#food Diwali Night 1998 6 November 1998

"This 52 lbs. package shall be our new God!"

Mmm.. Pokey sticks. If anybody knows of a good pokey-stick like recipe, I'm all ears. I had them last night.

Everybody loves my contact paper that's on my door, including the cool janitor. I should take a picture of the door sometime. I'll just wait until I get the NetCam.

The had a little kid (someone's son), Johnny, on KQ this morning. They were interviewing a coach of some team and the kid asked all these questions, like if the coach still smokes, if the team curses, fights, etc. It was pretty cute. Of course those Carl Sagan type kids do get annoying after a hundred or so "Why?"s.

Ah... my 52 lbs. package has arrived. It sounds really awesome. So now I have a total of seven speakers dedicated to the audio I want to hear (5 speaker stereo + 2 speakers for computer).

It's amazing what you find out in my halls. I found out about a Diwali function presented by the Indian Studen Association. My friend Anand had a few extra tickets so he let me tag along. It was very good. It was meant for a smaller ammount of people than most functions I attend. They performed in the Illini Room of the Illini Union. We were sitting at a table with this one annoying lady who complained about the music they used for some dances. It's almost worse than people who talk during a movie. The food was mediocre, but compared to residence hall food, excellent. The performance was great. They had this cool backdrop with these eyes that would stare at you. I think they used a black light to make it glow. The dances were great too. What really made it an awesome function was the sound. The sound was crisp and clear. The only problems were those inheirent with some Indian singing, such as singers who attain high pitched notes. The event also had a lot of comedy sketches by the emcees. It was mostly second generations which was nice, because second generation people know how to put together an appealing event. I think Molly, Adam, Katie, Tom, Nick and anybody else who's been to an Indian event with me would have loved it.

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#highschool Dave changed Fort Max 5 November 1998

"Moving the journal over here was a great idea. I just hope the users don't mind that we reuse old graphics, woman."

I've started reading CNN, more often. I'm sure you will notice the side effects. And also relating to the page... I've placed the journal on the opening screen and I doubled the length of data that gets displayed. I updated the Calendar, the Friends page and fixes the random problems with how links open.

I heard the KQRS apology regarding the comments made regarding the Hmong. The result is that they have given in to Citizens Against Racism. There will be no more Talk with Tak, featuring Tak the person from Grand Forks with an accent that's surprisingly Oriental sounding. I guess not stating his race does not matter. I think KQ should make up a new character with an accent that can't quite be traced. :) I'm interested in what others think of Talk with Tak or what you think would define something as being racist.

Jesse the Body was on KQ. He also made the front page of the Daily Illini (not the feature article, but the front page nonetheless). Most of my news that I throw at you is usually computer stuff, so here's something from Maximum PC that mentions "the wrestler."

McJorgenson sent me this link.

Apple has a new deal where you can Rent-to-Own an iMac for $30 a month. Sure, it sounds like a good deal. Only a little bit more than unlimited Internet access... except you realize that this is for 67 months. After the first year or two you'll feel like your machine is really out-dated. Then you realize that you are paying $30 for the next 43 months for an outdated computer that, from many peoples view points, wasn't very good computer brand new.

Matt Sundberg graduated from High School today. Slacker.

Anybody who uses the mega-gigantic dryers in Allen Hall should not leave their laundry in their for more than 10-15 minutes. It's really annoying, because if you don't use those and have a decent ammount of laundry, you have to run your load a few times.

The 52 lbs. package has been spotted in Cach, IL at 9:47 PM today. It should be expected to arrive tomorrow or Monday. The last time I saw something at Cach, IL I got it the next day or the day after. That was of course in MN, but now that I live in IL, it should be here sooner. That's right, I live in IL. I am IL.

I wonder if I've regained control of my will power. Jack's Taco Bell poster finally fell. Jack missed two classes today because he went to sleep at six in the morning.

I took my second math test. It hurt.

I love this song. "Give it to me, baby!"

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#web development ICQ 4 November 1998

"I feel like a diabetic kid in the sugar free section of Mr. Bulky."

Dang, these journal entries are getting long... there's only room for three entries on this page. I think I will double the limit size limit (the entries are limited based on how long the entries are, not the actual number of them).

ICQ 99a is in limited beta (i.e. you cannot download it). It's cooler than all hell. I've had one major problem with ICQ. My list had too many people, and I wanted to organize them. The other thing that was a wish was to get rid of those stupid headings that say "Online" and "Offline" these are now offable. So here's a list of new things.

Features I like
• Groups - You can organize people on your contact list in groups (reshall, friends, family etc.) The groups are collapsable for those of you who have a ton of contacts.
• Global Online Alert - When a user logs online there will be a knocking sound, an icon will flash in your system tray and the user's name will flash in on your list. You can configure this. I have it so it makes no sound, but the contact list (which I keep open at all times) will have the persons name flash a little. It can also flash to notify you if someone's come out of away.
• key shortcuts
• (just found this out) When you get a message and have no clue what it's about, you hit "History" and the message box gets bigger and you can read the history and reply at the same time all in one window.
Otherthings that are new.
• Annoying typewriter sounds when you compose a message. (Easily disabled).
• Colored Messages - You can color your messages so the recipient will get a colorful notice from you.
• Reminders - Set ICQ to remind you of future events and activities. open in new browser

When I installed it, at the end it said, 'Remember "Time not important only life important."' I thought that was cool. Hopefully the actual release will be a bit cleaner. The instal was a bit too flowery for me. Some of the simple things have been over cluttered. Some things have been nicely refined.

There's a 52 pound package coming from a warehouse in NY. It was last seen in Island City. Hopefully here by Monday.

The Chem test today was bad. It's okay. I understand the subject material. They ask a lot on tests. I think my problem is I learn certain things just to be familiar with them, not to answer all the questions on a test. I should learn differently.

Jack's posters fall. Not the Taco Bell poster though. I wish that would fall. His other posters fall though. I think it's annoying. My posters don't fall. I have six. One is on the ceiling. Heck, a CD I stuck on the ceiling hasn't fallen yet either.

Jack's not used to my being used to coldness. Like my room is cold now. (Same temperature as my basement normally is.) I like it that way. It's like free airconditioning. Actually now that I think about it, it is cold. But I just hate climbing the stairs where it's burning hot and then getting into a burning hot room with Glade Plugins which are being used to mask dorm room smells. I need constant cold fresh air to flush my room out. Maybe I'll shut the window tonight.

HDTV is now available at an alarming price. Most people don't need it. In fact most people are better off throwing their damn TVs out the window, but that's another story. You see, people could care less if their TV looks sharper or not. For the most part, it's not that big of a deal. It's nice when watching a full screen movie, but that's about it. Nicholas Negroponte wrote an article (which you can find on his page) about why HDTV is a waste. He basically says TV is crap with euphemisms.

My eye is severely red. I think I need a new one.

I went to a loveline-type thing at Allen Hall. It was very amusing and interesting. Much better than the real "loveline" on MTV and Westwood 1 Radio Network (or whoever puts out Loveline).

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#friends Votomatic for the people. 3 November 1998

"That's a great plan, we'll just steal some of Yishan's ideas."

A better analysis of my web logs show that page requests has doubled from July to August. August is when the new site went up and people started getting on faster connections. It's increased by over 1000 page requests each month since. Each week of last month has had its page requests increased by about 100 hits too. The top Universities are the U of M, UW, UI, NYU, CalTech, CMU, UPenn. The top hosts are: Laureen, Adam, Yishan, Me, Dan (Hi Dan!), Daniel Lavenda, Mr. Borchert (Hi Dave!), Amy (Hi Amy), MikeJ, some other Borchert computer, possibly Pat's (Hi Pat!). Ten is enough people to list, I think. I said hi to the people whom I didn't think visited my site. The top page to visit is of course the random sentence generator which reloads itself over and over. I bet that skews the traffic. Those who look at the Random Sentence Generator for longer periods of time... well.. oh well. The Journal is 15% of the traffic on this site, and is what people go to most (besides the main page, etc). This was all generated by Analog. Laureen, Adam, you remember a few days ago, and you looked at Yishan's news page, and he called you things like a "geek" or "nerd?" He was right.

I like how the results graph doesn't show the entries that weren't voted for. I'll impliment this change sometime. I'm very busy this week. I've got a test tomorrow night and the night after and an essay due Friday. The Thursday test is horrid Graph Theory.

Holly crap, Caroline is a cool person, more of this model of human should be created for future generations... hmm I'm becoming Bene Gesserit like in my thinking. Yes, we should keep an eye on this line. This update is for you, because you asked for it. I'd have probably updated anyway because of the elections. I just think her web page is really neat, and she was in Newsweek.

We've been having November Rain in Urbana. Very annoying and very cold. However, my Jacket, which bundles me up more than Kenny's has nifty anti-weather mechanisms build into it.

I'm now reading i, robot from some guy named Asimov. There's a small story that takes place in 1998. The development in robotics/computers in the book is far different than what it will be in this universe.

These are links concerning the KQRS Morning Show. They are interesting. They are also biased because the Star and KQ are enemies. [Link 1] [Link 2] [Link 3] [Link 4]

I voted using an IBM Votomatic! I voted mostly all democratic, just because I wasn't up to speed on all the issues of all the candidates in all the races I had to vote for. Ryan (R) beat Poshard (D) for Gubenautical race. Moseley-Braun (D) is behind by 100K votes v. Fitzgerald (R) for the Senatorical race. I also think incumbent, E-wing (R) creamed Prussing 63 to 37 percent. Then there is Minnesota... all I can say is good luck Jesse, who just won.

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#computers Site Statistics for October 1 November 1998

Overall in the last few weeks, I've been getting more hits.

• 13190 hits for the site, 1363 user sessions for the site.
• I had 45 user sessions per day (439 hits), this is probably artificially inflated since I and others probably check the page a couple times a day.
• 455 hits for the main page, 412 user sessions
• This journal wasn't viewed enough. I am considering redoing the site to change that. The friends page was viewed more (63 hits/57 user sessions).
Should http://www.ftmax.com open with the Journal in the main frame, or should it be left as is?

Yes, the Journal is why most people come here.
No, I like the way it is now.
I don't care.

• Most user sessions come from me and some of my friends here. Actually I know a few of them look around my site, so not all the hits are from me.
• The following ranking for user sessions is as follow: U of M, UW, Caltech, NYU, CMU, Visi.com (a local ISP in MN), Uswest.com (Kay's ISP), Dan Lavenda and finally a computer named ZENO. Their is only one computer I know of by the name of ZENO, and that is Tom's dad's.
• The top referring sites are Tom's page, Adam's page, Ben Schack's page, and Yishan's news page.
• Most people use Internet Explorer.
• Most people use Windows 95, with a close following by "Others."
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#food All saints day... 1 November 1998

Meijer is really annoying. They often change their prices every week, thus causing confusion on how much you are paying. Like I paid almost $8 for a 24 pack of Lipton - almost as bad as a vending machine, but not quite. Yesterday Mike (my neighbor) and I went to Meijer, and since I was there I felt compelled to buy something. So I bought a some Frappuccino, I ended up paying $4.80. WTF. Meijer also doesn't price all their products on the shelves. That's the most annoying thing in the world. Of course, I wasn't doing my part in asking for a price check, but really, $1.20 for some fancy yuppie drink? You've got to be kidding me. I may have to go shop at Target for more stuff.

Mike and I noticed a Perpetual Dawn (sorry, it's a song from Orb) yesterday. It looked like it was 6AM, 7AM and then 7PM at various periods during the day. In otherwords, no day yesterday. No day today either, although I was never outside. It has been cold, but I have to tolerate it. I think Jack starts to smell after some time in the morning, so I keep my window open and my door open to bring fresh air into the room.

If you step into my hall you can smell the boo-puke left by somebody who didn't know his boo-beer tolerance this Halloween. Drinking to the point that you are going to vomit is stupid. Vomiting in the hallway is stupid. Stupidity doesn't belong in Allen Hall.

I guess my neighbor had a talk with Jack and pointed out that we don't get along. Jack and I had a talk. I hate having talks with Jack. I mean, I don't mind talking to Jack, but addressing issues is really annoying. Mainly because it deals with a lot of judgement. I suppose it's something I should get used to. I guess both of us just get "pissed-off" at each other and need to tell each other when this occurs. I suppose it's a good thing. I went into this whole roommate business negatively to begin with. I will still make fun of Jack and post updates that are demeaning, because Jack is wierd. He admits it. I am also going to have to find a clever way of recording him on my computer, Cooledit is too big. Okay, I just found some shortcuts... :)

Laurel Prussing When asked to indicate which principles she supports concerning education in a survey from Project Votesmart said, "Give children vouchers to choose their parents." Perhaps a typo, I like it anyway. I decided instead of seeing whether I like Ewing or Prussing (for House of Representatives) to screw it. My vote goes to Prussing, because she seems like she'll support the things I like. I'll make up my own arguments for not choosing Ewing. "Ewing is the demon-seed spawn of the devil. His last term in congress brought the devil one step closer to taking away everything in which you believe. This Novermber when you vote, don't vote for evil, vote for non-evil, vote for Laurel Prusssing. Laurel Prussing lets kids choose their parents."

Sounds like India has it's own "religious right," known as the Vidya Bharati, making educational demands. They want to ban certain poems and stories. Schools shouldn't teach the young "graphically about the female body and her emotions."

Our school has this cool thing. Let's say you are going to a web site. If it's busy or down or just hard to connect to, this webcache system (128.174.0.245 or webcache.gw.uiuc.edu) takes up the task of trying to connect to the site for you (I'm assuming that's it's only task, so it's faster). I also think that it just serves you frequently vistied pages. So if you go to Yahoo, and someone else does, it's their right away, and the webcache thing just gives you what it has. That is kick-ass.

Little things

• Today we can celebrate the fall of the Ottoman Empire (1922).
• Jack got a "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" poster Friday and put it up Saturday. It's scary.
• I've cleaned up my new "better-than Adam's loft" desk. There;s a lot of space to work with. Of course that space may change in a week or two.
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#friends Take this Adam Engelhart 31 October 1998

Adam Engelhart, reputed for having his own domain name states on his web site that he has a loft. He goes on and on about how great his loft is... well guess what Adam? I have cool stuff too! Basically every student is at the University of Illinois Residence Halls is given a 2'x3.5' desk and a 1.5'x2' dresser that are of equal height. So today I went to Menards (goddammit, if I hyper link it, you probably wouldn't go there... I mean it's Menards... what are they going to have on the damn site?) and bought a nice laminated piece of wood that just barely fits in my room that now sits between my desk and my dresser. So I have a big L-shaped desk. I also have my fridge and microwave right under it. So there.

Check this out.

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#computers (no title) 31 October 1998

I guess Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0b2 was not supposed to be announced to the world like BetaNews did. Luckily, I installed it before Microsoft did anything. I should probably redownload it for a better build, but I don't care that much. Beta 2 fixed my shortcut/shares and other miscellaneuous icon problems. It installed smoothly (smoother than any other IE, that I can remember). It's worth upgrading to if you have 5.0B1 otherwise don't bother, it may not be worth the hassle.

My mom sent a signed affadavit (actually my dad signed it) for my netcam. I forecast that I will get it around the middle of December at the latest. She also sent a package via Airborne Express filled with Candy. :)

I'm voting for senator Mosely-Braun, the incumbant. It was between her (Democrat) or Jim Davis (Natural Law Party). The Republican candidate didn't fill out this election survey, the libertarian and the US Taxpayer both annoyed me. The Reform party was okay. I agreed with a lot of what Mosely-Braun and Davis had to say, but Braun was a little bit better in most issues. I'll decide on whom else I should vote for later. I'll probably default to Democrat or Natural Law Party (because they are a promising third party with many views akin to mine).

My song of the week is Juno Reactor's Feel the Universe (Kox Box remix)... I'll upload Feel the Universe to the MP3 server of choice. It prompted me to download more Juno Reactor and more Kox Box and other Techno MP3s I could dig up. It's funny, I tend to always have more Techno MP3s than the MP3 server. Even after uploading all I have, I end up finding more stuff.

• I ran today (Friday)... out of assumed necessity. It was nice.
• The web site for Maximum PC is finally online. I think it will be equivilant to the other computer sites I visit, but who knows.
• Hate Microsoft, Love Linux? See this.
• Look at this. I fully expect that this site would use mouseovers (the buttons change when you put your mouse over them). Strange.

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#general Live Forever! 29 October 1998

Ray Bradbury's (he's older looking in real life) lecture at Foellinger Auditorium was the most motivational thing to which I have ever gone. His lecture was mostly his childhood and about his interests. He spoke of how it was his desires and love for the things he did that got him where he was. I won't detail to much of the event here, as he spoke of a lot of things. I was so tempted to run after the car that drove him from Foellinger to wherever he needed to be. He had a few good lines, "Find something that makes you hyperventilate and scares your friends." "Find something you really love and find a girl who can stand you." He was a real advocate of doing things that you loved and doing it for the rest of your life. He did announce a few things. Farenheit 451 featuring my favorite actor, Mel Gibson, is due this January or February (IMDB says something different, however). He also said next year to look out for a redone Martian Chronicles. He said the original is too boring. He talked about the endings he redid for a bunch of movies. He'd watch a movie, hate the ending, and then he'd rewrite the end to make it better. I love that. He wrote, because he loved to write. What a cool guy. He's inspired me to write. Something, anything. I've always loved the future and robots, so I'll write about that - regardless if it is crappy. I now want to go buy Legos. I love Legos. I love making my own little universe of the future using Legos. It's the funnest thing in the world.

Oh yeah, umm... PS. He still writes books. He's in the middle of four right now.

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