Fear the Crab

Started off the day on four hours of sleep. That’s what happens when I get off of work at 2315 and turn off the lights at 0000, only to wake up at 0400 to get ready for school. The waking up wasn’t too bad, actually. I think the primary motivation is that I really need to attend every class, and can’t write it off like how I did in my younger years.

One cup of coffee in the morning, followed by a cafe mocha at 0700. Another cafe mocha at 0900, and by 1100 I had to pee like I could see through time. I actually felt my body shrink after using the bathroom for the fourth consecutive time, and whoever said eating asparagus made it stink has never drunk three cups of coffee. All that caffeine can’t be doing good things for my body, but at least I stayed awake through all my classes.

When I got home I immediately came down from that high. It was not pleasant. I was barely coherent and all my thoughts were jumbled and garbled like encrypted packets sent through a 28.8 modem. I apologize for the computer reference, but after a full day of nothing but, it’s understandable that it’s all I can think of right now.

A bit of good news, though; I finally managed to find that one song that had eluded me for years. I hear it on commercials, in movies, and every which way I turn. It sounds cool, but I never knew the name nor the composer until today. The song I was looking for all this time was “O Fortuna,” from Carmina Burana, composed by someone named Carl Orff. I actually don’t know if Carmina Burana is an opera or somesuch, as different locations would list different things and not in any clear manner. It also appears there is a band (or another song) named O Fortuna, but I avoided those links. After years of searching, I’ve finally found what I’ve been looking for, and now I feel highly accomplished.

The Toyota Tacoma is looking rather expensive. As an alternative, I may research the Nissan Frontier. I’ll have to see what the reviews say; it may not be worth it to go the cheap route, especially if it only hampers me down the road with repairs.

I’m going to turn in early tonight. Regardless of whether or not I’ve said that already, it only lends more evidence to support that decision.

I registered for fall session today. It was a bit of a nail biter, because I woke up at 1030 hours to check the availability of ICS 211 and there was only 1 seat left open. My registration appointment was at 1330, so I had 3 hours to wait on the edge of my seat hoping that class wouldn’t close. I did have another section open to me, but it would have been on a different day at a different time, and I didn’t want to go to campus more than I needed to. Thankfully, that 1 remaining seat stayed open until it was my turn, and so I nailed that sucker with double-stick tape and a big sign stating “MINE!” That was a huge relief, especially after stressing about the class for the past week (the second class, ICS 241, had stayed open the entire registration process, so no worries there).

After registration I drove to campus to pay my tuition ($1135.30) and renew my ID card. Then I walked to the bookstore to buy what I needed, which only turned out to be one book ($75) because the materials for ICS 241 remained the same as the one I had for 141. Since I had saved a bit of money on that, I decided to splurge those monies into getting a wireless internet PC card. I’ve already installed it, but I can’t configure the card until I actually return to campus and talk to the IT department (and also to be in range of their wireless servers). In the meantime, I can take the rest of the week to enjoy the last days of summer vacation.

I took a two hour nap and I must have been exhausted, because the moment my head hit the pillow I was out like a digested green apple. Perhaps that wasn’t the correct metaphor to use, but given the experiences of today, I don’t care because I’m happy and content. Maile and I took Titan to the nearby school in the evening to walk him, and he had tons of fun running around the big field. It seems he has happy memories of that place, because when he was younger Maile would take him to that very same field and he’d run amok. I guess when he’s at the dog park he’s not too familiar with the area, so he prefers to stand around, drool, and mooch attention from the other owners. We plan to go to the park on Thursday, if nothing else interrupts.

Not much happened today. I did some desc work on CheesyMUD and made a few mobiles, but that’s about it. Some would say I’m barely doing enough to warrant my immortal position, but I would disagree. Later.

At work it was a slow day. Nothing exciting occured, and the only notable thing worth mentioning was that Irene claims to not snore when she sleeps. I asked her how she can say that when she’s asleep and likely can’t hear herself snore. She says it’s because Tolkien never said anything. I think he’s being polite.

I’m trying to figure out why my desktop is so slow. By slow I do not mean machine speed, but rather the annoying fact that if it’s left on for a while, it will actually “act” slower. It’s as though something is chewing up all the processor time and it’s clogging up the pipes like a garlic chili dinner down the toilet. Among the clues that tell me this is the fact that my system clock gets slower and slower, to the point that it could be midnight in reality, but the computer will think it’s 2230 hours. The processor sounds like it’s regurgitating leftover spiced ham, and as it’s doing that the mouse is ill-responsive like a needle skipping over a broken record. I’ve removed some programs I no longer needed, one of which being ProgressQuest, a “hands-free” type of game that runs on its own. My suspicions fall greatly upon that cheeky monkey. I removed it, and after a reboot and disk cleanup/scandisk/degfrag I’m going to let it “sit” for a while and see if that fixes the problem. A deep gurgling in my stomach tells me that’s not the end of the problem, however. We shall see.

Today’s Invader Zim episode(s):
Megadoomer
Lice
Germs
Dark Harvest