find her intriguing? I dunno. Maybe it’s because she has an iPod mini, or because … Continue reading →

Boy, was Woman in the Dunes slow. I thought Tokyo Story was slow, but this movie I watched on fast-forward, reading the subtitles. I must admit that the subtitles are usually much more garish than the actual dialog. I usually want to turn them off on a Japanese movie. I also watched Run, Lola, Run which I found to be clever but amateurish. Woman in the Dunes was bleak, but I can understand the protagonist’s feelings. At least neither movie left me feeling as lonely as Next Stop Wonderland. It’s set in Boston, and I have recurring dreams of how my life derailed after going to college in Cambridge, MA, … Continue reading →

I really wouldn’t know what this all looks like in Windows, but I set up a Windows box to connect to my ham radio and as of today, my “radio computer” has internet connectivity. Everything else in the house is a Mac or running NetBSD. So while I’m upstairs sweating with these silly looking headphones on, listening to the hiss in the radio, I’m also able to be on the internet. So far, today, I’ve spoken to Sao Tome and Principe somewhere off the coast of Africa, Yellowhorse up north in Canada, and the Ukraine. And I’ve seen two movies today! Anchorman and Next Stop Wonderland. They both beat the … Continue reading →

On the way to work I pass about a half-dozen Starbucks and one Torrefazione Italia (also owned by Starbucks). Surprisingly, each of these establishments often has 1 to 3 police officers in attendance. I figure 8:30AM-ish isn’t a high-crime time, and I’d rather have them taking a break when they can. But today, there wasn’t an officer in sight. That’s because both John Kerry and “W” were in Portland today. Kerry was at a public venue while “W” was a secret location only known to party contributors. But lucky me, I was able to avoid all the hubbub. Good thing, too, since I still have a bit of a cold. … Continue reading →

It’s wonderful having a cold on a week when it’s over 90°F in Portland. I suppose it’s not all that pleasant at any time. I don’t know how I got the cold. Perhaps it was staying out too late on Saturday, seeing all those ex-sorority girls who were mean to me 10-20 years ago. Perhaps it was hanging out with Megan on Monday, and drinking two whole beers. More likely it was because I rode the bus on Monday. So I’ve been staying at work late and haven’t made it to the gym. So basically, it’s kind of serendipitous, having a cold, having backup sysadmin duty when Microsoft releases WindowsXP … Continue reading →