this girl drives a tank

I have spent more time with my roomates and other friends this last week or so and less time on the computer, and am realizing how much tv people actually watch! I mean non-geek people. I used to think television is a waste of time, it offers entertainment but of questionable quality, it does make an attempt to educate, such as Discovery channel and TLC but it seems those channels which used to show stuff about nature and science have now branched off into shows about neighbours re-decorating each others homes (for the female viewers) and homemade robots that fight each other, presumably for the male viewer.

Then, on the big US networks we are bombarded with these so-called reality TV shows, like Survivour and Fear Factor, Temptation Island, Paradise Hotel and of course the Bachelor. At the outset of this craze, the shows did offer the viewer some reality in that the contestants were all average "joes" just like you and me. Now its almost always a bunch of supermodels and hunky muscle boys running around, which do not represnt an accurate cross section of the population in any way whatsoever, besides, you can get your fill of "beautiful" people by simply watching any regular programming, let alone reality tv.

Which reminds me, why is everyone one tv beautiful? Does the public demand this? or are TV executives so stupid as to belive we will watch anything they give us, as long as theres someone hot in it? Sienfeld certinaly didnt fit in this role, Elaine aside, I dont think anyone in that show is particularly sexy in the classic sense, but they all had talent, and that seemed to work out just fine for them.

So yeah, this TV thing isnt going to last long for me, at least I learn something useful most times I sit down in front of this PC, and just so as not to be anti-social, I can sit on the couch with my freinds as they watch Paradise Hotel and open my laptop and surf or IRC, occasionally looking up to whistle my agreement as another muscle-hunk is pointed out to me ;-)

It has been a while since I put up a page to say I was leaving, I have made up my mind to not bother playing bzflag for a while, the reasons arnet important really, but suffice to say I dont seem to enjoy it any more.

This blog is very bz-concentric, and as such I had planned to discontinue it, but I got alot of mail from bz players, friends and the like and supprisingly even got mail from people i didnt know which is kinda weird for me to think strangers are interested in my odd ball life, but this email was sorta sweet and made me reconsider restarting the blog at least for the time being..

this is kind of goofy, but i stumbled across your site one day and was
captivated by what you had written.  not that it was shakespeare, or
anything, it just seemed honest...and i must admit at there was a
voyeuristic aspect, it was like eavesdropping at first. so i just liked what
i read, it was fun and you seemed like a pretty genuine person, and the fact
that you play bztank is cool, even though i don't know what it is...i feel
like i'm rambling because i'm a little embarrassed.  i wouldn't have even
contacted you, but i thought you had taken your site down or something when
i couldn't access it. anyway, keep writing stuff 'cause i'll keep reading...thanks again...best
regards.

That was sort of good for my ego :)) So for now I will try to continue keeping you happy as you sip your morning coffee's, gleefully reading my little neurotic tales.

I dindn't expect to miss irc as much, its so tempting to jump on freenode and see what people are up to especially since Yahoo are being dickheads and blocking third party clients from connecting :(

Also Im not sure if anyone will even know this site is up again as youve probably erased the bookmark by now, but oh well, that will teach me not to be such a drama queen :) But honestly at the time I just didnt feel like writing stuff for everyone to see, and if you would take the time to do it your self, you will see it is not easy to hide how you feel sometimes.

time to eat, cu later

Hmv is a very large cd retailer here in Toronto, also in the UK,AU & Japan, anyway I have a friend who works there and is kind enough yo let me burn his entire collection of cd's! His gf works with me and brings in about 20 each morning and I rip them every night and bring them back. The really cool thing is that he listens to alot of the same kinds of music as me, but with more depth, like if I have Groove Armada, not only does he have them, but has a bunch of bands I have never heard of that are similar to them, in total he has about 7000 cd's! so this will take some time, and will require me to buy a new hard drive but will be worth it.

Oh if your thinking of telling the RIAA, in Canada we are allowed to borrow and burn each others music, it says so right here.

I have enabled user pics in the irc stats page so if your a frequent flyer in there let me know and I will put your pic/logo up. Also the stats will remember the last 300 url's so it will be handy I suppose for digging up a link someone posted.

I have found it hard to get used to working full time again, I guess I had forgotten how much time work eats away into your day. All the stuff like groceries or drycleaning become a chore now to do on the way home from work. I used to love grocery shopping, strolling around tasting stuff (Im that person you see munching on the unpaid for food as she shops) But now its like "gotta get this done, it will be 7:30 before you get home, you still have to cook and make lunch, oh yeah, laundry to do too"

I am pretty busy at work, so I havent really messed with the IT-Monkey this week I plan to do some password stuff though, and Ive discovered that if you can bend that little metal tab on a floppy at just the right place, it will get stuck in the floppy drive every time. So that will be fun.

I am somewhat happy with the way things seem to be going in BZ-dev lately, I really do think voting will solve alot of the cheating/obscene player issues as the other players can simply vote the loser off the game. I do think it will probably cause a few problems at first as people try to use it and misuse it but thats to be expected.

What it will not help, is the subtle cheaters. The guys with skinny tank and whatnot, I suppose there isnt any real solution to this as the source code is available to anyone and the server doesnt check that the clients are legit. From what I can understand, making the server check would add tons of overhead and could be simply defeted by having your tank send back corrupt info to the server.

Is this kind of cheating an issue even? How many players actually cheat like this? I know a ton of players with cheat clients, and those that I ask say that they would never use them in CTF so having never saw them with an obvious cheat, I take their word for it. It is possible they use a sublte cheat, but until there is a way to determine this, there is no point even worrying about it.

Lag however remains a problem and quite honestly, dosent seem to be addressed much. Again keep in mind, there are only a handful of active dev's doing all this work on their own free time, so to whine about lag and cheating isnt fair to them. Also, it is probably more fun for them to code a new bot or a new flag than to rewrite the networking code. Playing on a closer server is always the reply you get when asking about lag, however, there are only 2 popular CTF servers and usually only one of these at a time has any players on it.

It just seems that other games seem to handle lag issues much better than bz, is this because bz has been thrust into a world it was never designed to live in? UT and Q3 probably had multiplayer over tcp/ip as a design goal from day one. I am reading the Networking Wiki and it looks like they are planning alot of changes, but I have no clue at all if these changes will improve lag or not.

One of my closest friends is getting married soon, so a bunch of us girls took her out for her "stagette" the female equivelent of a stag party, I dont what its called in the rest of the world but thats what we call it here.

Anyhow we all get dressed up, break out the "classy" stuff ;-) and got our hair done and rented this big limo. We went down to Yorkville, which is like THE ritzy part of Toronto, If you ever wanted to buy an $10000 watch or order a martini that costs $15 then Yorkville is the place to go. The problem is that FilmFest was going on, and alot of big stars were in town, and consequently a lot of people were hanging around with cameras at the ready hoping to catch a glimpse of Brad Pitt or Julia Roberts, so we pull up in this limo, and all these people rush up and peering into the window with their paper and pens at the ready for autographs and stuff! You could hear them saying "who is it?! who is in there!"

I was like "omg this is sooo embarresing" Anyway, when we get out you see the look of disappointment in thier faces as they realize its just a bunch of local girls.

The rest of the night was fun though, but in the club we went to there were no stars, so any guy that even remotely looked like a star, we would pretend he was one, and ask for an autograpgh anyway ;-)

As tonight was cleaning night I decided to post some of my usual cleaning soundtrack. To get the full cleaning effect you need to put your hair in a pony or pigs, throw on your sweatpants and tank top and turn your stereo up loud! Most of these songs are kinda dancy and should get the job done, for the extra stubborn stains I recommend "The Pixies - Debaser"

• Groove Armada - At the River
• Lily's - The Escape
• Moloko - The Time Is Now
• Playin 4 The City - Show Me Love
• Propellorheads - Take California
• Rick Preston - Boracho Cha
• Pixies - Debaser

There's alot more but I havent uploaded them here yet, so maybe next time. Some good news also concerning the Pixies, they will be reuniting for a world tour..yay.. Link to MTV article

Oh I just heard today our building might be sold after all, and If the new owner dosent want to extend our lease, we will have to move this Feb. :(( grrr.....

The love of shopping is one of those stereotypes about women I freely admit applies to me. I reach an amazing level of focus and concentration when shopping, I can calculate discounts, taxes, mail in rebates, single item vs bulk descisions, warranties, size and fit in metric or imperial, weights, mesures and any other calculation the savvy shopper needs to make, and I can do this on-the-fly without missing a beat. Sales pitches and tricks have no effect on me, I give the salesperson my patented "you will be summoned when needed, until then back off!" look, and am always left in peace.

So today in my pile of spam, sitting patiently waiting for me, was an email from The Canadian Organization of Secret Shoppers. When I read it, my heart stopped! This is clearly a scam in some way or another, but I cannot stop my self from replying. Every instinct I have says "scam" but I am drawn to it like the Ring is drawn to Saruman. Here is the deal:

The Canadian Organization of Professional Secret Shoppers (COPSS) is a professional membership organization dedicated to assisting Canadians who are interested in starting a new full or part-time career as a secret shopper.

Sounds too good to be true? Can you imagine getting paid to shop? Stop imagining and start shopping! You can get paid $10, $20, and even $40/hour just for shopping at your favorite stores, $15 to $90 for eating at your favorite restaurants, receive free tickets plus popcorn to watch the latest movie at your nearby theater, and even get paid for making purchases online... PLUS you get to keep all the stuff you buy FOR FREE! The concept is simple. The success of any business is built largely upon the quality of its service, as well as meeting the standards set forth by the company. A decline in either of these areas directly results in the loss of customers, their loyalty, and of course revenues. Therefore it is very important to the success of these companies that they constantly monitor the level of service and satisfaction they are providing to their customers. Furthermore, this monitoring must be done in a very pure and honest fashion, otherwise the findings will be misleading and potentially disastrous. In other words, of course the CEO is going to receive top-notch service from his employees, but how well is the "average" customer being treated?

Thus, enter the very "Secret" or "Mystery" Shopper. A Secret Shopper is simply someone hired by a company to honestly and anonymously evaluate the quality of service they receive. How well were you treated? Was your overall experience positive of negative? Were the employees friendly and courteous? Did you encounter any problems? The answers to these questions are INVALUABLE to these companies. And, as a Mystery Shopper, there's only one way to get these answers.....by SHOPPING!

The one-time Lifetime Membership fee is only $19.95 (u.s. funds)

It goes on to say that you pay them $19.95 and they send you all the info you need to get started and not only that it clearly states: This is not a get-rich quick scam, we are a professional membership organization. so I need not worry about it being a scam. I will give it a day or so of thought and let the adrenaline buzz wear off, then decide if I will bust out the Visa or not. Exciting aint it?

It is not very often that I look at the horoscopes, they tend to be of course vague and generalized at best, and to add to that, I was born on a "cusp" and supposedly inherit attributes from both Cancer and Gemini, what this means really is I can read both daily horoscopes and pick which one suits me the best.

Anyway, I found these little summaries amusing.

The Gemini Female

The female Gemini is characteristically tall and slim, with long legs and a small bust. You are incredibly agile and restless, and this energy manifests itself in a tendency to talk with your hands a great deal -- which comes into play often, as you talk all the time, to everyone. You are highly optimistic, and prefer to use this outlook to start a career and have a life of your own.

You are an incurable romantic, but sometimes despair at ever finding true love. You can be quite cerebral during your infrequent periods of rest. You have a wide variety of interests and goals, and have a wide circle of friends to go along with these interests, conveniently compartmentalized by subject. You are a different person in each of your separate social spheres.

The Cancer Female

The Cancer female is often large-breasted, with a broad moonlike face and a heavenly complexion. You are soft though not necessarily big, with hips that are slimmer than your bust and a strong, prominent bone structure. Your eyes are large and very expressive of your inner cerebral world. You are highly emotional and deeply introspective, which can taper of into the occasional bout of depression at a moment's notice.

You want nothing so much as security for yourself and your family, and you will labor patiently and with great subtlety towards this goal, while avoiding impulse behavior. You are chock full of maternal instinct, with which you nurture everyone who is allowed to become part of your exclusive family circle.

I have asked the new IT guy first to install an irc client, he then said no way, not allowed, so then I asked for putty or some ssh client, he said "you dont need that" It looks like it's not gonna happen. What bugs me is that the IT guys of course have irc running on their computers and they use ssh to check on their counterstrike servers and stuff like that.

The only thing I can do now is make it so that my IT guy dosent have time to use irc. I toggled the horizontal scroll on my monitor so that there is a one inch black vertical line on the left of my screen and the desktop is cut off where the date is in the taskbar. Then I grabbed the taskbar and made it as wide as it will go, so its a huge fat taskbar. Then, after backing up my project spreadsheets, I renamed a bunch of them to dll's (client_project.dll) and copied them to our workgroup's shared folder. Oh yeah, we have this company logo we MUST use as our background, so I took the image and shrank it down to like 400x200 and resaved it, so now its all streched out and has like huge pixels and generally looks like crap. The IT guy thinks im a moron now :-)

He spent a half hour showing me how to use the task bar and after fixing the monitor scroll, he put masking tape over the buttons! We spent some time then discussing how to reaname files so that they retain their extensions but so far hasnt been able to fix the company logo issue.

I think monday will be "play with refresh rates" day, and later in the week "fun with caps-lock & passwords"

The movie's have always been the place to go on first, second or third dates, I cant remember too many first dates that weren't movie-dates, but to me, it dosent really make sense. I dont mind of course, I love movies and all, and I suppose if the guy turns out to be and idiot, at least I got to see a movie. The problem for me is that you dont really get to know the guy much by sitting quietly next to him, observing how he eats popcorn, whilst watching basically a giant television. To me 2 hours in cafe or strolling around a park or whatever, would give me more of a chance to get to know him than at a movie. Anyway, recently I went on a date, and instead of going to a movie (which we had intended, but was sold out) we ended up eating at a little bistro and then went rummaging around this MASSIVE book store down town, ironically called "The World's Biggest Bookstore". This turned out to be pretty fun evening and I forgot all about the Film Festival movie I wanted to see, so, i guess this is a little tip for the boys... dont be afraid to go out on a limb now and then and suggest something different than the good old movie-date.

I hardly played bz all week, and I guess its safe to say at least two months since I was in match. Even irc has been cut down to breifly logging on and saying hi.. :( This is not acceptable!! I really dont have the energy to play bz after work now and might get ten or fifteen minutes in before I go to bed each night, which shows now in my ever decreasing skill level.

I kinda miss playing match's, they were always fun, hopefully in the fall everyone will return from vacations or whatever and we can play a few.

Before I left my old job, I had almost convinced the IT guys that I needed an ssh client installed, this would of course let me use irc at work, (which is forbidden). Now upon returning I find a new IT guy so Im scared to even ask him. So for now I suppose all I can do at work is..well...work.

So it's 8:30am and I'm just exiting the 427 to get onto the 401 when I hear this little "clink" noise and all of a sudden my poor Honda Civic is growling away at me, making this huge noise like it has no muffler, for a moment I wanted to just say "fsck it" and continue into work, but with my luck the car would catch on fire or something. After I pulled over I walk behind and the muffler is still there. so then I looked under the front, there is a long pipe that goes from the muffler into I guess the engine.(It bends up at the front where the engine is) Inbetween the muffler and the bend up into the engine is a section of pipe thats all fatter than the rest, this part was hanging down and touching the ground, making my car REALLY loud. :-(

I call my brother, he's already gone to work, call a few friends but no luck and finally call my Dad, who drives out to get me, by this time a tow truck is there and he is trying to hook my car up, Im all stressed telling him to wait untill my Dad is there...finally Dad shows up, looks at the car, tells the tow truck guy to get lost, gives me his car, and fixes mine enough to drive it to his house.

I get to work (my first day) about an hour and fifteen minutes late! It wasn't bad, my boss laughed at me, which I suppose it better than yelling at me. Other than that, the day was pretty good, I was talking to all my freinds most of the day, setting up my PC and generally just getting things the way they were when I left. Oh..one good thing, I got 2 of my cell phones back :-) I wanted my Nokia back but my boss told me to hang on a few more weeks and I'll get one of the "new" models...yay!

So my car will probably cost me a few hundred bucks which really sucks but nothing I can do about it. Tonight I will soak in the tub with a book and glass of wine to compensate for my hectic day.

Oh and Dad, you are, and always have been, my hero!