Highest of Highs, Lowest of Lows
Man, quite a range of feelings tonight. Started out great, headed out to the Chumash Indian Casino when enticed by a friend of mine... He and his two roommates met up with me there after I brought along a guy and girl from my hall... Seemed like as soon as I walked in I was winning. Hit the Let it Ride table first, got some decent hands, but then busted out a full house after going about halfway through my initial $100, that won me $200 right off the bat, and I was ahead for the rest of the night... Eventually made it over to the machines and popped a $20 in there, ended up cashing out with $100 following a half hour session there, headed for the cashier again... By the time we left around midnight I was up a couple hundred... Pretty nice, although one can't be guaranteed that amount of luck each time, its nice to know the next couple times I'll be playin with their money...
I've been seriously abusing the elipses lately. For some reason my thoughts don't feel like completed sentences, more like fragment run-ons that need an elipsis to emphasize them as such. Go figure.
Worst part about the casino is the smoke though, I guess it makes sense that people who are addicted to gambling would be addicted to other things just as easily, but man, after a couple hours in there I feel like my lungs are closing up, always a relief to get out into the open air afterwards. Basically had a great all around time, probably because I was winning. Currently listening to "At the End" by Linkin Park, quite a catchy chorus, been whistling it for at least a couple days now.
I swear, the world's most lame thing is when one meets someone who one thinks is really neat, gets to know them and go wow what a great person, and then suddenly one finds out one day something about them that just shatters this ideal image one had. Like watching someone light up a cigarette, stumble back into their room from DP totally wasted, or find out something about their personality that is just an absolute clash with one's own.
Sometimes I feel like I'm too self-righteous or too rigid about my morals and opinions on such subjects, but trying to change that would just be lying to myself. I don't think everyone is too far gone though... Like the guy I made a bet with so he would stop smoking, I think many of those types of people have the will to change their ways, they just need a good enough reason.
Am I the only one who looks for commitment and trust and values in a relationship? Am I the only one who notices someones eyes before any other curve on their body? Am I the only one who's going through college not to "play the field" but instead find the right someone special? Am I the only one that doesn't put the physical aspect of a relationship at top priority?
I feel like barfing. I'm not sure whether its the smoke inhalation, or just the things I've heard about and witnessed today. I can only hope I'm only seeing part of the story, that there's something behind it that reveals the true reasoning and gives it a purpose . If there isn't one, then why would someone lower themselves to that level?
Friday, September 28, 2001
Like a Painting...
That's what the ocean out here looks like lately, especially late at night with the moon shining bright (I'm a poet and don't know it). Watching the light glistening over the rippling waves, man, can't get much more peaceful than that. Skipped a day again, naughty me, but there hasn't been much to chat about... Wednesday is gonna be a major hump day for me this quarter, got 2 classes on Mon Tue and Thur, 3 on Fri, and a whoppin 5 on Wed... What makes it worse is three of them are sections, although it seems like lectures are even more boring than sections these days... Helped a friend out with math today, struggling to remember how I figured these things out several quarters ago... Figured it out eventually, the memory isn't that far gone at this point.
Played a lot of racquetball tonight, which was quite fun, played against a couple guys on the floor who had been talking trash for days about wanting to beat the pants off me... Well lets just say that they were still securely fastened when we were through. :)
Also managed to stick my foot in my mouth pretty far... A guy on the hall had ignored my knocking the other day and I had made fun of him for a while, so he gave me a story about how he'd had his hand in some girl's pants not his own, or something... So anyway to make a long story short the person I helped with math was in here and it came up, and I repeated what he said... Little did I know that was the girl that was in his room at the time... So not entirely sure what their whole deal is or what exactly happened, but he wasn't too pleased when we discussed it later. Seems like a lot goes on behind closed doors...
Interestingly enough though I found out he smoked cigarettes today as he lit up on the way back from the RecCen... I gave him my usual *you're a dumbass" speech, but later tonight he accepted a $20 bet that he would be able to stop smoking for a month... I'd like to see it hoping, cigarette smoke drives me nuts, I hate it when people come into my room smelling like that. Whether he'll care that much is another story. He did come in and throw away all his cigarettes right in front of me, a whole $4 worth anyway. My friend seemed disgusted when he mentioned it to her though, so maybe he has new incentive. Told them the story about last year, when I woke up at three in the morning to go to the bathroom and happened to glance into a room on the way and found someone unconscious in a pool of their own vomit and blood... Was all over the place, the bed, the desk, the floor... Ended up callin an ambulance, he was in the hospital for like three days after they pumped his stomach... Apparently he was trying to join the "Century Club" where they take a hundred shots in an hour.. Most sad part is he had plans to try it again in a week after he got out of the hospital. I swear, some of these people are just a lost cause. Makes me angry sometimes.
I like to think I'm helping people, that I'm serving a purpose here... I think I am... Well, I'm trying anyway. :/
That's what the ocean out here looks like lately, especially late at night with the moon shining bright (I'm a poet and don't know it). Watching the light glistening over the rippling waves, man, can't get much more peaceful than that. Skipped a day again, naughty me, but there hasn't been much to chat about... Wednesday is gonna be a major hump day for me this quarter, got 2 classes on Mon Tue and Thur, 3 on Fri, and a whoppin 5 on Wed... What makes it worse is three of them are sections, although it seems like lectures are even more boring than sections these days... Helped a friend out with math today, struggling to remember how I figured these things out several quarters ago... Figured it out eventually, the memory isn't that far gone at this point.
Played a lot of racquetball tonight, which was quite fun, played against a couple guys on the floor who had been talking trash for days about wanting to beat the pants off me... Well lets just say that they were still securely fastened when we were through. :)
Also managed to stick my foot in my mouth pretty far... A guy on the hall had ignored my knocking the other day and I had made fun of him for a while, so he gave me a story about how he'd had his hand in some girl's pants not his own, or something... So anyway to make a long story short the person I helped with math was in here and it came up, and I repeated what he said... Little did I know that was the girl that was in his room at the time... So not entirely sure what their whole deal is or what exactly happened, but he wasn't too pleased when we discussed it later. Seems like a lot goes on behind closed doors...
Interestingly enough though I found out he smoked cigarettes today as he lit up on the way back from the RecCen... I gave him my usual *you're a dumbass" speech, but later tonight he accepted a $20 bet that he would be able to stop smoking for a month... I'd like to see it hoping, cigarette smoke drives me nuts, I hate it when people come into my room smelling like that. Whether he'll care that much is another story. He did come in and throw away all his cigarettes right in front of me, a whole $4 worth anyway. My friend seemed disgusted when he mentioned it to her though, so maybe he has new incentive. Told them the story about last year, when I woke up at three in the morning to go to the bathroom and happened to glance into a room on the way and found someone unconscious in a pool of their own vomit and blood... Was all over the place, the bed, the desk, the floor... Ended up callin an ambulance, he was in the hospital for like three days after they pumped his stomach... Apparently he was trying to join the "Century Club" where they take a hundred shots in an hour.. Most sad part is he had plans to try it again in a week after he got out of the hospital. I swear, some of these people are just a lost cause. Makes me angry sometimes.
I like to think I'm helping people, that I'm serving a purpose here... I think I am... Well, I'm trying anyway. :/
Wednesday, September 26, 2001
Spontaneity...
Another boring day til a couple hours ago... Had the two lectures I didn't have yesterday, looks like my statistics course is definitely going to be my most boring on. At least during my vector calculus class I could busy myself doing the homework assigned for the next two weeks, although I guess that means I'll be bored for the rest of the time. Fifty minute Monday Wednesday Friday classes are somewhat livable, seventy five minute Tuesday Thursday ones are just about unbearable. Have a good friend in the statistics one so that should keep it somewhat interesting anyway.
Had really itchy eyes last couple days, think related to me starting to swim again, that happened last year but eased off once I was back in the groove. Didn't get a chance to exercise today, my usual racquetball partner was sick, and ended up driving to Ventura randomly.
Speaking of which, decided to do something spontaneous today and meet up with someone I've never met, another of the members of the online gaming group I'm a part of. You might recall I visited one in Ohio when I flew back to go to the world class amusement park there with the world's tallest and fastest ride... Anyway, this one lives just an hour down the road in Thousand Oaks so we met up halfway at a Carrow's in Ventura and had a fun little chat. I don't know what it is about meeting people for the first time that's so exciting, but I love it. I suppose there's always some risk involved, but as long as you don't see anything stupid, I don't see anything wrong with meeting random people from the online world in real life. I guess I shouldn't say random, since I've known both those people for like three years...
Man I keep yawning and having my eye tear up, guess I'll hit the sack, more tomorrow.
Another boring day til a couple hours ago... Had the two lectures I didn't have yesterday, looks like my statistics course is definitely going to be my most boring on. At least during my vector calculus class I could busy myself doing the homework assigned for the next two weeks, although I guess that means I'll be bored for the rest of the time. Fifty minute Monday Wednesday Friday classes are somewhat livable, seventy five minute Tuesday Thursday ones are just about unbearable. Have a good friend in the statistics one so that should keep it somewhat interesting anyway.
Had really itchy eyes last couple days, think related to me starting to swim again, that happened last year but eased off once I was back in the groove. Didn't get a chance to exercise today, my usual racquetball partner was sick, and ended up driving to Ventura randomly.
Speaking of which, decided to do something spontaneous today and meet up with someone I've never met, another of the members of the online gaming group I'm a part of. You might recall I visited one in Ohio when I flew back to go to the world class amusement park there with the world's tallest and fastest ride... Anyway, this one lives just an hour down the road in Thousand Oaks so we met up halfway at a Carrow's in Ventura and had a fun little chat. I don't know what it is about meeting people for the first time that's so exciting, but I love it. I suppose there's always some risk involved, but as long as you don't see anything stupid, I don't see anything wrong with meeting random people from the online world in real life. I guess I shouldn't say random, since I've known both those people for like three years...
Man I keep yawning and having my eye tear up, guess I'll hit the sack, more tomorrow.
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
It Stawts....
No that wasn't a typo, just pretend like you can hear me saying it in a retarded accent. :)
Got in a good workout today, bout an hour of racquetball followed by some good sets in the pool, my arms have gotten in shape to the point I can't really feel the pain anymore, but my lungs are way behind. Found out this summer my blood pressure is a little high (well, a lot), largely due to me not being in shape. Hoping to see some pretty decent reduction in that over the next couple of weeks as I get back into the scheme of things.
Had my first two classes today, got two lectures clumped at 10 and 11am on Monday Wednesday and Friday, and two clumped at 2 and 3:30pm no Tuesday Thursday along with the randomly timed sections. Anyway, the two today were quite boring, as I assume they'll all be, since I'm having to repeat them all. The 11am CS 40 class is really horrible though, the guy says "uh" or "um" at least every third word, just a terrible experience for someone who is a speech judge once a year for the Academic Decathlon competition. I swear it causes twinges or spasms whenever he does it. To make things worse I usually skip breakfast, so I'll be waiting with bated breath for lunch during that class, hope it gets more interesting. Forgot to mention, he also uses the microphone even though the classroom is tiny, so every um is blasted into everyone's ears from all sides. Oi vey...
Now that I think about it I have no idea what oi vey means. French? Spanish? I speak a decent amount of spanish, but that was quite some time ago. No idea anymore. Anyway.
Seems like anyway is the most common word in my posts as of late. Go figure, I like tangents. Just sucks when you forget what you started with and have to scroll up.
Taught some more people the different styles of Poker we play today, probably going to start gambling for money within the next one or two sessions. Five bucks to get in, worst comes to worst you lose your Lincoln. Probably illegal actually, but gotta spice up life a bit. Gonna probably head to Vegas when I hit 21, just to wander around and see the shows and the casinos that were built since I was last there for the most part. Maybe dump in a couple quarters to random machines, who knows. :) Last year we road tripped to San Francisco in the spring, Vegas sounds good this time around.
Now to an interesting note, an e-mail I recieved today... here's an excerpt:
"You're receiving this message because your network usage has been excessive lately; to be more precise, you alone have been using
almost 10% of the *entire* bandwidth available for ResNet traffic headed for the Internet."
And the crowd says, "Doh." Guess I've been letting more people at my movies than I should, had to cap everyone to 15k/s today, the nice thing being that since it was only the uplaoding that was the problem I'm still able to download the movies I want or whatever else at full speed. What do I care if everyone else has to take ten times longer to download the stuff I already have eh? ;) Snagged the final of the first three episodes of Band of Brothers tonight, pretty impressive since that one just aired last night.
Went to visit my racquetball partner's house where he's living with his girlfriend and a mutual friend of ours.. She had her boyfriend down from the Bay Area as well, so that was the usual fifth wheel concept. The jury's still out on how that'll make me feel on a regular basis. Tried to fix her computer, failed, got the ethernet card installed but they're trying to set up a hub and work a cable modem through all three people while only paying for one, still some bugs to work out.
Alas I must sleep, no class til 2pm but pretty sure someone will be knocking on my door for help with A. their computer B. their programming class C. their social life (yeah right) long before that...
No that wasn't a typo, just pretend like you can hear me saying it in a retarded accent. :)
Got in a good workout today, bout an hour of racquetball followed by some good sets in the pool, my arms have gotten in shape to the point I can't really feel the pain anymore, but my lungs are way behind. Found out this summer my blood pressure is a little high (well, a lot), largely due to me not being in shape. Hoping to see some pretty decent reduction in that over the next couple of weeks as I get back into the scheme of things.
Had my first two classes today, got two lectures clumped at 10 and 11am on Monday Wednesday and Friday, and two clumped at 2 and 3:30pm no Tuesday Thursday along with the randomly timed sections. Anyway, the two today were quite boring, as I assume they'll all be, since I'm having to repeat them all. The 11am CS 40 class is really horrible though, the guy says "uh" or "um" at least every third word, just a terrible experience for someone who is a speech judge once a year for the Academic Decathlon competition. I swear it causes twinges or spasms whenever he does it. To make things worse I usually skip breakfast, so I'll be waiting with bated breath for lunch during that class, hope it gets more interesting. Forgot to mention, he also uses the microphone even though the classroom is tiny, so every um is blasted into everyone's ears from all sides. Oi vey...
Now that I think about it I have no idea what oi vey means. French? Spanish? I speak a decent amount of spanish, but that was quite some time ago. No idea anymore. Anyway.
Seems like anyway is the most common word in my posts as of late. Go figure, I like tangents. Just sucks when you forget what you started with and have to scroll up.
Taught some more people the different styles of Poker we play today, probably going to start gambling for money within the next one or two sessions. Five bucks to get in, worst comes to worst you lose your Lincoln. Probably illegal actually, but gotta spice up life a bit. Gonna probably head to Vegas when I hit 21, just to wander around and see the shows and the casinos that were built since I was last there for the most part. Maybe dump in a couple quarters to random machines, who knows. :) Last year we road tripped to San Francisco in the spring, Vegas sounds good this time around.
Now to an interesting note, an e-mail I recieved today... here's an excerpt:
"You're receiving this message because your network usage has been excessive lately; to be more precise, you alone have been using
almost 10% of the *entire* bandwidth available for ResNet traffic headed for the Internet."
And the crowd says, "Doh." Guess I've been letting more people at my movies than I should, had to cap everyone to 15k/s today, the nice thing being that since it was only the uplaoding that was the problem I'm still able to download the movies I want or whatever else at full speed. What do I care if everyone else has to take ten times longer to download the stuff I already have eh? ;) Snagged the final of the first three episodes of Band of Brothers tonight, pretty impressive since that one just aired last night.
Went to visit my racquetball partner's house where he's living with his girlfriend and a mutual friend of ours.. She had her boyfriend down from the Bay Area as well, so that was the usual fifth wheel concept. The jury's still out on how that'll make me feel on a regular basis. Tried to fix her computer, failed, got the ethernet card installed but they're trying to set up a hub and work a cable modem through all three people while only paying for one, still some bugs to work out.
Alas I must sleep, no class til 2pm but pretty sure someone will be knocking on my door for help with A. their computer B. their programming class C. their social life (yeah right) long before that...
Monday, September 24, 2001
Today Was Sunday, But How Can You Have a Sunday, Without Any Ice Cream?
Found out that Ortega closes an hour earlier than it previously did on the weekends, and a half hour earlier during the week. That's really annoying... I usually go screeching down there at the last minute as it is, no need to rush things even more... Also opens for lunch fifteen minutes later than usual, also annoying since I usually skip breakfast and am starving by then. Hmph.
Got to the pool again today, did about twice as many laps as yesterday, really beginning to feel the shoulders bulking up again, well seems like it anyway. Had a rousing game of Poker tonight, getting all the noobs into the game, teaching them the various styles of the game, getting them addicted before we start playing for real money. :) Then went downstairs to the girl's floor and played an exciting game of Spoons, although we were using pens in their place. Started with a thressome, me a guy from my floor and a girl from that one (very nice people btw, was nice to meet them think we'll become friends) and ended up with about eight, although that made the game a bit more violent (if you've played it you know what I'm talking about).
Helped the girl from the floor above that I had the long convo with the other night find all her classes today, getting kind of a strange vibe from her, can't seem to figure out whether she really does think I'm annoying or is just kidding half the time.
Alas, tomorrow is the first day of school. Upcoming will be ten hard weeks of trying to not get booted out of the major. Got registered for three of my four classes anyway, still going to have to crash one but that's expected. Managed to not conflict my schedule with any of my other priorities, so we'll see how well i manage to do this quarter.
In other news, back to heavy duty downloading/uploading of movies and such, snagged the first couple episodes of Band of Brothers the new HBO miniseries with Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks producing, looks like a good watch.
Alas, class at 10am (ooooh so uuuuuurly), time to sleep.
Found out that Ortega closes an hour earlier than it previously did on the weekends, and a half hour earlier during the week. That's really annoying... I usually go screeching down there at the last minute as it is, no need to rush things even more... Also opens for lunch fifteen minutes later than usual, also annoying since I usually skip breakfast and am starving by then. Hmph.
Got to the pool again today, did about twice as many laps as yesterday, really beginning to feel the shoulders bulking up again, well seems like it anyway. Had a rousing game of Poker tonight, getting all the noobs into the game, teaching them the various styles of the game, getting them addicted before we start playing for real money. :) Then went downstairs to the girl's floor and played an exciting game of Spoons, although we were using pens in their place. Started with a thressome, me a guy from my floor and a girl from that one (very nice people btw, was nice to meet them think we'll become friends) and ended up with about eight, although that made the game a bit more violent (if you've played it you know what I'm talking about).
Helped the girl from the floor above that I had the long convo with the other night find all her classes today, getting kind of a strange vibe from her, can't seem to figure out whether she really does think I'm annoying or is just kidding half the time.
Alas, tomorrow is the first day of school. Upcoming will be ten hard weeks of trying to not get booted out of the major. Got registered for three of my four classes anyway, still going to have to crash one but that's expected. Managed to not conflict my schedule with any of my other priorities, so we'll see how well i manage to do this quarter.
In other news, back to heavy duty downloading/uploading of movies and such, snagged the first couple episodes of Band of Brothers the new HBO miniseries with Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks producing, looks like a good watch.
Alas, class at 10am (ooooh so uuuuuurly), time to sleep.
