By
anders pearson
16 Nov 2001
helped peter move his stereo to his new apartment over in harlem. sweet place. large and new. on the 11th floor with an amazing view of the city. i’m jealous. my view is of brick walls on the other side of the alley. although i’m not sure i’d trade being able to walk to work for having a nice view. besides, i need darkness in my apartment for my projector…
<p>saw craig while i was over there (craig used to work with us but recently left for a more lucrative position. his apartment is in the same building that peter’s moving into). his son Max was born two weeks ago and both craig and his wife had that bloodshot, not-quite-all-there look that betrays how little sleep they’ve had lately.</p>
By
jerfunfin
16 Nov 2001
I have been waiting for about a month now for my landlord to have a replacement gas range delivered to my flat. The thermostat was busted and the oven just kept climbing = Major Fire Hazard. I wasn’t going to pay for a replacement out of my own pocket but I may just do that after this evenings events.
<p><br />
<p>I came home from the office at around 8:30 with some Thai take out. About half way through my meal, my landlord knocks on my door and tells me that the delivery guys are here. I didn’t think delivery guys worked after 5pm but, hey, what the hell. <br />
<p>So these two guys take away the old unit and bring in a “refurbished” unit. I guess the landlord wants to save a few sheckles. This is fair enough as long as the thing functions correctly, right? <span class="caps">BIG</span> <span class="caps">THUMBS</span> <span class="caps">DOWN</span> ON <span class="caps">THAT</span> <span class="caps">IDEA</span>.</p>
<p><br />
Approximately ten minutes after the delivery guys disappear into the night, the biggest roach motel I have ever seen in a kitchen kicks into high gear. I must have killed a dozen of these critters of varying sizes in a five-minute battle.<br />
<p>So, with bug spray in one hand and the phone in the other, I called my landlord down from her apartment (thank god she lives in the building) She apologies profusely while killing a few of the evil buggers herself. I call Anders for a hand but he’s in East Harlem checking out a friend?s new pad (lucky him). So, I get one of my neighbors to help me carry the aluminum bughouse out to the curb. I now have lines of Boric acid and roach traps where a stove used to be.<br />
<p>There is a one very positive side to this story, though. I <span class="caps">WAS</span> home at the time of delivery. Can you imagine what the situation would be in my flat if the stove were delivered at, say, 4:00pm? My kitchen… no, my entire flat would have been invaded by these unwelcome guests! In <span class="caps">NYC</span> during especially during the winter, roaches are impossible to conquer. My fingers and toes are crossed. I pray one of those mini monsters didn’t move in during their brief stay. It only takes one pregnant cucaracha to create an army! And on that note, I am pretty sure that roaches mate once and then are pregnant for life. Ouch! </p>
<p></b></b></b></b></b></br></br></br></br></br></p>
By
anders pearson
15 Nov 2001
i’ve been busier than i thought lately with non-thraxil stuff so i haven’t been fixing things as quickly as i’d hoped. but, here are the changes i’ve been making:
- users page now uses colour coding to indicate frontpage posting authorization and lists the total number of posts each user has contributed (includes comments)
- a list of all keywords is now available.
- ordering of comments has changed a little. threads with the newest post are at the top. i think this is more consistent with how they used to be while still allowing for threading.
- fixed a small issue with diaries and comments. eg, if you look at a comment posted by sarah to mark’s diary, you’ll notice that it uses the stylesheet for sarah’s diary and links back to her diary rather than mark’s. other diaries are like this too. it’s a problem in the old version of the default diary templates. if you change the <tmpl_var name=“author”> tags to <tmpl_var name=“diary_author”> in the appropriate places, it will work correctly. i’m still working on throwing together some good documentation on the template system.
<p>i’ll post any other updates i make as comments attached to this post.</p>
By
sarah
15 Nov 2001
If you don’t know me. I write poetry. Lots of poetry. Lots of bad bad bad poetry. As long as the verse is terse and perverse… This isn’t best, nor even done, but it was from today.
In trouble with Nature
Who will explain to me
my location in time and space?
Is my nature nutured or is it
some miscalculation.
The burden of inquiry
on my shoulders rests alone,
has left me at a profound loss
still looking for a home.
The universe is too stable,
nature plain and clear,
for strange anomalies.
In our world’s mechanistic
or chaotic points of order
there still is some insistant force
pushing me beyond the border.
Perhaps I have lost my faith
or rather never had it;
just some trick of youthfullness
a useless, wasteful habit.
The world is quite undone
as I move through the night
searching for you.
Should I assert my right to live-
sorrid, bloodstained wretch I am.
Where will I locate that right?
When will my searching end?
Or just accept my parriah place
far removed from kith and kin.
Accept myself as I am seen
sunk in death and sin.
The sun-warmed stone under my thighs
ties me to the world of light-
to know this gives me meaning.
By
lani
15 Nov 2001
well, anthrax finally made it on base. it was positively identified on one of the packages in building 32.
By
jerfunfin
13 Nov 2001
Been wearing two shirts lately, since my colleague gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. I find it strange how overseeing others work is less of a power trip and more an exercise in Mentoring. It puts me on edge sometimes (more often during slow periods) to have them looking up to me for advise, tasks, and recognition. But being on edge is better than going flat, again especially during slow periods. It’s almost like the people under me keep me on my toes by making me keep them on their toes. What a funky Catch-22 that is!
By
anders pearson
13 Nov 2001
the CD-RW drive i bought a long time back didn’t have linux support at the time so i was forced to keep a small windows partition on my home machine just so i could burn CDs.
<p>a few months ago, the drive gave out (hardware or software i don’t know). i’m too poor to buy a new one right away (but those 16×10×40’s do look awful sweet) so i decided to hell with it all and when i upgraded the home machine to mandrake 8.1 tonight, just killed the whole partition scheme and started over (wanted to put reiserfs on it anyway). </p>
<p>no more windows partition. yay. it’s not like i’ve used windows for anything more than “boot windows. burn cd. boot back to linux” for the last couple years but it makes me feel much cleaner to just not have it on the machine at all.</p>
<p>interestingly enough, mandrake seems to have detected my CD-R drive this time; perhaps there is linux support now after all. if it <em>was</em> just a software error under windows, i may have it back without needing windows at all. </p>
<p>if i had a microwave, i could microwave my windows disk…</p>
By
jerfunfin
12 Nov 2001
I have been pondering what to do (and what others are doing) in regards to the LOTR trilogy. Should one read before going to see “The Fellowship of the Ring”? Or should one wait, see the flik, and then read to refresh and see what was missing, different, etc.?
<p>What are others doing? I think I will start reading this weekend.</p>
By
anders pearson
12 Nov 2001
shit just keeps falling out of the sky onto my city. <sigh/>.
By
quiet
12 Nov 2001
Well, I hope everyone in NY is ok again. And I really hope this was just an accident, not that it makes it any better.