This site now exists. The main item of interest so far is
the log of my progress on the Lightning Technique, a variation of
the so-called Uberman sleep schedule. Check it out on the projects page.
Soon to come: lots of pictures.

Finally I've returned from my period of computer isolation
and huge hassle which was so ridiculous that I'll inappropriately describe it all here. It started when I stupidly
deleted my linux partition, without bothering to remove the bootloader GRUB (which I've now learned is a pain to
remove no matter what. So when I tried to boot the computer, GRUB would come up, not no what to do, and give me
a prompt I had no idea what to do with. To get the computer to boot I used a boot disk I had created to be able
to use the CD-ROM drive, and installed windows 95 on the old linux hard drive (which was the goal in the first place
so that I could play some old games that don't work in windows XP). My DVD-ROM drive had just broken so I had to
borrow a drive out of a roommate's computer and load its driver onto the boot disk. I got win95 up and played games
for a couple days and didn't have much to do with the outside world, but still had the problem of all my important
files sitting on the winXP drive and no way to get them since XP uses NTFS. I could install win2k, but I didn't want
to delete my games and/or not be able to play them anymore because they don't work in 2k either. So the best solution
would be if I could repair the winXP installation somehow. The message board solution to removing GRUB was to type
"fdisk /mbr" at a DOS prompt and format the master boot record. I loaded up with the boot disk so I could get a prompt
that would give me access to the drive, but unfortunately neither DOS nor fdisk understand NTFS so that didn't work.
The other solution was to use the WinXP recovery console and type "fixmbr" to fix the master boot record. For some
reason I've been completely unable to boot from a CD for a while, and this was necessary to load the recovery
console, so I had to get and load up the setup diskettes you can use to start an XP installation. Unfortunately
I apparently set an administrator password for XP and forgot about it because the recovery console wouldn't let me
in. So the only solution was to install win2k on the drive that had 95, copy over all my files, then wipe the XP drive
clean and reinstall that. Fortunately it turned out to my surprise that I could upgrade from 95 to 2k and NTFS
without deleting my files so I still have the games although not all of them will work. That was about the only break
I caught in this whole affair. The last thorn came when during the XP reinstallation a hard drive's power
cable somehow popped out spontaneously while I was in the other room and froze the installation, but to its credit
the installer was able to pick up close to where it left off.

That was fun wasn't it? I know it was for me. So as for site news, I'm update to update the
Uberman logs, and then start scanning pictures.

The Fotomat is now up and running with about 110 pictures. In fact that's almost all I have
at the moment that I personally have taken, however I will soon be adding a wave of pictures from my traveling
compatriots that will fill out the photographic experience of Europe 2001-2002. I will also be taking some more
pictures around here, so it will be good.

Phase 2 of the Lightning Technique experiment has begun, along with the daylogs for it.
Satisfy your info-craving.

I've made the first of a series of upgrades to the Fotomat. I added a selection of Al's pictures from Europe,
including two new areas that only he took pictures of. Coming soon are new and better panoramas. I'm also finally going to write a
piece for the reading room, and probably put up an old favorite as well.

If in need of an unhealthy dose of quotidian doom, I highly suggest you check out the brand new
Extreme Sloth

I've uploaded the new, much-improved panoramic photos to the Fotomat, and two completely new ones. Later
today I'm going to add the first two pieces to the Reading Room. That means all but one section of this site will have real content!
Consider yourself updated.

Reading Room is now contentful. I also added a nice little touch to the Fotomat, in the form of a pictorial Panorama button. Not
really sure what to do next, but I'll think of something.

Here's something. I went to see Jad Fair play tonight. My reaction alternated between youthful enthusiasm for the innocent, and feeling
like everyone in the room was having a joke played on them. It was Jad and someone named Rob, and Rob would make drum sounds with his mouth
and Jad would shout and talk lyrics and strange noises with no semblance of melody. The only instruments were one guitar and a megaphone.
They used a lot of cool effects on the vocals and did live sampling and layering of it, so musically that was pretty impressive. Song-wise, though,
it was unabashedly thrown together, and a little too far on the "lo-fi" end of the spectrum for my tastes. I do admire Mr. Fair for doing things
completely his own way.

Added another little upgrade to the Fotomat--scans of patches we got in most of the European cities now grace the lists
of pictures. Had an insane dream last night that will be added to the dream logs when I get back from work tonight. The next stuff to be added
will be a comments (from you the viewer) page.

The new thing should be apparent. Look at that beautiful submission form over there. Give it a shot, it's easy. It
actually works too, so that's a plus. You don't have to enter an email address if you don't want, you coward. The form is on all the other
pages that seem comment-worthy so far.

Check out this insane dream. It's not that bizarre in terms of ideas,
but it made me crazy at the time. Why not contribute your own dreams to the reading room? It's a dream party and I'm fascinated.

Saw Ben Folds play completely solo last night, it was surprisingly good. He played lots of old BF5 songs, even some
very old ones that float around the net as early demos, "Kalamazoo" and "Silver Street." Underground, Philosophy, Last Polka, Where's
Summer B, One angry dwarf, Evaporated, only a couple off Reinhold Messner, and most of his new album that I haven't bought. He somehow managed
to break a piano string that looked to be about .5" thick. The singer of Divine Comedy opened, also playing solo, and was very good.

I've decided I should devote my attention only to music for a week or so, to make sure I don't waste the summer without
doing anything. I'll keep updating the site but probably hold off on major new things, except putting songs up.

Finally saw star wars tonight. No one is likely to benefit from knowing my opinion of it so I'll keep it to myself.

My job is mind-numbing, but since it involves working with my hands and looking at what I'm doing, and usually being able
to hear what's going on around me, the only thing to safely occupy is my mind. Therefore before work I take a look at some logic problems from a
book I picked up called "Forever Undecided" by Raymond Smullyan. If you ever see one of this guy's books, buy it and send it to me immediately.
Most of his stuff is out of print and it's all great fun and challenging to your mind. Lately I've almost been getting too good at the puzzles
I have to keep looking at the book every 15 minutes or so. There is one puzzle not from the book that occupied me for a couple of days solid. It
was told to me about a year ago, which is a little embarassing, but here it is (with some trivial details invented by myself):

There is a society of creatures called Leepop who live on an island, that has been invaded by a powerful and cruel man. He decides to kill at least some of them,
in a way that is entertaining to him. The way it will work is this: 100 Leepop from the society are rounded up. They are each wearing a hat that
is either red or black--some are red and some are black, the distribution is random. These Leepop will be lined up in a single file line such
that the Leepop in the back of the line can see all 99 Leepop in front of him, while the Leepop in the front of the line cannot see anyone. Each
Leepop will either say "red" or "black" and if they correctly name the color of their hat, they are set free and taken away. If they do not guess
correctly, a less fortunate fate awaits them, for they are killed instantly. The Leepop are allowed to go in any order and to discuss any
strategy they like before they are lined up, as long as each person simply says "red" or black" once it starts. The question is, how many Leepop
can have their survival ensured, and with what strategy?

Feel free to put questions or solutions in the guestbook.

Went to see Kronos Quartet tonight. It was very cool. They played "Svefn-G-Englar" by Sigur Ros as an encore which was
amazing. They informed the audience that Sigur Ros will be composing one or more pieces for the two groups to play together. Be excited, Be-Be
excited.

If you somehow still had an ounce of confidence in our government, check out the reaction
to the ruling against the Pledge of Allegiance. You really should read that, it's incredibly disturbing.

I've always been fascinated by the variety of names given to the function on remote controls that takes you to the previous
channel. I've seen "Prev Ch," "LC," "Recall," "Last," and most recently "Quick View." Also, only one remote I remember having, had the feature of
ignoring channel up/channel down movements when determing the previous channel. This makes good sense; why would I ever need to press the last channel
button to go up or down one channel? This way I can switch from say 4 to 20, explore a few channels around 20 (since specific interest channels are
often grouped together) then go back to 4 from whichever channel in the 20 neighborhood looked most promising. But only that one company had bothered
to implement this. They don't make anything like they used to.

I stare into the abyss and it stares back at me. Haven't left the house in almost two days, but I'm about to be forced
out by my job. I'm going to take my MD recorder so I can sample some of the machines there and have some metal machine music of my own.

Two new stories in the Reading Room, contributed by associates.

I've just realized the ridiculous nature of the past few years of my life. I'm paying lots of money I don't have for the
privilege of being able to get a well-paying job, so that I can pay back all that money. Sure I took some interesting courses, but not much I
couldn't have learned on my own given the proper motivation. So with this revelation, will I drop out and start living life for real? No, because
that would be hard, and I'd rather take the easy way out. In fact, saying so gives me a feeling of relief, like I'm reassuring myself that I'm not
going to try anything really crazy. Can't think of anything else to say.

Two new things in the reading room. Don't hate me for it.
Last night watched "Crumb" the documentary about the artist R. Crumb. Very inspiring. The most inspiring parts were those showing his two brothers, who are both very eccentric. One is a complete recluse who stays in his room at home and reads book after book. He is highly intelligent and well-spoken, even good-natured about his condition. He has no meaningful connection to the outside world or any other people. The other brother is an epileptic who meditates by sitting on a bed of nails and passing a string of several feet in length through his entire body. Also very well spoken and interesting. The whole family has a way of speaking that makes you want to listen. Anyway, the lesson for me was that for every well-known person who is very interesting, there are two even more interesting people who you'll probably never hear about. The sheer unusuality of these people was inspiring in a society with such powerful normalizing forces.

I think lyrically I'm going to try two new styles--Charles Bukowski (his poetry primarily) and "Finnegan's Wake." Just to have something to try and not have to worry about saying anything interesting.

Last night the roommate and I took a 1:30am Taco bell run. We probably went about 8 miles and saw no less than 10 police cars in various stages of pulling people over. The miracle of this is that when almost at Taco bell, after seeing a police car that had pulled over a yellow car in the middle of the road, we realized our headlights were off. All around us people are getting tickets for having yellow cars and we get away with that. On the way home one police car was sitting on the side of the street facing the wrong way! There must be an explanation, maybe
they need to get ahead on their ticket quotas before they take 4th of july vacations.

Today's electronics lesson: if you're playing guitar through an amp which isn't grounded, and you have headphones on, don't
touch your guitar strings and the metal part of the headphone plug that sticks out of the jack at the same time.

This started when I changed the location where my amp (which is from 1960 and therefore does not have a third prong) was
plugged in, from a good quality surge protector to a wall outlet. I did this just to get the cord out of the way and didn't think anything of it.
Then last night I was doing some recording which involved playing the guitar and using a microphone. I have an I/O unit in a front panel of my
computer that I plug headphones and microphones into.

At one point I thought I was shivering, but then realized I was getting strong electric
shocks when touching various things like the headphone plug, the microphone's 'on' switch, and the microphone preamp. This got more painful each
time, so I developed the test of touching the end of one of my guitar's strings to the object. If it was going to shock me, this produced sparks.
Trying to isolate the source, I unplugged various things from the microphone preamp. Eventually it was only connected to the computer and it still
sparked. So it's my computer. But after some more testing I got these results: when my headphones were plugged in, the other jacks on the I/O
unit sparked. When they were not plugged in, no sparks from those. When the headphones were plugged into my CD-ROM drive, that sparked too. But
the headphones still worked fine, curiously. I thought about this for a while and then went back to testing and listening to music. Now the
headphones didn't work. Very upsetting. Also, when I plug other headphones into the jack, they don't work, so the jack's busted too. Fantastic.
I sulk about this last night.

Then today I try some tests again, and the headphone plug still sparks. But now the headphones work again! So the answer appears to be that I was
touching the headphone plug and the guitar strings at the same time without realizing it, and thereby completing the same circuit as when I touched
the stuff with the guitar string directly. So the guitar string was drawing current from the ground portion of the headphone plug, because the
amp isn't grounded. Somehow this was prevented by having it plugged into the surge protector even though no third prong was involved. So the other
lesson is, use good surge protectors, especially for vintage audio equipment!

Trying to do a series of "1 (or 2) day songs". The idea is to get more songs done than I have been, and for the songs to
be more spontaneous and fun, without being throwaways. I tried to do the first one yesterday but only got the drums done and they were quite
elaborate. Hopefully the rest will get done tonight. It's based around the sound of me going down the stairwell in this building. Maybe one day
fans will flock to this building to recreate the sound. Or maybe they'll flock to their own stairwells for a very similar sound. Well it's nice to
dream.

Have had a few ideas for projects. Might try putting levels in the apartment, as Kramer once talked about but never did.
The pros are that we would be using that space near the ceiling that right now is empty, and then we could use the space under the level
construction as storage. Then we could do the reverse in the other room and have little platforms hanging from the ceiling that we could store
things on! The cons are that, unlike real furniture we couldn't rearrange the levels. Unless...

Thoughts last night most: maybe one day I'll do something good.

The creative process has spun out of control. Tonight: spent a couple of hours trying to come up with some words for a song, then turned the page
and poured out a page full of wordplay gibberish, then decided the song shouldn't have words, on the Zen basis that they only cloud the view of
reality. So I'll either be taking the Sigur Ros route or coming up with words as I record the vocals.

I've made a mini-project out of watching all the Woody Allen movies this summer that I haven't yet seen. This is made much easier by the ability
to rent movies from a local shoppe without paying. Watched so far: Love and Death, Manhattan, others... Yesterday and today were "Stardust Memories" and "Everything you ever wanted to know about sex*
*but were afraid to ask." On the schedule: Interiors, Husbands and Wives, Sleeper, other stuff. I'll keep a scoreboard of some kind going.

The mystery of the electric shocks was finally solved by some good common sense from A. My amplifier was made not only
before the time of three prongs, but before the time of making one side of the plug bigger than the other so that you could only insert the right
way. Therefore I was easily inserting it the wrong way, and hence the shocks.

More prolific of late with the songs, that's the reason for the lack of updates. I've been going at a rate of about 4 songs
written and recorded per week. At some point next week I'm going to stop and mix them all, and make some CDs, and hopefully put mp3s up here.

Happy Bastille Day. I went to a party last night and saw someone from my sophomoric days. When "The Good Life" by weezer
came on the stereo she screamed at the stereo "you fucking bitch!" Disillusionment. We were out on the porch and the stereo was inside so maybe
someone changed it; the previous song had been Elliott Smith so maybe she wanted to hear more of that. Even so, it's weezer, her actions are hardly
justifiable. Those two songs were the only non-typical party music played while we were there.

After consultation with Mr. M, it looks like we are going ahead with plans to put levels in the living room. Exciting times
are ahead.

It's like when you hear a song for the first time, and you know you like it, but then you don't hear it for a long time, but
you still sing it in your head trying to reconstruct that time you heard it. Gradually you make up some words to fill in the ones you don't know,
and you add in this little fill that you think you heard and really liked, and soon you have a mixture of what you liked about the actual song and
some personal things that you have added to it. Then when you hear the song again there's this surprise, what happened to that cool fill? What are
these weird words? Now it's not your song anymore.

New project in the projects room. Not very exciting but it's something to do.

Some seti-at-home numbers. I have currently completed 816 work units in 10322 hours of CPU time. I am a member of the team
College of Honest Ben Jonson in which I am ranked 2nd behind DJ Screwy Louie. I am ranked 2,214 among the 5,895 people who joined the project
on May 18, 1999. In that group a user named "jayster" is ranked 2,228 and a user named "mrklein" is ranked 2,103. As an individual I am in
143,475th place out of 3,847,944 users, which puts me in the 96.267th percentile. Soon these numbers will be going up! Except the rankings, they
will go down.

I'm involved in a Risk match that started yesterday and was adjourned, and will continue tomorrow night or the next day.
I'm nervous, as always, but I don't want to say too much since this is a website after all and someone might actually look at it. Everyone sees
the same board then again, or do they? No, they don't. They see the same board with their eyes but they don't see the same board with
their mind. Another thought added in: why do we think of an idea at one time and think it's great, but then come back to it and think it's not
so great? Sometimes we don't see all the angles, the implications the first time around. Other times, maybe we actually get to the thought a
different way, different neurons fired to get us to a similar place. Interesting implications perhaps for the nature of thought which I am
currently exploring in "Godel, Escher, Bach."

My current musical project needs a new name, we were thinking of being "Interpol" but a band by that name has the lead
review on Pitchfork Media today and apparently they're good. Suggestions are welcome.

Related note, I'm starting to mix down the songs I've done recently. This is the time when it's bad to have the thought
creep into your mind, "wait a minute, who the hell is ever going to hear this?" and those who do hear it probably won't like it. Then you look
around and think, all this equipment, all this stuff I've acquired, what does it mean? nothing. It's what I have decided at some point is necessary
to properly express myself. It's more boxes in the world that take up your life.

Tonight I was thinking of starting a section for this site called "parts of my job that could be used as effective torture."
The problem is, a phrase like "making copies" doesn't sound torturous. It's the harder to explain parts. The leaning over repeatedly for several
hours that can't be healthy for the back. The endless repetition of these menial tasks, with the knowledge that the greater lengths you have to go
to, to get it done (usually due to unreliable machines and such), the greater chance you're screwing something up and it will have to be done over
again. Sometimes a huge effort just for one page, which will not even make the customer actively happy, but merely prevent them from being
disappointed. The hard and fast demands of the job are those of the world as well. This is why I agree with Sartre that hell exists as the
judgments of other people that you receive in your mortal lifetime: it so often seems that one is being punished for something.

People with careers continue to steal titles from me. First it's Hayden with his album "skyscraper national park" which I was planning for years to
use as a song title after stealing it from Kurt Vonnegut's name for a post-apocalyptic Manhattan. Then it's weezer with "mansion of cardboard,"
clearly parroting my recently-recorded "empire of cardboard boxes." Now I hear about a Kris Kristofferson song being covered by Grandaddy on a new
tribute album called "Best of all possible worlds," a song name that the few who saw me play freshman year may remember. Nah, no one will remember, but I wrote it damnit, even if he wrote it first and I stole that one from Candide anyway.

The Abyss may have noticed my 12-day absence, the result of a trip back home. Now a bunch of comments on that.

Saturday, went to the second annual Siren Music Festival at Coney Island. Trains were fux0red worse than I've ever had to deal with and it took 2.5
hours or so to get there. We only caught Liars, Mooney Suzuki and Sleater-Kinney. Sunday woken up by the phone for the first time out of about 50
during the whole trip. This time it was a couple of old sports getting me up for a trip to Philly and the Mutter Museum. Why do museums not let
you take pictures damnit? Spread the knowledge, don't keep it hidden. And it's not like these are national treasure paintings that will
disintegrate if too many photons hit them. After the museum had fantastic cheesesteak. On the ride home listened to My Bloody Valentine's
"Loveless" about 8 times in a row because we were all too damn tired or lazy or crazy or asleep to hit eject.

Rest of the time mostly walked around the city buying stuff with A. and seeing 4 concerts in a row. Patty Griffin, Weezer, Sloan, Mum. Mum are
spectacular. Made me think I shouldn't give up on performing my recent compositions live. They had guitar, bass, keyboards of some kind,
accordion, two laptops, three melodicas, a moog, a Wurlitzer, a cello, 5 people including a drummer who sounded like a computer, and it all worked
perfectly. At one point the drummer lowered a pan into a bucket of water as he hit it with a mallet, for a rising sound. That's what I like, doing
a lot with a little. If Mum are everything that can be right with 'electronic' music, the opening act Kippi Kaninus was everything wrong. This
fool stood up there with a minidisc, a mixer and some other devices and basically hit play. I kept desperately watching to see him make a movement
that produced a specific sound, but no, all he seemed to do was turn knobs on the mixer. The music was alright, but why even bother being onstage?

Sloan were good, but I felt guilty being right in front without knowing the words to most of their songs. Strange, we got there about the same
times relative to show starting time for Sloan and Mum, and for Sloan, a band that's been around a long time and I thought had a pretty good 'cult'
following, the place was completely empty. With Mum, touring for their second long-player, the hipsters were already crowded in and drooling.

Saw a Gauguin exhibit at the Met. Still not sure whether this "art" stuff is a fraud or not. Then again, I could say that about most things I'm
not actively interested in, and a lot of other people understandable say it about indie music, so, grain of salt.

That's about enough boring catching-up. I know I had more, and more interesting things, to say but they're gone now. Now back to your regularly
scheduled absurd chaos.

Sweet heavens, it's August already. I need to get going on all those things...that I want...to do. I thought tonight about how I have no chance of
getting a good CS job because many of my classmates (as related by them during an introductions session in my first CS class) had already had
programming jobs in their sophomore year, and I still haven't ever had one when I'm about to start applying for jobs. I can teach myself things,
but do they care about that? Probably not.

Just watched a cool movie with dubious title "Bongwater." It opened with "Sunday" by Sonic Youth and closed with "Sink to the Bottom" by Fountains
of Wayne, so that alone makes it an enjoyable experience. Luke Wilson plays a drug dealer and Jack Black has a hilarious small role as an
uber-hippie drug guy in the pacific northwest wilderness. It had some weird things and some weak things, but altogether a good movie to watch in
the middle of the night.

Let's see, something interesting. Oh yeah. At the Mutter museum we saw a couple of fetal examples of hydrocephaly/anencephaly, which as the card
stated matter-of-factly is "characterized by the lack of a brain." That was crazy enough, but then I read in a UK trashy mag called "Bizarre" that
some people have actually lived normal lives before it was discovered that they had a tiny amount of brain, and the rest of their skull is filled
with cerebro-spinal fluid, hence the hydro- prefix. These people are rare cases of an already rare condition, but even so it's quite amazing that
they can interact with others and appear very intelligent. The only symptom is sometimes that their heads are slightly enlarged. Needless to say
most hydrocephalytics die pretty quickly after birth. If you weren't already convinced that the brain is about the most incredible thing in the
universe...

Internet still down right now this will go up several hours after I wrote it. Now grammar screwed up sleep time coke fix work damnit.

Thought the internet was still out today, but it turned out I simply had to switch the router off and back on. Maybe the summer is starting to make
me dumb. Need to get back to doing smart things. My list of things to do in the rest of summer: fix my ann arbor organ and try to sell it; learn
how to write a program for windows; learn Python language (maybe); practise with band and recruit members so that we could have a decent live act;
install levels in the apartment (maybe); fix my amp and try to sell that; start wandering the hallways of this building each day and scavenge things
that people are throwing away while they move out; declare as a CS major.

My greatest workplace story ever: Recently my workplace hired a new manager guy. He never seemed to do much or say anything to me except when he was
telling everyone what they were doing wrong. This past monday he had us all sign agreements saying we wouldn't eat or drink on the job, talk on
cell phones, etc., and essentially that we could get fired for making mistakes. Everyone, at least around my level of the workplace hierarchy,
despised him. Then yesterday I got word that he was gone, fired. I figured this was because of his behavior as mentioned above, but then I saw
several coworkers gathered around stacks of paper, talking and laughing. There were 700-1000 sheets of paper, all screen shots from web usage by the
manager guy. And a lot of it was porn. Not only that, he was apparently heavily into bondage. He had also been exchanging emails with females a
good deal younger than himself. This was all on other people's computers during work time. Not only is this bastard gone from our lives, we're all
standing around laughing at what a freak he is. Now that's good christian fun. I can only hope he learns his lesson and keeps the bondage at home
where it belongs from now on.

Another hiatus is at an end. Several days ago I fixed my DVD drive and 10 minutes later my 60 gig hard drive crashed the computer and completely
destroyed itself. I lost the master track files for all the songs I did this summer, a couple of months worth of emails, and some other stuff.
This loss seems to have stifled my creativity; I hope I can get some more done before school starts. The coursepack rush is in full swing at work and
I'm now working almost 40 hours a week with 4 days of work. Not as much time for myself, but since I haven't been doing anything with that time
anyway, what the hell. Sadly I haven't done any of the things on my list of things to do as seen below. Trying in vain to recover stuff from the
hard drive took up a few days, and then my friend M. came to visit so I've been hanging out with him. I should go this week and get a book from the
library on windows programming. I have opened up my organ but I'm without the equipment to test the parts inside, and I still know very little about
what to do. That's enough for now, at least I'm back into the swing of blogging.

This week I continue to realize a goal that I have been mildly pursuing for some time; to work a true night shift. So far this summer I have been
working 4pm-midnight, but this week while we make lots of coursepacks for the bourgeoisie students it will be 11pm-7am. This gives me a chance to
make another comment I've had in my head for a while; for some reason the males at my workplace have all the most common names: Dan, Dave, Mike, Mike,
Matt, Patrick, Scott, Sean, Todd, Andrew, Kevin, Don, Alan, probably another Mike. I think another Dave was just hired. Well according to
this we have 6 names out of the top 25, and everyone is in the top 94 except myself
and a fellow named Wes.

I've been fulfilling another goal virtually, that of becoming a "cleaner," by playing the PC game Hitman: Codename 47. Its inherent coolness makes it
playable and usually enjoyable, but some of its frustrations, mostly the inability to save my progress within a level, would push me away from a
lesser game. 7am, bedtime now.

Inventory of items obtained from the hallway of this bulding yesterday while lots of people moved out:
2 floor lamps, one halogen, one standard bulb
3 textbooks, Psychology, Physical Chemistry, Calculus
20 plastic hangers, including one with multiple bars for pairs of pants
4 modular crate shelf units
4 frying pans and pots
1 cookie sheet
6 plates and bowls, 4 ceramic, 2 plastic
2 draining bowls
1 dish drying apparatus
3 towels, 1 bath, 2 hand/dish
1 combination stepping stool/toolbox
1 computer monitor, appears to be 14" or 15"
1 vacuum cleaner, not operational
12 cans, Miller Lite beer
1 broom
1 mop
3 glass jars with wood tops, various sizes
3 garbage cans
1 roll duct tape
1 bottle, glass plus cleaning fluid
1 bottle, dishwashing liquid
1 1.5 gal container, ERA detergent
1 bulletin board with about 20 push pins and a New York pin

This adds to our previous scores of a TV/VCR cart and a microwave oven that looks like an iMac.

Starting today I am without a television. Starting tomorrow I hope to remember to cancel the cable so I don't pay for another month of it. I am
hoping for a new era of productivity, and today has been a good start. I went into the other room to watch an hour of Simpsons, saw the TV was gone,
so I went back to the real stuff I was doing.

Worked almost a 12 hour shift today. I felt like I might get trapped there because I was still there as the day shifters started to arrive. Once it
gets to 7am or so I start to go on adrenaline I guess, and when someone walks by or says something to me I get this smile that, moments later, I can't
remove and start to realize it probably looks quite psychotic. I also start to occasionally think I see things in the corner of my eye that turn out
not to be there. And this isn't even the Uberman schedule anymore.

Perhaps all this working is dulling my mind, I'm not very mad or sad about anything at the moment. I know the bad things that other people talk about
are true, but I'm not actively thinking about it so I can't write about it. Maybe my mind is adjusting to the new non-TV environment and waking back
up to the real world, or as much of it as I ever see.

An empty apartment with no television. Similar feelings as when I took my long walk and I could hear all the sounds that people rushing by in their
cars missed. Now I can hear the crickets outside, and the television next door. My new roommate doesn't move in for a week. Until then I will be
reading, learning programming languages, and recording music if I can come up with anything.

I was recently re-awakened to the fact that the gears of capitalism are oiled with my blood. This got me thinking, grasping for reasons that my job
is different. It's a fairly typical business, but a small one. The first thing I think of is that by printing the coursepacks for several
universities around here, we are filling a need, and mostly we do it well. This distinguishes us from entities like investment bankers that profit
indirectly by causing people other than their clients to lose money. Then again one of my least favorite corporations, Nike, also fills a need, so
how are we different from them? In at least two ways: one, we don't engage in unethical practises such as employing sweatshop labour. Two, we don't
encourage conspicuous consumption the way Nike does by producing "better" shoes that people are willing to pay lots of money for because they
ostensibly do so much more for you than protect your feet. Now the commercial jobs we do are a different matter that I cannot defend so easily,
because we are working for entities like Domino's Pizza, Princeton Review and Servant Publications (a Christian publisher of evangelism books) that I
really don't approve of. But the coursepacks, I believe, are pure.

It will be important to ask myself how ethically vigilant I will be when I look for a real world job to sustain myself after
I graduate. Software companies aren't the worst of them, except the worst of the software companies that produce spyware and such. Recording
studios are ok, and they fulfill a need. A really nice job to get would be at an audio software company. I'll have to look into what sort of
qualifications apply to that.

Don't trust anyone, especially the news media. This town must have a particular smell to it in late august when it's really
humid because the past few days I've noted scents that reminded me of moving in here in previous years. I just took a walk and saw Michael Moore on
the street, and then picked up the first edition, fifth printing of the 1957 book "Why I am not a Christian" and other essays by Bertrand Russell.
It previously or originally belonged to a Connecticut architect named Primo Castrillo.

There were two hot dog vendors on the street no more than
10 feet away from each other. I saw the $1.00 hot dog sign on the one and went for it without even seeing the other stand, so he evidently has the
better location. Upon further inspection the two vendors seemed to be very nearly glaring at one another. Mmm, hungry for capitalism.

My task for today is to wait for the cable guy. I have an incredibly customer service oriented appointment of 8am-8pm.
Hopefully I won't be asleep when he or she arrives, but it doesn't look good. These days I'm on a sleep schedule of about noon to 9pm, thus ruining
the goal of spending some time outside in the sun while working near full time. Oh well, not much to do out there anyway.

Until now that is. My shortwave radio is now operational, but it doesn't work too well in this steel-framed building. At a
nearby house it fared much better, picking up Radio Moscow and other unidentified stations broadcasting in German, Arabic and others. Nothing in
English yet but that's alright. I may try connecting the radio's antenna to various large metal things around me such as the radiators or the
latticework holding the ceiling tiles to improve reception in here. More reports to come.

I recently found out that I have coworkers named Christopher and Jason. This gives us 8 names out of the top 25. Since
there are three Michaels and two David's, that's 11 people with names in the top 25 out of about 20 people. It's only a matter of time before I'm
pushed out in favor of the "commoners."

This is excellent. It modernizes a long lost hobby of mine. To give you the flavor of it before you
risk wasting a precious click, here's a thorough translation of the sentence: "On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I've now realized for the first time in my life
the vital importance of being earnest:"

In the opposite, hour I took unemployment to traverse before returns to aunt of August in my duration of the value, that is remarkable to be
serious.

Ten hours of sleep today, after a ten hour work shift, for a total of four hours awake and not at work. Tonight, however,
will be my last on the graveyard shift. I then spend the weekend shifting back to a normal schedule so that I can begin classes on wednesday.

Been trying to learn radio and antenna science the past couple of days. After reading several documents purported to be basic,
oversimplified introductions that in fact assumed a lot of knowledge about dipole Yagi take-off angles, I have gained a basic understanding of what
I need to do to improve my Shortwave reception in this apartment from nothing to something. I may start a new Project on the Projects page for the
antenna(e) that I buy or build.

I saw a "Jim" on a time card at work. That's the number one spot! I think there's also a Marty, surprisingly down at 85.
His days are numbered. Observation: There are 17 names in the top 100 that begin with J, one of the least common letters in the English language.

This year on the first day of classes, I find myself more hostile than ever to the crowds of students and being one of them. I hate feeling like an extra in the first scenes of a teen college movie, with pop-punk in the background and fresh-faced idiots greeting one another endlessly. Also I want to start investigating the economics of textbooks. How does a small paperback book suddenly sell for more than $30 when it is used for a course? Of course I've never seen these changes happen, only the results of them, but I feel there must be some sinister forces at work here. I paid $19 used for a 100 page book "Project Management and Teamwork" by Karl A. Smith which looks to be aimed at complete fools. In other words, future managers, I suppose.