:: Venting Insanity ::

:: Saturday, November 22, 2003 ::

lunar eclipse
So, when I went out with Erin and Estelle the other night, we got a good view of the lunar eclipse. I took a few peeks while I was driving over, too. ^^;;

I watched it for a while with my parents. It got about half way before I had to leave for Paul's house. When I got to Paul's, Erin and Estelle were standing outside watching it. We watched it go full and then headed in because it was just really cold that night. By the time we got to the theatre, there was a small 'bite' out of the side, but it was pretty much done.

I don't think I've ever seen a full lunar eclipse before. It turns this really neat shade of red, almost like a crimson color, because of the refractions of light through the earth's atmosphere. The moon never goes dark, simply because the light from the sun is never completely blocked. It was stunning to watch. I just wish it had been warmer so we could have sat out and watched it through entirely.

snapple "real fact" #153
The speed limit in NYC was 8 mph in 1895.

I think people would kill each other now before only driving at 8 mph... o.o;; I don't think my car even idles that slow.

beyblade... more than a tv show
USS Intrepid Plays Host to Beyblade Competition

And here I thought it was just an anime on ABC Family... This is like the Magic: The Gathering phenomenon that stuck several years ago, but for kids. It looks like they have fun with it, though. My cousin had a small battle bowl and two tops himself. We actually had some fun playing with them last Christmas.

sports news
Changes are happening with my Yankees. Some good, some not so good.

Jeter Won't Need Thumb Surgery

Definitely good news here. I had noticed during the series that he had his hand taped up, but hadn't heard anything as to why. Luckily, he's got time in the off season right now to get himself back to 100%.

Pettitte Travels as Free Agent

One of the best pitchers the Yankees have is Andy Pettitte, and now he's a free agent. This isn't going to be pretty...

let there be spam
Or not...

House Passes Anti-Spam Bill

Bill Gates Praises Anti-Spam Bill

The term spam was applied to unwanted e-mails after a 1970 Monty Python skit in which an exasperated restaurant customer is urged to order the canned meat product until she screams, "I don't want any Spam!"

Ah... Monty Python. Gotta luv it.

:: Friday, November 21, 2003 ::

spam rage?
Unwanted Penis Web Ads Prompt Calif. Spam Rage

Oh man... if only! I would love to do something like this.

no show
Well, she never showed tonight. I waited a half hour, even took the time to renew my library card (since I haven't been to my library in ages), but she wasn't there. I called, got the machine, left a message... never got a call back. {{shrugs}} Oh well. If she needs help again, she'll call.

busy body
I managed to finish up all the records I had to in Billy's database today. So, he should have a nice clean database ready to export all the leads to the other salesmen. I'll probably have to go through theirs looking for deletes and checking for "My Record" flags next time I'm in. Oh well. It's something to do and get paid for.

But, speaking of getting paid... Bill said I shouldn't come in next week... not that it would have mattered because the only day I could have was Monday. Thursday and Friday are the holiday weekend, so the office would have been closed, and Tuesday and Wednesday are just bad because of school stuff and other things going on. So, next week, I'm income-less again. Hopefully, it won't be for too long.

snapple "real fact" #123
Beavers were once the size of bears.

my record cannot be deleted
It turns out Billy's delete troubles are because some of his records got turned into "My Records" and can't be deleted. So, I looked up the issue on Act.com and it's apparently a common problem. Of course, instead of actually doing up a fix patch, they programmed up a work-around utility.

So, now I have to go through the records he wants to delete, one by one, and run this little utility to change the My Record flag from true to false. And that's for about 500 records. I finished half of them yesterday.

Hopefully, I'll finished the other half today and have all of them deleted.

But, with the way this little utility runs, I get moments of downtime. So... I'm bored again.

health issues
Dad came up with the idea for me to apply for Family Health Plus. It's free health insurance from New York State for people with low income. Considering I technically have no income, I think I'm probably eligible.

Anyway, I made an appointment to go through the application process next Wednesday. I have to bring a mound of paperwork with me (birth certificate, Social Security card, driver's license, bank statements...) so they can determine my eligibility. I don't know if they have any stipulations to seek employment like Unemployment and Social Services, but my full-time student status should exempt me from that anyway.

speaking of school
I went last night to finish my registration process, but, because I stopped beforehand to get the gift for Annabelle, I was too late. The offices all closed down at 8 pm. The whole place shuts down at 5 pm tonight, so I have to wait until Friday before I can do anything. Stupid Bursar.

But, I did catch Michelle and my present will be making it's way up to Connecticut tonight towards it's intended recipient. I hope Stacy likes the outfit and I hope Annabelle likes the little toy I got her.

snapple "real fact" #171
The most sensitive parts of the body are the mouth and fingertips.

:: Thursday, November 20, 2003 ::

doctor's visit
I went to the doctor today at lunch. He doesn't think it's mono I've got again. But, he thinks it's a virus and not something he can give me anti-biotics for, so I basically just have to keep plugging along at trying to kick it. He also thinks what I've got is allergy related.

I also asked him about the ankle pain I've been having. He checked both my ankles while I was telling him about my past knee trouble. He thinks it's related to that and suggested trying to continue doing the exercises I was doing at the physical therapist's office as best I can. I can't do a lot of the weight bearing exercises because I don't have access to gym equipment (I'd need to join a separate gym for that because Curves works a bit differently), but I can do the resistance exercises and the stretching. Now I just have to actually get myself to start doing them again.



curves is cool
Yes, Mom and I joined Curves. It's kind of neat. It's a thirty minute workout where you go in, spend a total of a minute on each "station" (alternating an aerobic pad or a weight machine). You go around the circuit twice with 30 seconds at each station during the circuit. Then, you have a few minutes left over to do cool down stretches at the end, and it times out perfectly to 30 minutes. You're supposed to go at least three times a week. We haven't done that... ^^;;

However, I like the atmosphere a little bit better than going to a regular gym. Maybe once I lose a bit of weight and have some extra money, I'll check out a regular gym if I don't get health insurance first. Briarcliffe's Patchogue campus doesn't have regular gym facilities for sports and stuff. That's all at the Bethpage campus and that's like a 45 minute drive from home. I could stop on the way home from work, but I don't think Dad would want to wait outside for me to finish since he wouldn't be able to go in with me.

boring-ness
I was so bored today, it wasn't even funny. I thought my brain was going to rot and drip out my ears or something. However, I got pretty far and I'm down to the last 500 names I have to check out. That actually means there's a lot less than that because I know I've skipped at least 350, maybe 400, of those as ones I couldn't do anything with.

Unfortunately, this also means that they're going to have to find more work for me, cut my pay, or just not have me come in after I'm done. With that possibility looming fairly close now, I'm kind of nervous. I like having an income. It's just so hard to find stuff to get an income for.

how hard is it to find a stupid class?
I registered for next semester tonight. Talk about a song and dance to find classes that I needed that didn't conflict with each other on the schedule or were even being offered. We got it worked out, though, so I'm happy. Tomorrow, I have to head back down to the school again to drop off my loan paperwork so the request goes through. Luckily, I don't think any of the classes I signed up for will fill up too fast.

I'm taking MT-102, which is the second portion of my math textbook that I used in MT-101. I'm hoping they're still using that book. With my luck, they won't be. I'm also taking Business Management, Intro to C#, and American History. Yay.

I'm looking forward to the C# class. I've been reading about the language for a long time now, and I know it's like the next step after C++. Considering I took C and C++ slightly reversed... ^^;; ...I'm not too worried about taking that class after Java. The languages are all similar anyway in syntax and the fact that they're all object oriented. It should be fun.

I'm so not looking forward to American History or Bus. Mgmt. {{sigh}} Oh well, what are you gonna do, right? They're required for my four year degree.

teaching again
Well, after several calls where I either had to turn the person down or the student cancelled on me, I finally found someone that I can actually tutor. I'm meeting her on Friday. She's in Accounting I, which is what I'm in, but we're at the same chapter and I understand it pretty well, so maybe I can give her a hand on it. She's going to call me again on Friday to confirm time and place, so we'll see how it goes.

snapple "real fact" #143
"Q" is the only letter of the alphabet not appearing in the name of any U.S. state.

:: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 ::

survey says!

1. What time is it? 11.23 pm

2. Name as it appears on birth certificate: Jessica Lynne Sullivan

4. Nickname(s): Jess, Jessi, Jessi-Lynne, Sailor G, Annie, Jaylene, Molly, Duchess, (and more…)

5. Would you rather be a lot smarter or a lot richer, or a lot
better looking?: I would have to say a lot richer at this point.

6. Pets: 2 cats

7. Number of candles on last birthday cake: 26

8. Hair color: light brown, dark blonde… died a bit reddish with blonde on the ends.

9. Eye color: light blue

10. Favorite Alcoholic Drink: I have to pick one?

11. Current Residence: Long Island, NY

12. Favorite foods: Ummm…. Not sure

13. Been to Africa? Nope

14. Love someone so much it made you cry or sob? Yup

15. Been in a car crash? Yup

16. Were you injured? Nope

17. Favorite day of the week: Never thought about it

18. Favorite word or phrase: “If everyone in the world were normal, it would be a boring place to live.”

19. Favorite Restaurant(s): Fridays, Murtha’s, Courtyard Café, Applebees, Houlihan’s

20. Favorite flower(s): roses

21. Favorite sport(s): play: volleyball, tennis, swimming, softball, basketball… watch: football, baseball

22. Favorite non-alcoholic drink: Snapple Iced Tea (lemon or raspberry) or their Lemonade Iced Tea

23. Favorite dessert: too many to list… lol

24. Disney or Warner Bros: either one, but I prefer anime

25. Favorite fast food restaurant: Wendy’s or Subway… Quiznos is good, too

26. What color is your bedroom carpet: Contractor brown (it came with the place)

27. How many times did you fail your drivers test: 0

28. Before this one, whom did you get your last e-mail from: spam

29. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card: Gap, Banana Republic, Aeropostale, or Old Navy

30. What do you do most often when you are bored: play on the computer

31. Favorite Magazine: haven’t thought about it

32. Bedtime: whenever I’m finally tired enough to consider going upstairs

33. Who will respond to this the quickest? Dunno…

34. Who is the person you sent this to that is least likely to respond? See above

35. Favorite TV show: Haven’t watched much TV lately, but I’d have to say 24 is up there along with NYPD Blue and 3rd Watch… as well as almost anything anime

36. Last person you went out to dinner with: Estelle, Johnny, and Paul

37. Ford or Chevy: Ford (or anything in their large family of cars… {{coughJaguarcough}})

38. Car or SUV: either one, but nothing smaller than a decent midsized (no economy car for me!)

39. Favorite smell: candles right after blowing them out

40. Time you finished this survey: 11:31 pm

easy night
We had an easy class tonight. Got out early because of a quiz. I know I aced it, too.

This teacher is so laid back, it's not even funny. It's really cool, though. He has a website up at mdtco.com where we can find a lot of our class stuff. He uses the web as a teaching tool. He complains about going through his MBA program at Dowling. He jokes around about Microshaft and Nutscrape with us. On top of that, we ripped apart Hilliary Clinton, Bill Gates, and Michael Jackson in one sitting.

On break, one of the guys in class found a book by Bill Gates that happened to have his picture on the back. He showed the teacher, who naturally had several choice comments. Well, this brought about a comment from me about how I'd rather spot a picture of Bill Gates on the back of the book instead of having to walk down the aisle and be forced to see the picture of Hillary Clinton on the front of her book, which, in my opinion, is self-lovingly titled. Living History, my butt.

I want to know how she was able to put together a book on a ton of facts she supposedly didn't remember.

Anyway, back to class...

This started a nice little run of Hillary bashing from our small group of wonderful New Yorkers, including speculation on just how the Witch from Hell won the Senate race. Naturally, I was blamed as a large portion of her supporters were women. I guess I'm not a typical New York woman. But, it was fun anyway.

While the teacher was searching up Hillary facts, he came across the latest entertainment industry news flash that Michael Jackson's California estate, aptly named "Neverland" because the weirdo just won't grow up, was being raided for evidence of child molestation.

Again? Of course, in the current mood of celebrity bashing, we couldn't let it pass us by, so we started coming up with all sorts of Jackson comments... like the rumor that Michael and Latoya are the same person, and how Charlie Sheen dangled the Jackson double out a window in Scary Movie 3, yelling, "How do you like it, huh?" before dropping him when the double's nose fell off.

By the way, nice touch on the nose, Kevin James. Your script was hysterical.

All in all, we had a good time. ^_^;;

missed shopping
So, I didn't go out today. I had planned on it, but I got sidetracked by installing stuff on my computer today. I wanted to go out and get baby clothes to send up with Michelle this weekend for her to give to Annabelle and her mommy. I didn't see Michelle for very long tonight, anyway, so I probably wouldn't have been able to give them to her. I figure I'll see if I can get in touch with her sometime tomorrow and see what day she's going up. Then, I'll hopefully have the time to go after work on Thursday to pick something up and then drop it off at Michelle's place before they leave.

Gotta send a care package!!!

Check out the birth announcement!

snapple "real fact" #168
One brow wrinkle is the result of 200,000 frowns.

:: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 ::

newsbreak
It's been a while since I've posted anything about what I've read in the news lately. I figured I'd have a little fun.

someone's in trouble
Mom Finds Weblog

Yup, that's right. A snooping Mom who apparently got wind of a son's website went searching for it. Guess what. She was successful. Judging by this article on The Onion, Kevin of PlanetKevin is in some serious trouble.

to blog or not to blog
Blogger Fired for Blog Content

Microshaft gives an employee the ol' heaveho for a post on his blog about some Macs that showed up at work. According to his boss during the reported 'sacking', he violated a few security issues and Microshaft felt he had to go. In a report by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Michael is quoted as saying, "I never expected it to go beyond family and friends."

are we for real?
Creators Admit Unix, C Hoax

Hmmmm... Yeah. This one had me going. But, an elaborate working of trackbacks and comments through about three other blogs brought me to this. Thank you, April Fool's.

It would be funny if it was true, though... even if it meant being totally frustrated by the fact that I spent how much time learning Unix, C, and C++ in school because of someone's 20-year-old April Fool's joke.

:: Monday, November 17, 2003 ::

Wind


The Force of Nature Quiz
brought to you by Quizilla

-----


You are LARVA from "Vampire Princess
Miyu"!


ANIME QUIZ - Which Anime Vampire Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

-----


You're Most Like The Season Spring ...

Fresh faced, with a young outlook on life - you
smile at the world and expect it to smile back
at you. You're mostly a bubbly, fun - innocent
person. Described as cute possibly. However,
you're a little naive about things and tend to
be a little too trustworthy.
As the first season, It Makes you the youngest -
and so most immature - but people are inclined
to look out for and protect you.

Well done... You're the most fun of the seasons :)


?? Which Season Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

-----


Embers, smoke, ash... you are a fire dweller. A
mixture of the fierce and the sanguine, you are
never afraid to show your true colors. You
rarely go halfway on anything, and are regarded
as an extremely passionate person.


Which Other World Are You Secretly From?
brought to you by Quizilla

-----


Who's your Pucca Character? Take the quiz! Brought to you by Lovepucca.net!

-----





What Kinmoku-sei Character are you most like?

-----





Believe?

can i get a 'blah' in here?
Okay, lame, but I don't care.

I'm stuffy. I slept most of the weekend, only going out once Saturday night to hang out at Estelle's. I bought some Benadryl on my way there, which made me sleepy. Luckily, the sleepyness wore off before I left. Unfortunately, I didn't get home until 4 am. So I spent most of yesterday in bed.

Okay, make that all of yesterday.

Anyway, Erin was over, too, and Jay stopped by after work. While we were there, we watched Miss Congeniality, Spaceballs, and Scary Movie. We were in a comedy mood. The baby slapped Estelle good because he didn't want to go to bed, but he got his comeupance for that and ended up going to bed anyway. Like he would have been allowed to stay up after a slap like that.

yawn
School's boring. As usual. I'm just hoping I can survive the depths of geekdom that is my Java class. Accounting is a yawn, too. Must... stay... awake...

I'm trying! I really am!!

work work work
Work is a bore, too. However, these past couple weeks weren't so bad. If I hadn't been sick, I would have been able to enjoy the small change in pace. With Lori out, I was doing some different things, like order entry and stuff. She's back this week, so I'm back to only doing my state codes and answering the stupid phone. However, Bill wants me in an extra day, so I get paid for three days instead of just two. Yay!

snapple "real fact" #158
The first MTV video was "Video Killed the Radio Star", but the Buggles.