So I’m back online once again. And, of course, there’s a bit of a story to tell, none of which is particularly interesting, but I like to vent my frustrations.

It seems that even plugging a patch cable into my computer and the other end into a working modem and following details steps off a CD program is beyond my ability. As I have recorded somewhat in this blog, I have a very bad time with my computer(s), usually it’s whenever I try to upgrade, the physical hardware, it becomes nightmarish, let’s review together:

1) Put 40 Gig drive in P2 – resulted in rider BIOS needing to be installed, which resulted in no Norton utility ever working from boot again.
2) Install 120 gig drive – resulted in win98 to never installing again as the installer just threw garbage characters all over the screen, needed to install windows XP, and then again every time the computer was turned on again because the thing would kill itself every month or so.
3) Buying new computer – gave me wrong video card, waited a week for a guy to come install the proper one since they couldn’t just send me the damn thing for me to do myself.
4) DVD Burner – Windows complaining that it needed to reauthenticate, but never displaying the numbers I needed to feed to the system to obtain my key. Calls to technical support and giving my computer ID from the stickers resulted in them telling me I had a 64 bit computer that wasn’t even supposed to be built yet and that I must be a pirate. Several reboots eventually solved the problem.

And probably others that I can’t remember right now, suffice it to say, nothing that is supposed to go smoothly seems to when it comes to either my old computer, or this new one. Now, all I had to do was plug the patch cable from the modem that was definitely online to my computer which had enjoyed internet access before, but not for a while.

Nope, no connection, please reboot modem, computer, fridge, and life and try again, joy. I decide to replug the cable in the back of the computer, accidentally jog the monitor cable out of it’s outlet, monitor goes funky, plug it back in, computer reboots, joy. Comes back up claiming it found new hardware, and ethernet card, doesn’t know what to do with it, can’t find drivers off the MS disc (which is where it got them in the first place), no good. Ian comes over at this point, on unrelated business, and tries his magic… after a reboot, no longer even bothering to announce new hardware, a big yellow question mark is now a small yellow exclamation mark, joy.

Finally, open the computer, unseat the Ethernet card, reboot, shutdown, reseat, reboot, oh, there it is, oh, and drivers too, oh joy. Still, XP things it’s disconnected, but internet works, after 2 hours of fun in the sun.

Now I just have to install a month of patches, updates, and viruses

I’m starting to dislike toronto, this time it’s just in terms of the number of people in it, making it statistically more likely for certain things I don’t like to happen to happen rather quickly and almost certainly often.

Was crossing the street to get to my bus stop after work, and this car wasn’t stopping very well, in that it stopped at the light halfway into my little crossing zone, so I went around them. And two girls were in there (might have been more, couldn’t see, nor did I want to) and one of them sticks their head out of the window and starts calling “hey sexy” at me… there was no one else crossing, nor any other cars stopped, and they were saying it right at me, so there was no confusion as to who this was directed towards.

I kept walking, not looking back at them, and she kept shouting more, “hey..” something, I couldn’t tell, maybe “sexy”, maybe worse. But I just don’t understand why people must do that kind of thing, insult them by telling them things in complete contradiction to the truth. Do people have nothing better to do?

In case the reader has no idea why I would be annoyed at this, please refer to the title quote of this blog for an example which also does well as an analogy.

A quick one, but I’d just like to say how much I hate sponsored links. Articles that have hotlinks all over, and you think, hmm, maybe these links go somewhere relevant or something… nope, just to whatever company “sponsored” a random link which is far more invasive than having ads on the borders of the article because now the article text itself, the whole point of delivering anything at all, is now polluted.

I fear for the day when people actually buy things because they saw some obnoxious online ad, but I think I should be in fear of that having happened already, as I suspect is the case.

So here I am (or rather, I’m at home home this weekend, I still don’t have internet at the apartment yet)… my new apartment is pretty nice all and all. A fairly large living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Got couches and such, coffee tables, balcony stuff. And my commute has gone from 2 hours to half an hour, still on a damn bus, but regardlessly more tolerable.

Been setting up all my utilities, got my phone already, internet and cable tv is next weekend, then I’ll be set up and paying horrendous bills

Anyway, didn’t really have a lot to say, just bored and lonely

Stupid TV, it’s doing “that thing” again.

It’s not a very interesting story, but I’ll tell it all the same. I have this TV, fairly small, but usable… got it something like 10 years ago, but it’s been fairly reliable, the picture still seems find to me, the tube doesn’t seem to be going in any obvious way, but there is an odd problem.

Every now and then, when I turn it off, it just doesn’t. See, normally, when I turn it off, I get a nice little click sound inside the TV, a reassuring clunk that tells me “Yes, it is indeed shutting off”, and the screen does a little dance of white in the middle of the screen for half a second, another notable indication of shut-off-edness.

Unfortunately, what it does when it doesn’t shut off, is I don’t get a clunk sound, and the screen just goes black for about 2 seconds, the sound is suspended, and then the picture comes back, and doesn’t respond to the remote control… sometimes, in the past, I’ve been able to hit power again, and then the sound comes back, but hitting it again just results in the same thing… so it’s like something inside isn’t disconnecting. The last time this happened is like a year ago, and even then, now, I’d say it’s only happened about 5 times, usually, I thought, when it was very humid and thought that had something to do with it, but I had just turned it on for 10 minutes, and it’s not humid, it’s nearly cold.

Whenever it happens, I just unplug the thing, leave it for a few hours, and it has come back fine after that, but still, wtf? With this, and cases of my VCR actually locking up when I hit stop sometimes, and actually getting confused as to whether a tape is actually in the machine or not….. maybe 10 years is good enough for the life of such heavily used appliances, and I should break down and buy something new…

Now all I need is money

So now I have a place in Toronto, on a street called Broadway, which is, in case Torontonians can’t just place some random road in the tangle, is the second minor road north of Eglinton on Yonge, and the apartment building itself is about a 10 minute walk from the intersection, so I’m close to the thick of things, busses and subway.

I have it starting Aug 1st but I’ll be moving in the next weekend I think. It’s a Jr. 1 Bedroom apartment, emphasis on the Jr. Pretty small, which is my only complaint, the rest is pretty good. And yesterday I just signed over all the money I had (and quite a bit I didn’t) over to secure the place. Now I get to live frugally.

So now I have a place in which to live at least 1 year of my life, and the ability to pay for it for the most part, now the elusive Life part, hehe. I check the wanted ads for a job, I check the rental ads for an apartment… is there such thing as a Life ad? If there is I’m sure it would be inadvisable to use such a paper.

This is just a quicky to log major changes in my life status, of sorts.

Anyway, I’m currently employed, a company called Workbrain in Toronto. Now all I have to do is find a place to live nearby, as right now I’m commuting and that is getting a little tiring, which is sure to get worse as the heat lasts.

I can now finance a life, all that is left is to concoct some sort of life to finance

So as of yesterday, I’m now 24 years old. The trouble with being 24 is that it’s not very much different from being 23, and that in turn wasn’t much different from being 22 and so on, and that goes back a ways, but not all the way back as I figure puberty must count for something. Almost makes me wish there were most stages, more fur where there was no fur before (actually, not really ) something to make these years a little more different from the previous than just a number.

Of course, I imagine in not too long, other changes will happen, and I’ll be wishing for the time when the years ticking over where the only change

Many years ago, we got a pair of kittens, brother and sister, which we named Hobbes and Missy, begot by Cuddles, my aunt’s cat. For years we enjoyed them, with only a slightly serious illness befalling Hobbes early on, and Missy disappearing for two days as she had fallen in an old well, but they both were recovered.

Now, last night, he did not return, nor will he, for he always stayed close to home, and entered frequently to drink and eat and immediately withdraw to the hunt once again. We will indeed wait long for his coming.

I’ve read the The Silmarillion recently, and I felt like speaking in somewhat grander terms, and this story does feel like an epic, to me at least. We keep losing cats, Burroughs we only had for around 8 months or so, and he had such personality that I doubt I’ll ever find again. The top of my mother’s computer tower is adorned with a number of cat related objects, and standing most promenantly are two pictures frames, one of Hobbes, one of Missy… and it seems a third one will need to be added. It’s fitting enough that the graveyard should be in photographs only, for in my entire conscious history of having cats, we’ve never buried one. They merely disappear amid the howling from the Far End.

I had joked that when I got my own place, I would get 40 cats, a la Cat Lady from the simpsons. At this point, I don’t know if I could handle even one. Sure, in Toronto a housecat (as I should hope it would be) is not likely to be eaten by coyotes, but die it will, and I’ve had about enough cat-death as I’m willing to tolorate for the time being. As for here, one of the hardest things about losing Missy was the thought of putting away all her things, the litter boy and scratching post and food dishes, but Burroughs needed all those things, and so they remained… but I doubt we will be getting another cat, at least, not for a long while.

Goodbye Burroughs, you deserved better than this.

Now I just feel silly…

I waited until this morning, when it was light, to write the above. I checked outside, walked in my slippers and pajamas around the house, calling for him, figuring if he was to come home, he would have by then. Alas, nothing.

Then the neighbour came by, as she does each day, to ‘pick up’ our dog on her and her dog’s walk. She just knocks on the door, Joey comes running, and she lets him out into the breezeway. I was in the computer room, playing a game to distract myself, not having slept. The door closed, the neighbour was leaving… then the door opened for half a second and closed again… I thought, she must have put the paper on the counter or something… I didn’t consider the — and then cat came walking into the office, not meowing (as he usually does), and just looked around. I went over and picked him up, and held him as if questioning his existence, wondering if it was a dream… as I have had those dreams before, of Hobbes and Missy, and woken and felt terrible… but I was still awake.

So apparently he is an irritating sort of cat that will, first time in 8 months, dissapear and hunt overnight. *sigh*