I got my oil changed today. Actually, I got my oil change, gas, and a car wash so it was a big automotive day. As usual, its been like 5 months since my last oil change (and only about 1500 miles).

After what seemed like hours of intense labor on my car by a cheerful young man, a surly boomer man, and a reasonably attractive woman (well, reasonable considered she is attired like a grease monkey. I've got no problem with grease monkeys- well lubed is all good by me, however blue overalls and sweat rarely are what I could consider "attractive"), the latter asks me point blank, "Why Don't you drive a Mazda?".

I'm shocked of course. I never thought about it before. I mean, why don't I drive a Mazda? My 1989 blue tempo with 110,403 miles on it is a good car, but why not a MAZDA. Then my brain reactivates itself and asks the woman a question I'm dying to know the answer to:

"Why would I drive a Mazda?"

She thinks I'm being a jerk. She falters for a second before coming back with "Well, thats your name, right?".

I think I'll be sticking with my tempo for awhile.

My space heater busted. Now I'm cold. I can barely feel my fingers when I type. I guess it serves me right for buying the high quality $20 space heater from meijers. Now I gotta go buy a new one. I wonder if I can classify it as a business expense. My room technically is my office. Then again, its mid march, and I'm pretty set on moving somewhere nicer this summer so maybe I should brave it for the week. Mmmmm... warmer climates don't require space heaters.

I'm boycotting orange juice. I'm sad about this, because I like orange juice. But I am going to stop drinking it until I stop seeing that annoying ad with the dorky bachelor slob who squashes the bug that drank the juice, but the bug escapes with the cry of PURE ENERGY.

I can't support that crap. The milk ads are clever- they almost make me want to drink milk. The OJ ads are driving me away from a beverage I like.

I'll miss screwdrivers. Maybe I'll try martinis for awhile.

I'm not very musically savy. Basically, if you look at my CDs, you will see 30+ Who and Townshend CDs. A dozen Beatles CDs. Assorted Floyd, my disney soundtracks, Yardbirds, Clapton, Derek & the Dominoes, and yes, even Elvis. But nothing even remotely recent. When the grammys happened, I got guilt pangs. So I bought a CD called the 'Grammy Rap Nominees' or something. Now I hate rap, but I felt like I needed to get in touch with a whole genre of music that I've been ignoring (I actually love DJ Shadow, but thats the closest I've got).

After listening to most of the album, I have to say that it isn't bad. Some of it is even gasp good. Busta, Wycleff Jean, and (the humanity) even the Beastie Boys. Sure, it ain't Tommy, but then again, what is?

I realized today that I hate Popular Science. Why? It's easy: When I was a child (last thursday) my father had a subscription to popular mechanics. I read every issue. He didn't subscribe to many magazines, and somehow each issue eventually found its final resting place in my bathroom. Where I would read them. Over and over again. They would stay there for a year or more. Car articles I didn't care about. Advanced technology that just looked boring. Cheesy cutaway drawings. They were always boring. Never interesting. I read the computer articles and would just laugh at how inept they were. And now I realize I hate Popular Science. Why? I think because they just have similiar names and for that reason alone, it just turns my stomach. I'll be much more careful what I leave in my bathroom if I have kids. Hopefully whatever it is, it won't warp them as much as Popular Mechanics did me.

Damn the post office. I have a 6 32 cent stamps left and they went and raised the rates. Effecitvely obsoleting my already purchased stamps. The way I see it, I now have 3 options:

1. Buy some 1 cent stamps. Seems like the obvious solution doesn't it? But this requires me to go to drive to the post office, wait in line, give the nice man a 6 cents. Total cost: 6 cents plus 45 minutes or so of my life in drive time and line time. I barely have time to take a piss. Over 6 cents! Can I just give my mailman a dime and call it even?
2. Use 2 stamps- total loss- 31 cents per envelope. I only have 6 stamps left, and the credit card bill should probably be paid. This would at least guarantee that it goes out. And I can pickup the new-and-improved 33 cent stamps like a good american next time I go to the grocery store. But I'm dutch dammit- my brain tells me this is sinful somehow. I don't understand it. It might be my upbringing, but I think its more likely something burned into my DNA like male pattern baldness or not being able to smell or the fact that I absolutely detest brussle sprouts.
3. Cut one stamp up into 5 pieces and use it one of the pieces on each of the remaining 5 envelopes. I think uncle sam should let me do this. I'm tempted to just try it. Total Cost: 32 cents if it fails, if it works, the total loss is 27 cents for all 5 envelopes.

I really must just not want to go to the post office. Why doesn't uncle sam just accept the 32 cent stamps for a few months? Its not like the post office is a profitable enterprise to begin with. Ugh. I should be able to pay my visa digitally.

I got a big honkin' UPS. 2 Actually. Jeff swapped them for banner ads with Linux General Store because our house has cursed electricity. Having blown out numerous motherboards and spent far to much time on hold with various tech support companies to get parts replaced, we decided to get UPSs. We had a couple small ones that Kurt or I had acquired at our last job, but these new suckers are huge. They're the size of a small microwave. They have more buttons and LEDs than I know what to do with (hit the link to read the rest of my babbling)

I broke my dongle.

God that sounds sick.

At least I've had better luck then nate. Nate broke Dongle A, then broke dongle B, and uses dongle C (which is a 10baseT/Coax that he "Borrowed" from an ex employer) which is actually broken, and the only way it will work, is if it is taped to a desk so that it hangs out of the PCMCIA card at a slign downward angle. And don't bump it or it dies. He was using Dongle D which was actually my spare. I broke mine a few minutes ago. I stood up. The cable somehow wrapped around my foot and comedy soon followed. I left a nifty chunk of plastic inside the PCMCIA card, and the dongle now has pins pointing in directions that remind me of a "Koosh Ball" from days of old.

I had a spare this time- thank god. Next time I won't be so lucky. Now what I really want to know is why these things are so fragile? We put a man on the moon for crying out loud. Why is it that my house has had at least 4 dongles get broken in the last year? We're not energetic people. Hell I barely leave the house more than twice a week so its not like I'm overworking the thing. Ugh. My hardware karma is now 2 points down this week.

I'm getting to old for this. It's scary but I actually thought that yesterday. Nate and I had begun with high hopes and anticipation for a successful day of hardware toil. A great pile of parts would hopefully yield us a few machines- boy were we wrong...

No, I ain't quoting Kyle's mom. I now have a wah wah pedal. Now, despite knowing only at maximum one scale and 3 power chords, I am fully capable of sounding like a drunk/stoned/insane/arthritic relative of one of Jimi Hendrix's close friends. It's so unhealthy for me that it is positively insane. I figure I just need that backwards strat and them I'm all set- then I could be a sober/insane/arthritic relative of one of Jimi Hendrix's close friends. Rock 'n Roll!

click the link below to read my ramblings written while trapped in concourse C of O'Hare airport yesterday. I booted my laptop and typed till I got bored. It's strange.

Allright the semester is done, so to wrap up I'm posting a few pictures from my photography portfolio. Very time consuming class, but it was a lot of fun.

I've come to a strange point in my life: in just about 60 hours, I am done with school. Not for the semester. Not for the school year. It's not summer break or spring break or christmas break or thanksgiving break. No, this isn't a break at all. This is the proverbial it.

I'm done. Assuming I manage to pass my history exam (which shouldn't be a huge struggle) I will never again be required to take another class. Or At least, I won't feel obligated to sit in classes just to get a little piece of paper that says I'm not dumb.

Instead, I'll have a little piece of paper that says "I gave Hope College lump of money that I could have used to buy a small house and all I got was this lousy piece of paper", gigantic loans, and the sense of accomplishment that goes with a job that is at the very least, done.

In 60 hours I join the real world. That scares the shit out of me. I don't know if I should be more scared of the real world, or if it should be more scared of me. I think it wins- it weighs more and I'm afraid it will sit on me.

Over the last few months I've been coming to grips with my own mortality somehow. And my solution to my fears regarding my imminent death has been vitamins. Specifically I've now got calcium, magnesium, and a vitamin B complex. These things are all supposed to be good for circulation (my family seems to have a history of bad circulation). For kicks, I think I'm going to start randomly trying whatever herbs I can get at the grocery store and see what, if any effect they have on me. Fortunately my brain treats all substances in a wonderfully psychosematic way. If I think I'm taking something good for me, I feel better. I'm gonna buy me a big jar of Vitamin Placebo next time I'm at the store. Sheesh I'm messed up. But this is a lot better way to deal with stress then shooting school children as they pass by my window during the afternoons. Besides, I'm a terrible shot, I'd just wound them, and wounded kids would tell.

I dunno if watching Armageddon again this weekend brought this on, but earlier today I was eating a bag of O'Boises 'Potato Crisps' when it began to bother me that they were called 'Crisps' and not chips. I debated with nate. At first we considered that the thing that defines a chip is the presence of potatos. But that isn't right- because O'boises aren't chips, yet are obviously made with at least some potato. Plus there are Corn Chips which have no potato in them, but yet still are labeled as 'Chips'. We concluded that chips come in bags and crackers in boxes, but that still doesn't explain these o'boises yet. I worried about this so much, that it became extremely apparant that I'm really working too hard to avoid finishing my paper on propaganda & art that is due before thanksgiving. ugh.

Last week my car died (again). have I ever mentioned that my car and I share a psychic link- it knows when I need to leave town for something, and it dies explicetly to make my life hell. Anyway, last week I had a massive project that needed work at the art building on campus. Damn thing wouldn't start. Had to pick a friend of from the airport later that day so I was pissed as hell. Anyway the damn thing wouldn't start, so I walked (more like stomped) over to campus in freezing slush. I was decidedly uncheerful. First thing I did was hop over to a computer to email the GH2 roommies and see if I could borrow anyone's car. While writing email a girl walked in. Artsy chick. Hot as hell. I obviously looked a little cranky (she probably was clued in by my muttering and swearing every third word I typed) and she asked what was the matter. I explained that my car died and commented 'murphy's law strikes again'. The cute art chick replies 'what's murphy's law?'.

I guess if you're cute art chick, ya don't have to know much.

This entry doesn't have a point- its just an observation. I've noticed that I seem to have to many ways to change the volume of my computer. My laptop has an internal thing where I can hit a special little key, and PgUp & PgDn to adjust the volume. My speakers have 3 little knobs on them. My woofer has a little knob and a button. I can run any one of a zillion applications that involve sound, and most provide a mixer. I have 3 such programs running right now. I even have special programs that are just volume controls, they used to be on my Wharf, then my Dock, now swallowed onto my Panel. All this, and it still is a pain to get my in hardware 'beep' sound be a reasonable volume while I'm listening to MP3s. So I either get blasted, or I can barely hear the tunes.

I bought a new candle last night. This one features a huge picture of Jesus on it. I wouldn't normally buy something so silly, but, well, this one was displayed at the grocery store adjacent to the taco mix. Does anyone else find that as disturbing as I do? They ought to sell little Buddha statues by the indian food too. If they made it out of wax and stuck a wick on it, I'd probably buy that too.

the ISDN line is working. We moved to a different neighborhood just so we could get some bandwidth. Between ISDN line problems (courtesy of the mutants at the telco) and ISP problems, and router config problems (courtesy of everyone and their brother that looked at our router and failed miserably) it was a long painful journey. But a journey that has ended with a house with its own subnet and finally a phone line that doesn't need to be dialed out 24/7. Life is good. Gimme a beer, I've earned it.

As my neverending quest to avoid doing homework continues, I decided to scan in some random stuff from my sketchbook and post it. Nothing spectacular, but I think one of them has the f-word in it, so at least I'm not rated PG for once... These are the first cartoons I've posted since creating Rob's World once upon a time, when I first got some web space. Anyway, click if you want to see some jpegs of dumb cartoon charachters created usually when I should be taking notes, or otherwise doing anything useful.