October 2004
10292K4
Holy damn, it's almost November. That was a quick month. October rules. I'm almost sorry I killed it last year.
Found something that I like: click.
The WE4 package was basically the GN without the GN badges and the black wheels. Just about every other option on the car was the same. They all came black from the factory, and only 1500 were made on special order. The body on that one is straight but the interior looks pretty worn. I guess I can't complain for $8k though.
10282K4
The insurance guy called today with the unspectacular offer of $5500. After arguing for a good half hour he brought it up to $6195 (after the $250 deductible), but that's as far as I could get him to go. I'm debating on just taking that offer and driving around in my busted Camaro until I've saved up for another one, which should take a year or so.
Goddamn cheap insurance guys.
10252K4
"In addition to leaving all other 10k RPM SCSI drives in the dust, the WD740GD approaches the performance of the 15k RPM Fujitsu MAS3735 and Maxtor Atlas 15k in the Office and Gaming DriveMarks. Further, it handily bests the two powerhouses in the High-End and Bootup DriveMarks. Overall, for non-server use, Western Digital's Raptor WD740GD is the fastest single hard disk one can buy regardless of spindle speed, interface, or price. The fact that it is so quiet, runs much cooler, and remains significantly less expensive than its SCSI counterparts is simply icing on the cake. Make no mistake about it- the Raptor WD740GD is the drive for power users, period."
StorageReview.com
And now my computer is done for the next couple of years. I think I say that every six months.
Spent the rest of my money working on my Camaro over the weekend. Got it running, now the only issues are a vacuum leak, front struts, brakes needing to be bled, heater core leak, molded interior, tires, radiator needs to be flushed, a few belts, hatch weather stripping and the paint job.
10192K4
If you're as bored as I am
You arrange icons on your desktop by their color
But then you remember that you hate cluttered desktops
So you move them to a color-coded folder
If you're as bored as I am
The area around your keyboard's really clean
But the rest of your desk is cluttered as hell
And you don't care since you can still see the screen
If you're as bored as I am
You put your last stanza third from the top
Because the fourth one seemed like it'd be a better ending
It's time to argue on IRC until God makes you stop
If you're as bored as I am
It's probably safe to say that you're insane
But at least you don't spend your time talking to yourself
At least when you're consistent with refrain
If you're as bored as I am
You point out that you used refrain as a noun
In case some colloquially-challenged person gets confused
Now your consistency's been run into the ground
10182K4
Holy shit my computer smokes. If anyone's interested in buying some Corsair Twinx 1024mb PC3200LL Pro (with the black heat spreaders and activity LEDs) and/or a Radeon 9800XT, contact me.
We saw Team America Saturday night. Now I've got the "America, FUCK YEAH!" song stuck in my head. I don't think there's an unfunny moment throughout the whole film. Go see it.
In other news, I beat Steven in Mortal Kombat 2 with one hand.
10132K4
Got the CPU today. The motherboard comes tomorrow, and hopefully case-mod.com will get off their asses and ship my cooling stuff so it gets here Friday.
My grandmother talked to the shithead who trashed my car yesterday and now he's denying ever having talked to anyone about fixing the car, but in the same sentence said he was driving it because I told him to fix the nonexistant smoking issue. I never spoke to him myself prior to the accident, and I've got a witness. When this is all over I'm so fucking his day up. I thought about torching his trailer and then shooting him when he runs out, but that'd draw too much attention. Now I'm thinking about beating the shit out of him with a hammer, then suing him out of his disability pay. Or maybe I'll just light some thermite on his roof over his bed while he sleeps. I haven't really decided yet.
Still fighting with the insurance guys. Trying to go for $8k.
10122K4
Insurance is trying to give me about $4k for my car, and saying I should be happy with the value. There's something funny with the NADA values. On nadaguides.com there are two Grand National listings, even though there was only one Grand National in 1986. The Regal Grand National has an average retail price of $13,600. The T-Type GN is a little over $3k, and that is what they're going by. I'm not sure why there are two Grand National listings, or why one is rediculously low, but it seems to me like it's an error, and it's pretty damn convenient for them. So, I faxed over the paypal and bank statements showing what I payed for the car, plus GN ads from a few websites. The two I grabbed from turbobuicks.com (the only semi-recent 86 sales I could find) were both high mileage (140k+), and both at around $7k, and weren't even close to the condition my GN was in. I could get more than $4k out of it by parting it out.
Ordered a few new parts over the weekend in leu of my motherboard dying. I just took out my secondary hard drive and it refused to work again. Swapped every part and concluded it's fried. I saw that the skt 939 Athlon 64 3500+ dropped from $500~ to $333 on ZZF, so I grabbed that, along with the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum. Then I went to case-mod.com and got the hyper 6 cpu cooler, two 50cfm case fans and the vantec dual-fan pci slot clooler, because my video card runs at 68c idle.
10072K4
Look at what someone did to this poor Neon:
10052K4
Email I received today from Service@AirportPrinting.Net:
STOP SENDING THESE EMAILS….NOW! THE PERSON YOU ARE TRYING TO REACH WAS LESLIE RIVERS. SHE DIED AUGUST 13 2004 DUE TO LIVER COMPLICATIONS FROM DRUGS YOU SOLD HER OVER THE INTERNET. WE HATE YOU AND OTHERS LIKE YOU.YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF DRUG PUSHERS. YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN A HOOD THAT STANDS ON A STREET CORNER. DOCTORS ARE NOT PRESCRIBING THESE DRUGS TO PEOPLE .THEY ARE NOT YOUR PATIENTS THEY ARE ONLY CUSTOMERS WITH PROBLEMS. SO WITH ALL THAT SAID…STOP SENDING THESE EMAILS. WE ARE GOING TO CONTACT TALK SHOW HOST AND NEWS MEDIA TO FIND OUT WHAT AMERICA CAN DO TO SHUT YOU DOWN.My reply:
Gosh, I really wish the company I work for would stop forcing people to buy from us, stopping their family and friends from realizing they have a problem and stepping in to help, and directly causing people to develop addictions. Sure, people should be held responsible for their own voluntary actions, but it's way too gratifying to place the blame on others. Perhaps Montel Williams can help.
Keep fighting the good fight.
CS
10042K4
As you have probably already noticed, unless you've never been here before, or you're just stupid, the site has a new look. Dull grey gets old after a while.
You may also notice a small section for links over to the left. If you want to get linked, let me know.
Some things are broken, and some things look shitty. I'll fix it sometime today.
I still don't know if insurance is going to cover my car. They supposedly called the clod who wrecked it and told him they were going to cover it after they got his side of the story, but Clay thinks they only told him that so he wouldn't be inclined to leave town, since they haven't told me a goddamn thing. My agent just tells me it's out of their hands, and the adjuster tells me he's doing all he can do. They have all the info they need. I don't know what the hell's holding up the process to where they can't even tell if they're going to cover it or not.
Meanwhile George the English-challenged security guy is dangling a 10 second GN in front of me like a steak in front of a lion. $28k price tag. It'd take me 2 1/2 years to pay that off, paying for nothing but gas, food, insurance and bills. That's a long time to go without buying new clothes and computer hardware.
I had a pretty weird dream Saturday night. I normally don't remember dreams as vividly as this. It actually lasted a while before what I'm going to describe, but this is the only distinct part I really remember. It's gonna sound a little corny, but here's how it went:
I was with my mom and my brother in a strange place. We were returning home from some kind of outing. I don't remember what it was. We were in a round room with high marble walls and a blue ceiling with some painting. I remember it had a light, tan colors, but don't remember the image. There were twelve doorways around the room, placed as clock numbers would be placed, each one open but dark. There was no light source. I could see clearly in the room, but not into the doorways. I couldn't stop looking at the doorway at 12 o'clock. It had tall, thin, gold-embellished pillars at its sides. I told them I was going in, and that I'd be back soon.
The dark doorway turned out to be a hall, and when the darkness faded I was on a boardwalk leading to a beach. The water was clear and blue, and the beach went on as far as I could see; nothing but white sand and blue water.
I walked to the end of the boardwalk until it ended. Instead of walking to the end, I stepped off the side. Then, immediately, I could sense someone was there. I slowly walked up to the end and I saw the steps leading down to the sand, and I saw someone on their hands and knees, looking down like he was tired. It was my grandfather. I walked over to him, and he looked over at me. He didn't smile, but his expression changed. I couldn't put an emotion to the expression. I asked him if he fell down the steps. He didn't answer, so I helped him up and carried him back up the boardwalk. He was looking towards the water the whole time.
We got back in the round room. My mom and brother went into the seven o'clock door. I took my grandfather into four. We were suddenly in the back room at my old house; the "game room," as he called it, but it wasn't like I had seen it before. Our old bumper pool table looked like it was new. The pool table had green cloth instead of the blue cloth we had installed when I was young. The floor was green instead of blue. I saw my grandmother pass by the glass door. She looked a lot younger. I helped my grandfather into one of the bar chairs. He looked sad, but I didn't know what I could do for him. I told him to wait there, and that I'd be back.
Instead of going to the back door where we came in from, I opened the glass door. As soon as I stepped into the room, it changed. It was our den the way I remembered it when I was about 14. I looked behind me and the game room had the blue floor. The bumper pool table had an assortment of tools stacked on top of it. The pool table had a lot of my grandmother's junk on it. I didn't see my grandfather on the bar stool, so I looked around the room and found him in the corner behind the refridgerator, where we kept brooms and things. He was just leaning against the wall, slumped over to one side. Then, things got dark.
I could see again, and I was in the walkway from our Florida room to the main hall in the house. My grandfather stepped out of the kitchen and looked happy to see me. It was this moment I realized I was dreaming, because I finally remembered that he was dead. So, even with the magic room and the time period changes and the endless beach, it was the harsh reality of death that had to bring me to my senses. He looked at me, like he knew that I knew now. He nodded, and then I was at the hospital, at his bedside, the day before he died. My grandmother was there. I could see her arms and my grandfather's chest, and I couldn't look around, but I could hear what he was saying.
"They've turned out to be two fine young men. God, Jo, I love them so much."
I was back on the beach after that. There was a deck built off of the boardwalk at the end. There was one of our green tables with the umbrella coming up through the middle, like we had on our deck, and he was sitting in a plastic chair, looking towards the beach. Next to him on the table was a bottle of the Miller beer that he always drank. On the other side of the rectangular table was a bottle of wine and a glass, like my grandmother would drink, and an empty chair. I walked over to him. He just turned to me and smiled, then pointed back towards the dark doorway. I nodded and walked away.
When I got back into the room, I went into the seven doorway. Then I woke up.
I guess it was caused by me thinking about my grandmother doing yard work, and how pissed my grandfather would be about that if he were still alive.
10012K4
Here are some pictures of my car I took this morning:
One
Two
Three
Four
Got the rest of my stuff out, except for the stuff in the trunk because they had it tied down and I really didn't care. I noticed my $300 Oakleys were gone. I couldn't find them when I initially looked through the car on Friday either. I couldn't get the hood up to grab my breather and pipes so I faxed over all the receipts from that stuff. I doubt they'll do anything with them, though.