mindgoo

Tough Day

2007-03-06T16:09:00.000+01:00

Today I went to say goodbye to my brother. I has been one of the toughest days of my life.

I had not cried at all since I was told he was dead, but the second I saw him, tears were flowing out of me, and have been for 5 hours now.

Seeing him like that was more than I could handle. Silent, statuesque, morbid.

How can life continue without him?

My brother died today.

2007-03-01T22:59:00.000+01:00

Today I received a call around noon. "Are you sitting down?" the voice asked. This could not be good. It wasn't.

He was 33, four years younger than me. Apparently he was doing drugs, and they killed him.

After the news I went for a walk. A long one. It was sunny, to sunny for someone to die terribly. I was trying to remember his face, he demeanor, his laughter, his cheeriness. I was having a hard time of it.

He was the kind of person who was always in a good mood. If he was not doing drugs, you would think he was, cause his mood was always "high". I don't think I have ever seen him sad. I will miss that. Perhaps I can be inspired by that single memory and use it to improve my own mood when I'm gloomy. I know that I have to honour him in some way.

Tomorrow I have to go to the Chapel where he has been placed. My mother and sister are joining me there. It will be a chance to say goodbye.

It's not a good day, this one. Not at all.

Haskell

2007-02-16T14:56:00.000+01:00

After reading feed://feeds.feedburner.com/nubgames I decided to take a look at Haskell and "functional programming". I expect it to be same same, only new syntax, as always.

But the Nub Games guy seems ranty enough for me to look at it. I guess.

Vanguard Saga of Heroes

2007-01-26T19:08:00.000+01:00

I'm drinking Newcastle Brownale, waiting for the VSoH servers to come online. A new game, a new beginning. I wonder if it will bring me the relaxation I need.

Lately I've been experiencing spells of itching of the fingers and hands. Most likely due to stressrelated hypertension. I kinda makes me nervous for the future, and I expect I will need VSoH or some other form of escape in order to deal with it.

What does it matter?

2006-12-11T09:36:00.000+01:00

I'm looking out the window. The wind is blowing. Everthing is unaffected, pristine. I'm pondering the megalomania of thinking that we are more than the leaf on the tree im watching. The insignificance of our thoughts and interactions.

Why would it matter if we are happy or gloomy?

Star Trek Bonanza

2005-04-03T19:06:00.000+02:00

Like any good nerd, I like Star Trek, but like anything in my life, previous to my weightloss, it was never a real dedication.

So I decided to systematically watch all Star Trek episodes and movies known to man.

I knew most of the scenarios from my sporadic viewing of aired episodes, apart from Deep Space 9, of which I still know nothing.

I started my mission by watching all the movies in order, that didn't take to long.

Because of my age, for me, Picard IS Star Trek, so the obvious next step was The Next Generation. There are 7 seasons - 178 episodes in all. A few months ago, when I quit Everquest 2, I popped in season 1 and started my quest.

I finished a few weeks ago, and went on to Voyager season 1, and just pressed stop after episode 15 of season 3.

All this is made possible by my KiSS DP-558 which I now love.

The quest continues. DS9 after Voyager, then The Original Series, Enterprise and the Animated Series. After that I will pick up Anne Rice, and finish that project aswell.

Thats more or less whats going on at the moment. Still lots of excercise. I might have become addicted by now. I feel bad if I miss a session for some reason. To bad I picked up some nasty eating habits. Only conselation is my sexual apathy which works as a "who cares anyway" filter.

Paul Graham

2005-03-02T15:25:00.000+01:00

I recently came across Paul Grahams page for the first time ever. I was doing some reading up on Bayesian Filters and came across his essay on it. I read a bit, and thought to myself that while the style of writing was interesting, it seemed a bit odd that he wasn't allready using Bayesian analysis of his spam, since the technology was so well known.

It wasn't until I finished the essay that a colleague of mine told me that Paul was in fact the first person to apply Bayesian analyses to the spam problem, and the essay I had been reading was in fact the original story of how the method was invented.

So now I was naturally intrigued, and wanted to learn more about this obiously genius individual. Turns out the guy is not only a brilliant writer, but is also a nerd like myself.

Great stuff.

Alias season 4

2005-01-06T14:35:00.000+01:00

Today is the day.

Alias, just about the best TV show I have ever layed eyes on, launches into season 4. I am totally electric with anticipation, season 3 finished with tears running down my face, and a chilling sensation of chock running through me!!

I _WILL_ get the DVD's when the season is done, I _WILL_ watch them all again, I _WILL_ watch every frame of extra material.

LOVES IT!

x-mas zombie

2004-12-28T14:04:00.000+01:00

All systems are powered down and in idle mode.

I play EQ2 all the time, when I dont play, I plan what to do the next time I do play.

A new years resolution has been decided. I want to drink more in the upcomming year. That's right, more beer, more wine. The finer things in life.

I need to sleep soon, haven't slept right for 14 days now, it's starting to get to me. I can't settle down, sleep seems such a waste of time. I wish there was a no-sleep pill you could take and be done with it forever.

Started loosing again after the binge at the LOTR marathon, not that I really care anymore, to tired to care.

LOTR ..

2004-12-21T13:42:00.000+01:00

That was heavy!

I gained 4kg in 4 days! - didn't even think that was possible ;)

Apart from that, this weekend was lots of fun. It was very nice to see my friends again. I am looking forward to this summer, where I will be spending part of my vacation in their company.

Pretty cool extensions to RoTK btw!

LOTR Marathon

2004-12-16T13:56:00.000+01:00

I'm going to watch all the extended DVD versions of the LOTR Trilogy this weekend.

I'm certain that the stay itself will be perfect in all aspects, cause it will be at the residence of two of my favorite people.

A 5 hour train ride is the only real nasty part of the trip. Luckily I will be reading some nice Anne Rice, and enjoying some of the more rare mucic on my iPod. Hopefully it wont be that bad.

I got my TV back..!

2004-12-08T11:05:00.000+01:00

Bought a splitter for my cable yesterday, so I could get a signal into my TV again, and utilize the tuner in it.

That made all the difference, now im actually no longer annoyed by the DP-558. I have a range of stuff scheduled - wee!

I tried to FTP an xvid encoded avi to it yesterday, but it froze up when i attempted to play it, which pretty much sucks. I will have to experiment further with that when I get some more time.

KiSS DP-558

2004-12-07T15:31:00.000+01:00

Got my PVR on friday.

I was pretty exited, and had gotten cables for both toslinks, component video and an extra antenna cable, to loop it back into my TV.

After half an hour of setting up in my media cabinet, realizing that toslink was a nogo, since all the inputs on the reciever were in use, it was finally in place, and I switched it on. The was no video, hmm, hard to configure without video, and obviously component wasn't working, so I would have to remove it from the cabinet again to put in an s-vhs link to my Harman Kardon 330 Surround Reciever. I think the component stuff was mostly due to the fact that there was allready a video signal comming in from my Harman Kardon DVD, and I didn't want to mess that up.

Then disaster struck, The antenna cable was stuck in the Ant. out plug of the KiSS, so I pulled it (which I needed to, to remove it from the cabinet), and out came the tap in the middle of the plug on the KiSS, GRRRR! I was boiling with rage at my own stupidity, cause I could have just removed the wire from the wall plug while i changed to s-vhs.

It took a while to settle down enough to finish the installation, which would now only be half the experience, since I would be unable to use the tuner in my TV.

Well, I got video this time, and audio through digital coax.

Immediatly it wanted me to upgrade the firmware, it DHCP'ed an IP from my LAN and say a new version on the internet. An obvoius question would be: Why the hell doesn't it just download it, instead of wanting me to burn a disc. Oh well, nevermind, found the firmware, burned it, upgraded the KiSS, no biggie.

Now the fun could begin, but alas, it was TERRIBLY slow when using any online service, so slow that it timed its operations out lots of times, resulting in "Cannot parse" errors aso.

A few times along the way, it froze up, leaving nothing but a hard reset as an option.

Setting up channels was simple enough, and much like any other tuner device. Changing channels is instant, much like old school VCR's. Thats nice.

Now for the EPG. You have to add an EPG id to each channel, so it know to match the two, fair enough, but DO NOT MAKE A MISTAKE. If you make a mistake, you will have to delete the channel, and search for it again, you cant simply attach another EPG id. Favorites, the most important part of the EPG is simply a PAIN. Sorting in that system is assine, but at least it can be done.

Yesterday I scheduled a recording of a show, and only got the first minute, that just should not happen EVER.

All in all, im pretty dissappointed with the device so far. I can only hope for newer and better firmware relases, and a better online part along the way.

I WANT TIVO!!!

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

2004-12-02T21:34:00.000+01:00

Well, went to see it with my colleagues, and "the missing girl". I fell asleep twice, so I guess it's not that good.

It was good seeing "missing girl" again, I really miss seeing her every day, and just the feeling of her every fibre bursting with contageous joy was worth the anguish of "Sky Cap...".

All in all, and OK night, better than playing Everquest 2 all evening, thats for sure.

Everquest 2

2004-12-01T09:31:00.000+01:00

... is taking over my life.

My apartment is not getting cleaned, im not getting the required amount of excercise, not eating right and I dont know how to stop.

On a positive note, im not spending any cash at all.

Luckily I feel myself getting tired of it fast, so I hope to get into a more reasonable groove again soon.

She is gone...

2004-11-06T09:43:00.000+01:00

I still can't quite grasp that she is no longer here.

She has been here always to brighten my day, to spread happiness. Now she is gone. She is on my personal all time top 3 of women I've met. I love and adore her, and loosing her as a colleague takes a large chunk out of my heart.

Damn this world and it's executives. Damn it to hell.

cant sleep

2004-10-28T02:55:00.000+02:00

Maybe im just getting old, but noise seem to bother me more and more.

My upstairs neighbors are using their washing machine during sleep periods, which is annoying as hell, because the sound of a washing machine is not a constant one. But the washer is not the worst part about my upstairs neighbors, it's their kids that get me. In the morning at 6 o'clock, they start running across the carpet-less floors. Every day. Including weekends. I wake up every time that happens.

Right now I can't sleep because of the washer. I think I might have a work-home day tomorrow. That would mean that I could sleep till 9, and postpone my workout till lunch. I will let my state at 6:40 when the alarm goes off (or at 6 if this is one of those "run across the floor at 6"-days for the kids upstairs) decide what I do.

I have enough work to do to keep me occupied for the duration of the day tomorrow.

I bought a set of earplugs on some german online shop 10 minutes ago, cause I might be able to help myself get more quality sleep. I could sure use it!

epia

2004-10-25T10:11:00.000+02:00

I finally pulled myself together and purchased an Epia board and a casing for it. Im tired of my Unix box being so noisy, now I just want something small and noiseless that can do the same job, so I bougt a 1ghz Epia to handle my slimserver and all the rest of the unix stuff I have running.

anne rice

2004-10-15T22:49:00.000+02:00

I just received 10 Anne Rice books.

My best friend in the world have been murmoring about them for years, and since the world is utterly boring to me at the moment, I decided to simply read them all. I went ahead and bought ALL the Vampire Chronicles, and the first batch finally arrived today.

Im halfway through "Interview with the Vampire" today, but sadly i can't get the pictures of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt out of my head. Wish I had started this before the movie came out ;)

So far I like the book alot, she is a good storyteller, and I can't wait to start "The Vampire Lestat" which will be alot more "fresh" in my mind.

CD rippage

2004-10-14T14:36:00.000+02:00

Currently im putting all my CD's through iTunes to get the songs into my collection, and more importantly, onto my iPod. There are some pretty old discs inthere ;)

How's "Kinks - Greatest Hits" or "Cream - Disreali Gears"? Man, that takes me back to the days of long hair, smoking weed and playing the blues all the time.

On the other hand, the collection also contains the entire set of Sepultura CD's ;)

lost

2004-10-14T14:33:00.000+02:00

After having bought and rifled through all seasons of Alias, I have now started watching Lost, also by J.J. Abrams. I have only seen 1½ episodes so far, but I sorta like it. Don't know for sure yet if it's DVD material, but we'll see.

Can't wait for next season of Alias though, that is most definately DVD material.

sister leaving

2004-10-11T14:26:00.000+02:00

Well, after spending fri-mon with her older brother (me!), my sister decided that monday was the time to go back home. She had to go to gymnastics monday evening, so she _had_ to leave. Still, we had a very nice time. That girl just makes it impossible to be in a bad mood.

Funny how some people just have that effect on others.

Sometimes I think that it's just due to the way I feel about her, but then I see her having the same effect on her friends, and I become even more amazed at her powers. She is only 13, but wields a power much greater than what she can yet understand.

She is the driving reason behind my weightloss program, and I don't even think she realizes. Were it not for her, I might have quit a long time ago. Sounds weird, and perhaps I am overdoing her influence on it, but she really does have influence on it. I want to make her proud of her brother, that a primary motivator for me.

sister comming over

2004-10-07T08:06:00.000+02:00

Wee, my sister is comming to visit tomorrow. I can't wait. I simply adore that girl, and I will spoil her rotten.

I gotta go check out what kinda thing we have to go see. She will arrive late tomorrow morning and stay until noon monday.

vacation planned

2004-10-06T13:40:00.000+02:00

I plan on starting a one week vacation on friday. I still, as always, have no clue as to how to spend it. I have sorta promised myself at least one piece of culture a day.

My sister of 13 is probably comming to visit from tue-thur. She can't stay longer, cause she has to much to do. She has to be the most active 13-year old I know. She told me a story about how they had to say how many hours they all spend a week excercising at school. The others were like 5, 8, 7 hrs aso, she spends 19 hrs a week doing some form of physical excercise. Dancing, Gymnastics, Soccer ... she does it all.

She had to teach gymnastics to some smaller kids on thursday, she seemed to remember, but it might be some other day, so she might not come at all :(

It will be fun having her around, we always do fun stuff together.

calorie boosting

2004-10-05T23:09:00.000+02:00

During the past 2 weeks, I have increased my calorie intake enourmously, and I have gone from 89,2 kg to 93,7 kg when I returned from Belgium. This is all part of an experiment that has one purpose: Give my body a good kick in the butt. I needed to do something radical to get out of the groove I was in, and see if I could somehow fool the body into going below the plateau I was on at 89-90 kg.

This morning I was down to 91,5 kg, even after eating intense loads of belgium chocolate. I'm all done with the chocolate now, and have started dieting again for real. It will be interesting to see how the weight curve developes over the next 4-5 weeks. I plan to binge again for about a week mid november. And then again at christmas. Sort of a 5-6 weeks diet, 1 week binge kinda plan.