I fought the law and lost

They say, to aid in confidence, that the worst she can say is no. Which is fine (just fine) (really just ok and fine) (no, seriously, that's fine) (Hey, look, it's academy-award winning Ray Fine!).

BUT that means that when she does say no, whether by actually sounding "no" or just implying it, then, CON-GRAB-U-LATIONS you have gotten a fistful of the worst that can happen. Hooray for experiencing the worst! Why, it's #1 from the bottom, so that's gotta be worth something, right?

Gotta tell ya, folks, I can't BELIEVE how badly it went. I really did think that I'd at least be able to snag a date. Before she left I turned around and quickly asked if she wanted to go out with me and get something to eat tomorrow, since Wacky Wednesday isn't very cost effective. Here's how badly it went:

Her smile did a complete 180. Once she figured out what I was asking.

Wow, just wow.

Nothing makes a guy feel like more of a monstrocity than getting that completely honest transparent reaction.

Ahhh... guys chasin' after girls is a losing game anyway. The girl gets a complement, and the guy gets squat. It's not my fault I like Su, I just do. You can't help who you like.

At least the Passme for my DS arrived. Looks like I won't be totally bored tomorrow.

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Histoly

Up to maybe two years ago, here was my vicious cycle with women.

1. Introduction. Somehow, in some way, I meet someone. Usually though no gesture on my own. I'm slow to open up to just about everyone. I hardly ever break the ice, and if I do, it's probably chemically induced.
Although, to be fair, I've given up alcohol for a while. Last drops were, um, three weeks ago? Sounds about right.

2. Infatuation. I am a loyal guy. I'd never turn a back on a friend, except one that betrays me (*ahem ahem little miss now-a-raver-girl*). So, it only goes to follow that if I like someone, I'm going to completely envelop myself in that emotion. You could say I let myself fall in love much like one would put the cart out before they got a horse.

3. Interrogation. I would ask her out, or ask some related question. The length of time between part 2 and part 3 depends on whether she's got a boyfriend or not. I would try my best to woo.

3.5. Rejection. I become grounded. It's a damn good thing I never thought I was God's gift to women because then the ego-drop would kill me. But it's not a nice feeling regardless.

4. Massochism. Since I like them, I'm not going to stop being their friend just like that. Instead I continue to be a loyal guy and harbor a little broken heart. Where it festers, rots, and eventually disappears, but not without leaving a big black cynicism causing stain. This process is usually sped up with certain conditions. My favorite of which: "I'm not looking for a boyfriend right now." "Oh. I see." (two days later) "Have you met Mark? My new boyfriend?" "Can't say that I have..."

The interesting thing is that this cycle never was interrupted by girlfriend-dom. I called it step 3.5 for a reason. Anyone I was ever with, our relationship always followed a different path. It doesn't fare well for me and my secret-to-her crush.

So, I stopped two years ago? Yeah, I thought I did. But it was just a dismissal of the game. Waste of time. I don't need the grief.

Well, evidently I DO need the grief. And if there was ever a time I need girl advice, it's now.

Don't worry, I'll ruin this pretty soon. Then I'll be all back to normal.

...

Vultures.

Extra extra

Hey, you, I've got a secret.

Yup. You'll never guess. Do you wanna hear it? Do ya?

Ok. I'll tell you.

¯ I've got a crush on a girl ¯

And you'll never guess who, either.

No, wait, maybe you'll know.

"Manx, is it wise to talk about such things here?"

Oh... uhhh.... ummm.......

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Enterprising

Did you know: I have a way to generate any Pokemon in any GBA game, and modify just about every variable used to describe it?

Did you know: I can do this 100% safely, and even if something goes "dastardly wrong", I can repair the damage and nobody would be the wiser?

Did you know: I've got a freakish game ethic and I can't bare to give myself Chansey or Mew or Deoxys or Jirachi with these techniques? Nor can I give myself a shiny that I've never so much as seen nevermind caught.

Did you know: I have no qualms doing this for others.

Did you know: I believe there is a market for this service.

Pricing TBD.

Quotes of the Week

1. "Hey, Brian, do you know how to make coffee?"
(someone at work brought his young child Brian who was bored out of his skull and running around the place)

2. "I can finally set up my cult compound to counter the Scientology fortress in Clearwater!"
(in response to a web site giving away free land in middle-of-fucking-nowhere Kansas)

3. "Now we can play dueling lighters!"
(brother after receiving a gift of a Zippo lighter from me. No, nobody here smokes, but we love the ability to create a tiny flame at any time)

4. "If I were a hamster, I'd be a blue one."
(new friend at Flippers. This is funny on three layers: and I love multifaceted comedy)

5. "Can you get any anagrams from 'anagram'?" / "nag-rama?"
(far too geeky for even me to mention its origins)

White Chocolate and Uncle Sam

The following individuals have recieved white chocolate from me yesterday.

End of list. I'm not upset, see, and someone did send me a note, even if it wasn't very personalized.

That's ok. I still love everyone. No, wait, I don't. I'm actually a monster incapable of love. Yes, that is rather untrue, now isn't it? That just goes to show. Oh well. Someone's gotta dig the lumberjack look I'm sporting these days.

I've got black hair, right? So... why is my beard coming in brown? Am I all of a sudden going to start being asked if the carpet matches the curtains? The answer, of course, will depend on who is asking. Some people asking I will call "gay" and throw things at. The others I will invite to find out, although it'll be a trick.

Bzzzzz.....

I did my taxes today. Right now. Just now. I owe money to the government. Which is GOOD. That means they didn't take enough out of my paycheck, meaning I got to hold on to more of my money and put it in the bank where it earned me interest. Ha ha ha, suckers! If you get a tax refund, I'm sorry to say you've been shafted: you gave an interest-free loan to the government. And did it earn your trust?

$195 MILLION dollars Miami-Dade county handed over to the Marlins to build a new stadium we don't need to pacify them and coax them into staying. What babies. "Wah wah, I'm leaving if you don't give me money and build me a stadium!" And what do the commissioners do? "Oh, please don't go!" They say it'll create a bunch of jobs but it really won't do that much good. The stadium construction teams are temporary jobs: when the project is over they leave and the pay stops. Creation of new jobs? Well, now the Marlins play at Pro Player, right? What's going to happen to that stadium if the Marlins play at the new one? Exactly, people aren't going to have jobs there. If you lose 2000 jobs to make 2000 jobs somewhere else, have you really gained anything?

Police SHOT a mentally ill guy today. They were called out to control him and they shot him in the head. Doesn't every cop have a friggin' tazer on them now? Don't get me started on tazers. The problem with non-lethal weapons is that the authorities can use them for any willy nilly. You can't shoot someone for no reason. But you CAN tazer them if you feel like it. People getting zapped all over the place. Wasn't the point of the 2nd amendment being able to defend yourself against an oppressive militaristic government? Ever see THX 1138? You should.

Congress voted almost unanimously (like one guy held out) to raise FCC fines to $500,000 per indecensy offense. And the talent is vulnerable to fines directly, not just the company. The catch? "What is indecent?" "Why, we don't know until it happens and someone complains so we can investigate." Fuck you, FCC. Just shut the fuck up and do your fucking job making sure nobody fights over the frequencies at which wireless communications devices work: what you were CREATED to do in the first place, not play nanny. For contrast, the maximum fine for dumping nuclear waste into the ocean is $25,000 per offense. You can take at least 20 trips out to Gilligan's Isle filled to the brim with spent plutonium and kick it off into the reefs to equal the fine for saying "shit" on the radio, assuming you were even caught every time.

Gay marriage is back. Now, I think gay marriage is cool: homosexuals deserve to be trapped in loveless sham marriages and heart wrenching divorces and prenumptual agreements and all that, if they want. Marriage don't seem like such a peachy-keen thing, does it? BUT right now in San Francisco some judge is saying it's unconstitutional to deny marriage to homosexuals. Say what? I just did a text search on my copy of the constitution (what, you don't have one?) and marriage ain't there. So it can't be unconstitutional. Banning gay marriage IS WRONG, mind you. So what needs to be done? Lets get some fucking courage up there in DC and make an amendment to the constitution which will THEN make it unconstitutional to ban gay marriage. You can't just sit there behind a bench and say "ahhh.... I think such-and-such should be legal". Nah. To quote Sublime: "It's the wrong way."

My congressman isn't getting white chocolate either. No love, no love.

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My Turn

This blog has an ID of 9215273. Which means there were 9,215,272 blogs created on this site before this one. Not necessarily all valid, some could be tests, some could be deleted. But it's kind of interesting in the scheme of things.

I had a decision to make. Dual-Layer DVD burner, or Nintendo DS.

On the one hand, my computer has been running without a wipe and reinstall since 2000. Five years of trash has accumulated, things hidden in places I have no idea, registry entries older than dirt and almost as tasty.

I don't run anti-virus programs. I don't back anything up that I don't remove from my hard drive. I'm a ticking time bomb. It's only a matter of time before I get floored with something. I really need discipline to backup my hard drives. With a pack of 25 rewritable dual-layer DVDRs I can make checkpoints maybe once every six months. I'd do a more frequent backup but they don't make rewritable dual-layer discs. My current backup plan is non-existant because I just don't want to wade through all my data and mark this as important, that as not, and whatnot. Plus, in my experience, no matter how good you are at backing things up, you will forget. And even if you don't, most of the time you'll have to reinstall everything manually anyway because your backup couldn't get at the files Windows uses to save your preferences. Bah, humbug.

On the other hand, a breakthrough has been made on the Nintendo DS homebrew development front. There is a widget that you can plug into your DS and attach a game to it which will reroute the code execution to the GBA port. In that port you may put a GBA flash cartridge and all of a sudden you've got DS programs running!

This is actually one of the best things to happen. The neat thing about this little guy is that it's an amateur homebrew kit that does NOT allow piracy to happen. DS games, as you may already know, are encrypted with RSA. It isn't impossible to crack it, but until an elegant solution is discovered for Nintendo's implementation the brute force method will take many many moons of CPU time to figure out. Moreover, I believe the maximum size for code is 32Mbits (I could be wrong) and there is no way DS games can fit in that kind of space. Metroid Hunters Demo is 128Mbits, for reference. Does that mean you can only do crap? No, a lot of GBA games are 32Mb and nobody would guess. FZero, Klonoa 2, Sim City 2000, Blackthorne, Yoshi's Island, Advance Wars, most of the launch titles (and a slew of crappy recent titles) fit in that space, which should give a signal to what the upper limits of DS homebrew would be able to do as far as textures, graphics, and audio. It runs faster and has that whole touchscreen thing that can really tickle the imagination.

It's always easier to get into homebrew on a system from the ground up, learning as the community learns, instead of playing catchup later.


This decision was a no brainer. I'm just gonna have to keep ever watchful over potential virus attacks.

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Meow

I could have been a cat.

"Outlandish claim!" you claim?

Supporting Evidence:

1. I like fish. I like smoked fish, canned fish, raw fish, fish flakes, fish sausage, broiled fish, braized fish, sauted fish.
2. I like milk. I don't drink it much anymore since I'm lactose intolerant and am currently on a diet devoid of milk. BUT low-carb milk solves my problem with drastically reduced lastose and, in turn, reduced sugars.
3. Tease me with something pointed at me and I'll try to grab it. Seriously. I won't even realize it when I do it. Point at me in close enough proximity and I'll grab like a reflex. Furry things at the ends of sticks? I-will-want-to-make-it-mine, just to get a closer look.
4. I always land on my feet. The first appendage of my body to hit the ground is my feet, or it has been for at least 6 years. I've got a weak angle that gives way sometimes, but it hasn't done that in that long a time so I think I'm better. I might try to roller skate again. Then again, don't tempt fate.
5. I love to be secretive. One of my favorite tricks is sneaking up to people using a little thing I can do. Using magick (not the card game) I can displace my soul a few feet. Not too far, and I can't do it all the time for reasons I'm not sure about, but occasionally I can and people can't sense when I'm near. Combine that with some silence and I can sneak up wonderfully.
6. When injured, sick, or just plain have hurt feelings, I can disappear. Cats do not stick around when they are a burden to the group. And I when I'm sick, mentally, physically, or spiritually, I make it so nobody can find me.
7. I love attention. Be friendly, seek me out. I'll love you for it and be super loyal. Even when I'm hidden.
8. I love to be petted. I'm a selective cat, though. I prefer the petting from a female, and even then not just any female. I'd have to be close to them. To really let myself go and allow myself to be petted. Otherwise I'll fight it or feel uncomfortable about it. In contrast, everyone likes to be cuddled and hugged, but how many want to roll up and lay down and just be stroked?

Counter Points:
1. No claws. I like medium nails. Too long and it's irritating, too short and my fingertips are too sensitive. Too sharp and I get pissed off as I pull threads everywhere.
2. Fewer than 9 Lives. This might actually not be true, but I'm not going to play Groundhog Day to find out.
3. I don't sleep 16 hours a day. I can only pull off sleeping marathons when I'm sick.
4. I can't lick myself. To my disappointment. Not because I need to be clean, mind you.
5. No tail. Details, details.
6. I can't purr. But I can recite some Middle English.
7. Significantly less fur. Not too much of a loss in my opinion.
8. Less graceful.

I guess I'm only human after all.

An Extra 5 Years of Work

I didn't make the deadline. I had retirement money from my old job that I was promised would stay there, and then they all of a sudden stopped paying to keep it there. They had a letter postmarked the end of January that I didn't get until February 19th. I didn't get the distribution forms to move the money into another retirement account until February 28th. I filled it out and faxed it to the retirement administrators at my old work and called and called and called on that day to make sure they do their side of it and fax it to the bank. I never got anyone, and the supervisor sent me to voice mail hell.

Now I learn nobody did shit and my retirement money is coming back to me. Less 30% in taxes and penalties because I'm not retiring. 30% of my money gone in a sanctioned theft due to negligence.

It's only $3500, which is something I obviously want to keep. But I've lost over $1000 and in order to recoup that I'll need to pay a lawyer more than that so there's no point.

Fuck you, bitches.

Simple notes

Some notes.

1. I can't pass that Ridge Racer song on hard in Taiko. That's my only one left. Got all of them on flower difficulty and bamboo difficulty. Oni is another story, but I did nail quite a few of them. It's lots of fun. I like rhythm games a lot, and I like hitting things with sticks*, so it's a win-win.

* I do not actually normally enjoy hitting things with sticks. But replace "sticks" with mayo, "things" with "cheese sandwiches" and "hitting" with "eating", and it'll become truth again.

2. I ordered Pokemon Ruby. I am shamed. **

** No, not really. I still havn't caught Chansey in Leaf, only defeated the Elite 4 once, and still need to find maybe 10 more before I max out my copy without trading with Fire. But I must catch all those little zeros and ones to prove, um, something.

3. I tried unsuccessfully to rip a DVD-9 into a DVD-5. I didn't follow any guides, just followed my gut and tried to do it with only the programs I've already got. Oh well. If I knew it wasn't going to work, I would have liked to try it out with a DVD-RW instead of a DVD-R. ***

*** Backup purposes only, buttnut. With how much my brother borrows Terminator 2 from me I need to replace that original disc with a backup so he doesn't mess it up.

4. Meep. ****

**** Results may vary.