Winter 2006 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2007 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2007 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2007 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2007 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2008 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2008 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2008 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2008 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2009 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2009 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2009 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2009 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2010 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2010 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2010 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2010 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2011 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2011 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2011 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2011 (Dec-Feb)
I guess it really should come as no major surprise that my submissions to ’’Hollywood Bitchslap’’ for consideration as an addition to their ‘’movie reviewer/critic’’ pool never generated any interest. What the hell else is news in the world, eh?
Unmentioned Highlights From Previous Quarter
December 8, 2010 (Wednesday)
Spent the weekend onwards up to very early this morning finishing (correcting & transferring) my ''DVD Library'' webpages, which will now be hosted at the former ''Journal Pages'' channel; freeing up allotted space and especially separating them from the ''Dark Horizons'' (''UltraViolet'') section.
I'd planned on getting out to check my mail, putting in my job application and sending my computer in to get worked on all on Monday morning/afternoon, but got hit with another round of headaches & digestive problems which kept my from going out to do much of anything other than sleeping in, even keeping off of the computers for the most part (I called my mother later in the afternoon as my condition began settling down a bit). And while I'd planned on making up for my missed activities yesterday, upon noting the date (December 7: i.e., ''Pearl Harbor Day'') I'd concluded (without really checking for any certainty) that it must've been a ''state holiday,'' so again I'd made the decision to hold off for one more day.
After several unsuccessful attempts this morning just past midnight at trying to get my latest ''Metropolis'' movie disc to load onto the ''Macintosh'' system (despite its ever progressing & annoying twitchiness in its optical drive), I'd decided to go through the online process of 'return-&-exchange' -- but because ''Amazon'' has now instituted some process where we're now ''required'' to ''print-out'' return address labels with ''bar codes'' (making the infuriating assumption that everyone can afford all these often unnecessary & money-draining & resources-robbing ''techno-toys'' as if ''Old School'' doesn't exist anymore), it was necessary to call their 'customer assistance' line: and to my amazement, I'd actually gotten ''live'' assistance from a very lovely-sounding young lady who said she was in ''Philippines'' (a welcome break from ''India'' all the blamed time) who was very helpful and courteous. None of it changed the fact that they still insisted on a ''printed label'' for the return, but she said they'd be able to print one and send it out to me, and because it was the ''holiday season'' they're granting extensions on the 'deadlines' for returns, so there's no pressure to rush.
Went out early this morning (but still not quite as early as I'd intended) to the post office to drop off my rent payment, pick up my wristwatch (which also included the arrival of a $31 ''watch repair kit'' I'd ordered only several days ago), then immediately afterwards stopped into the company office I've been considering working for next to fill out my job application with them.
While seeking phone numbers & addresses for former employers and personal references to complete my job application with, the office manager on duty informed me that my prediction about the company I'd worked for eleven years straight-- that they'd either completely collapse & shut down within a few short years, or being no longer able to compete the next best scenario would be that they would accept offer to be swallowed up by the last company I'd worked for which has been behaving like an insatiable megalith (in either case, being put out of business altogether) --had actually been fulfilled. He said that it was the latter scenario (my original and most prominent prediction) which had proven to be the case, and that it had arrived completely unexpectedly with no forewarning given to any of their clients, and that this had all just taken place only last month!
After the application process I'd passed through the ''Cultural Plaza'' and did manage to chat a while with the chief maintenance person there, Pablo. He had informed me that everyone there with whom I'd worked had all also departed and were now replaced by an entirely different crew.
Rode back out immediately after returning to the apartment to finally get rid of the remaining stash of plastic bottles I'd been to lazy to take to the recycler (again, their ''weighing'' stuff still managing to cheat people out of the full return of their ''deposits,'' which is precisely why I've discontinued anything in bottles or cans that require ''deposits'').
Back at the apartment I'd finally received a call from the motorcycle mechanics, reaffirming what they'd known to be the problem but still having not ordered the necessary parts in order to do the work and get my stuff up & running, even though I'd already told them to do whatever they needed to get done in order to get myself ''mobile'' again.
I'd again chosen to delay taking my computer in to get servicing, having spent probably a good hour at least fiddling around with my new watch, trying to learn how to use some of the costly set of repair tools -- which came with NO ''printed'' instructions and the ''tutorial website'' they'd given in its stead was non-existent... only managing to acquire a few of some of the most basic tips-&-tricks from watching a few posted on-line (mostly 'amateur-made') instruction videos. As for the watch, it's a bit smaller than I'd expected or hoped (having again been corrupted by that ''Invicta'' battleship, the ''Speedway'' chronograph, which I’d earlier been drooling over), is considerably heavier than what I’d expected, and still not quite as eye-appealing as the stuff [over-]marketed by ''Invicta.''
18:25, Hawaii Standard Time
December 10 - 12, 2010 (Friday-Sunday)
Used the rain which lasted for nearly the entire day Friday as my excuse to remain indoors & not take my computer in for repair. Decided to use much of that time putting most of the finishing touches on my ''DVD library collection'' webpages before activating the link (again past a planned ''target date'') as simultaneously a part of revising & expanding the ''HTML'' word processing documents of the texts & codes which I've always saved as ''back-up'' from all the work I've done in these ''AngelFire'' webpages; when all of that was ''caught up'' sufficiently enough (even though more would come to be ''added'' not much later) what had become a folder of ''extras, exchanges & restorations''-- which had been accumulating since having all but a couple of (especially ''large'') project folders saved to CD-R discs --was likewise burned to a back-up disc, along with what was one of the smaller remaining folders at the time. (With the newer stuff that's accumulating on the ''iMac'' right now, I'm torn between wanting to go through all of the motions of storing them as ''email attachments,'' transferring them over to the 'secondary' iMac that I'd rescued from the trash a couple of years ago, or just holding off until I've decided how/when to save parts of the remaining pair of folders awaiting preservation.)
Earlier in the morning prior to that, however, I'd felt this unshakable urge to investigate the details regarding the closure of my former employer. As it turned out, according to local news sources, BOTH predictions of mine were in operation: prior to closing their doors for good (having filed for ''Chapter 7'' bankruptcy), they actually were in negotiations with my most recent former employer with the over-consuming octopus tentacles to ''sell out'' to them, but according to reports the deal fell through ''at the last minute.'' The company effectively shut its doors & operations toward the end of October, placing somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 persons out of work which, had that been known, may have motivated me to seek re-entry into the work force that much sooner.
Called my mother Saturday afternoon after being unable to get through to my father again. At some point in the discussion the conversation segued into a direction where it was finally possible to dig up the bitter corpses of the past regarding her failings as a mother (which was an unanticipated & unintended extension of a similar conversational diversion from a discussion we'd had earlier in the week). This was the most direct I'd ever ventured into this particular discussion topic with her, and the intent was not to rip into her, but just to state the facts in helping me explain why my perspectives on life & such are as they've become. During this time, she finally confided in me that it was because of a letter I'd written to her several years ago which helped her to finally face herself and look into why she was not the parent she knows she should have been, and began to also focus more introspectively on her own life as a child and the difficulties she'd had as a result of her dysfunctional relationship with her own mother, which carried over into influencing her own lack of parenting ability and her inability to fully understand the levels & degrees of pain, trauma & bitter resentments her emotional detachment were directly responsible for generating.
Saturday also found me attempting to concoct my own version of ''katsu sauce'' from basic ingredients, since I've made the determination that I'm no longer willing to shell out X-number of dollars a pop for little 8-oz. jars of the stuff. My first batch attempt was not a complete disaster, but it's a few meters away from being what may be considered ''reasonably'' palatable (too heavy on the tomato paste, and way too heavy on the maize starch which was intended to be used as a ''thickening'' agent).
''Weekend in Review''
December 22, 2010 (Wednesday)
Finally decided that I'd had enough dealing with Linux ''Live CD'' quirking the shxt out of me all the time, and felt that it was way past time to go about trying to recover my files or ''cloning'' the full contents of the hard drive, so I'd planned on calling a cab to carry the PC tower into the repair shop; but prior to doing so I'd decided to take one final look inside the tower trying to figure out how to dislodge the hard drive so that the entire tower did not need to be taken in (it was this difficulty of not being able to figure out how to remove the hard drive which was what was really at the heart of keeping me lazy & put-offish about trying to bring the machine in to be worked on, especially when the tech-geeks said that the hard drive was all they really needed in order to do the work). After observing the design of what were soon recognized as ''additional'' hard drive housing slots, I'd finally managed to separate the SATA drive from the rest of the machine, so I'd gathered the hard drive and my set of complete system reinstall CDs, then bicycled down to ''SuperGeeks'' on King Street and told them which solutions I'd desired to get my stuff up & running again, if it could at all be accomplished (even though I'm still a bit hesitant about the ''cloning'' process, partly because I'm concerned that whatever may have jerked the system down in the first place may potentially ''carry over'' to the replacement hard disk, but mainly because I'm concerned about the ''rotating desktop wallpaper images'' which were still ''activated'' when the system went down).
Had to call in my ''credit card'' information when I'd gotten back to the apartment, because they informed me that they would not begin work until payment for the initial diagnostics run had been tendered. (I hate these fxcking ''pay first before we start work'' policies.) Then peddled up to the motorcycle repair shop to get an E.T.A. on my work, because I'd not heard back from them in all this time, and was told that they were already in the process of working on it as we were speaking.
Post-midnight/Pre-dawn this morning found the movie, ''Tron: Legacy'' finally posted online; it was, in my opinion, a very sorry attempt to capitalize on a cult classic (gave it ''2-stars'' out of ''5''), and it would've truly been a waste of the anywhere from $12 (for ''regular'' 3-D) to $17 (for ''IMAX'' 3-D) they were asking locally for a ''matinee'' ticket! It was hardly worth wasting the time struggling to stream it online!
Also received some ''YSL'' fragrances from my mother in the mail, which I'd picked up on my way to the computer repair shop: this saves me from having to shell out some pretty major bucks for my own, now that I'm running on the last few spritzes of my own reserves.
22:30, Hawaii Standard Time.
December 23, 2011 (Thursday)
Tried to load my replacement ''Metropolis'' DVD (which I'd picked up along with my package from my mother) onto my ''iMac,'' only to again experience the same ill-natured results as the disc I'd requested it be switched-out for! So if the next ''scrub-&-reinstall'' I've got planned for this hunk of shxt doesn't correct most if not all of the problems I've been having with this ''CUNT-puter,'' it's going to spell the end for my continued involvement with ''Macin-TRASH!''
Reclaimed my motorcycle just before closing time at the shop (I had to come back to the apartment after arriving on site, because I'd left without having brung along any form of payment) -- damned-near $700! ...and they're talking about wanting to replace one of my tires for something called ''cupping.''
Rode it about the ''Airport'' area looking for (and not locating) ''Koapaka Street'' (the day before I'd asked a contract worker standing outside of ''Kmart's'' storage area where the main office for the next company I'm planning on applying with-- for which he also worked --was located, since the phone book only listed a telephone number and no street address), then rode to my ''regular'' fueling station to put gas in the tank only to then learn with certainty that the mechanics crew did indeed ''top it off'' for me (I couldn't be certain when I'd checked before taking her out on the road, due to the poor lighting that was working in concert with my poor eyesight).
After arriving back to the apartment complex, and trying to the best of my ability to cover the motorcycle with the absolute tatters the cover had become since someone had dislodged it from where I'd been keeping it in lieu the vehicle's absence, which they'd just tossed onto the ground for however many days to get birdshitted upon & infested with the cockroach-like insects which have always proved a major nuisance, I'd decided to register yet another ''craigslist'' account to try yet again about ''hooking-up'' for any ''pussy licking'' dates this weekend... and of course the BullShxtters came out in force, having nothing better to do than to try to deceive someone into chasing after their own tail -- which probably should be yet again another indication as to how ''successful'' this latest venture will be....
22:25, Hawaii Standard Time.
December 24 - 26, 2011 (Friday-Sunday)
Entered into an email exchange with a young woman from the Waimanalo side who responded to the personal ad I'd posted, which took place and developed into an intermittent email exchange starting sometime around 14:45 Thursday afternoon, which progressed into a full-fledged online chat (which I've always avoided because of all the complications & difficulties I've had with ''Yahoo! Messenger'' in the past) which began roughly around 18:15 and proceeded to extend well into Friday morning, close to around 02:00, when I'd finally decided to call it a night (curiously, no sooner had we shut down that my internet connection decided that it wanted to begin acting queer again! ...so many suspicious ''coincidences'').
The most remarkable part about our conversations was that they were all over the place and had almost nothing to do with what the ad I'd posted was about. Even so, I'd become fascinated & deeply involved with the discussions (in between the times that ''Linux'' and/or ''Yahoo!'' wasn't freezing & locking shxt down), not only because of the topics covered, but because of my being impressed with the time & care she took in conversation -- none of that childish ''Netspeak'' garbage: nicely formed sentences, proper grammar & spelling... it was as if she knew I'd be impressed by that, especially with it having come from a ''black'' girl (...one from ''Tennessee,'' no less). She was making such a positive impression upon me that it had me feeling more than a bit uneasy, and slightly guilty, considering how I'd been expressing my feelings in my most recent text comments at the ''Gen-X'' video hosting site, not to mention the similarly themed subject matter of my own posted video commentary series on the issues regarding the downfall of black women in America and how the vast majority of today's black females are regrettably beyond saving. So again, it's almost as if ''something'' is at work in the Cosmos forcing me to keep just a tiny glimmering bit of ''hope'' struggling to remain alive inside me, trying to keep me from clocking out and walking away completely, hoping that I'll continue to entertain, even if just for one more day, the possibility that maybe not all black women alive in this country are deserving of being avoided like lepers.
With Saturday being what it was in the minds & lives of everyone else, it was a perfect opportunity for me to finish sorting & reorganizing my massive backlog of paperwork which had been a slow & torturous process these past couple of months, and with [the greater majority but still, sadly, not all of] that clutter out of the way, it made it bit easier to do some of the more involving housework that needed to be done, and clearing up & reorganizing other areas of clutter.
After housework I was awash with conflicting urges (partially due to the fact that I'd not eaten anything since Friday morning, the last three dried out slices of Costco pizza -- which will probably be my last time buying their stuff, because each experience is progressively worse in some way or another), but the loudest urge was for me to get showered up and get out of the apartment A.S.A.P. Being a bit disappointed, because the heavy cloud cover in the area made it appear as though the night was coming on too quickly (even though it was somewhat understandable, being that it was around 16:00-ish), but I'd headed out anyway -- first with the ''modified'' intention of just taking a quick trip to the ''Pali Lookout,'' but upon seeing what the skies really looked like continued on instead to my originally intended destination: points and areas around & near ''Kahala Mall,'' to take a few snapshots of memorable areas for my mementos & possible video projects. Then rode up to the ''Kapiolani Community College'' campus where I'd shot some video of the ''Cactus Garden.''
On the way back, I thought I'd stop into what used to be ''Daiei'' to see about getting more rice seasoning (I'm not paying $5+ per small-@zz jar at ''Safeway'') and maybe some king crab legs... but the area where bicycles & motorcycles were habitually parked was now designated as a ''tow away zone'' for such vehicles, so partially out of being offended at that, and partly because of not wanting to go through all the extra hassle of trying to find an appropriate/convenient space, I'd said ''eff-it'' and continued on to ''Safeway'' with the idea of buying some tortilla chips and cheddar cheese to make a refried beans & rice dip; but both locations en route were closing and not allowing any more incoming traffic.
I would make up for missing my chance of ''impulse'' shopping Saturday evening with a more deliberate shopping trip Sunday afternoon. And this trip resulted in actual bitching to a couple of the stores employees about the fact that my ''Langer's'' brand frozen fruit juices had not only been removed from stock, but that the area where they'd been displayed has sat EMPTY for at least the last three shopping trips -- which is equivalent to just as many months! I'd have probably not gotten so disturbed about this to such a degree where it would manifest into the verbal expression of disappoint had it not been for noticing the fact that the same brand of juices are on the outer shelves in those 64oz. jugs! (Eventually, I'm going to type up an entire list of EVERYTHING that I've ever taken a very strong ''liking'' to only to have it ripped away from me as though someone ''out there'' was truly trying to make my specific personal life utterly miserable! This shxt goes on way too fxcking often!)
Stopped into the ''Cultural Plaza'' en route to the store to talk a bit with Pablo and to let him know I'd listed him as a reference in case he should hear anything from any prospective employers. He tells me how much worse things are there because of the bad management -- he made it seem that perhaps I'd gotten out at a crucial time before the fur really began to fly (stranger things have happened).
All throughout the weekend I'd engaged in the online conversations at various times & intervals (often complicated with the whole ''OS/network'' conflicts), enough to where it was felt that it'd be a good idea to ''set-up'' some of those gadgets I'm usually averse to, such as ''contacts'' lists, ''profile'' entries, etc., just to make it more ''alive,'' supposedly, since it is the only email where I'm ever having any real ''personal'' interactions with other people outside of my two most involved video hosting sites.
(I've still yet to scrub out this Macin-trash... I want to get that done & analyzed BEFORE the problem with my ''Win-thlon's'' hard drive is tested & corrected, so it can be decided what to do with the HD if it proves to be salvageable.)
''Weekend in Review''
December 27 - 31, 2010 (Monday-Friday)
Tuesday night / Wednesday morning gave rise to ''The Mac-Tricks: Reloaded'' as I'd earlier burned the final ''back-up'' CD-R of a portion of the remaining files that I'd also transferred over to the ''G3 iMac'' weeks prior which could be broken up & grouped in such a way so as to fit onto one of only 3 remaining blank discs still available, leaving the remaining bulk of personal files (which consist most heavily of audio & audio/video files, predominantly from my ''Political Stuffs'' folder, plus a folder of ''Star Wars'' fan films I'd downloaded & saved several years ago) on the ''G3'' in lieu of a new stock of blank discs. The remaining few word processing updates (webpage corrections, journal page additions, altered/restructured access password mnemonics) and other small bits of newly acquired information & items of interest were sent to my primary email account as attached files.
Since I no longer consider the Macintosh a ''priority'' (though I'll be hard pressed if I'm ever made to go without its ''AppleWorks'' word processing program or any of it's audio recording features & apps -- which completely suck on the ''Win-HP''), I'd spent no real degree of involvement in trying to ''reconfigure'' everything back to 'preferences' stage, being more concerned with trying to make the reinstallation process go smoothly, and at several stages I'd about given up and seriously contemplated just trashing the yunowut out of this piece of trash (...still am...). It really hit its fever pitch Thursday night / Friday morning when the CD optical drive decided it wanted to bring out the ''n!993r'' in me by refusing to load the CD with all the Mac ''back-up'' files I'd burned onto the disc on this very same machine! In a final fit of rage it got with the program and began behaving halfway as it should (thus far) after I'd angrily slammed it on top of the desk a few times, having decided it was no longer going to hurt me any more from my banging my fist into it.
One of the biggest headaches involving the reinstallation of my select ''3rd party'' software Friday evening was trying to find an earlier version of ''AdBlock Plus'' that would be compatible to the version of ''Firefox'' browser I'm most stubbornly comfortable with using.
Used Wednesday night / Thursday morning to finally decide to hook up my $80 ''surround-sound'' 6-piece theater speaker system, which I'd purchased just over two years ago (Dec.2008) -- and which had remained sitting unopened since that time! My intention was to wait until I'd received word back on the progress report regarding my HP hard drive repair job, but decided to jump ahead with the set-up as an companion project along with the Mac reinstallation process.
The speaker system set-up also led to a radically redesigned computer workspace, considerably different from earlier reconfiguration ideas: this one involving removing the ''G3'' completely out of circulation & putting it aside for ''back-up'' (or 'til whenever I'm ready to see if it truly is possible to make an ''Ubuntu Linux'' machine out of it, as has been claimed by several Linux geeks) and replacing it with the ''G4'' and its original 'glass globe' design ''Mac Pro'' speakers which I'd been using on the HP system since having it. Not at all a bad set-up, particularly 'aesthetically' speaking (even given my 'simple' & 'minimalist' ''style''), but quite surprisingly also 'ergonomically' for the way it ''fits'' my keystroking routine. The ''downsides'' of course being that it makes use of the ''G3'' impractical and inconvenient, and it leaves me with an unusable ''iFire'' speaker adapter (which needed to be purchased separately in order to use the Mac speakers with other systems, because ''Crapple Computers,'' with their ''exclusionary/proprietary'' B.S. games decided they wouldn't allow just ''anybody'' to use & enjoy the innovative speaker system they'd chosen to use with that generation of Macs by allowing them to be designed with a ''universal'' speaker jack and without the added need of some sort of an internal ''amplifier'' system).
I was met with initial disappointment after the lengthy set-up process for the theater speakers, because of the way the wire ''hook up'' manual suggested, it upset me that what I'd always thought was a ''5.1'' sound system in my computer was anything but, because there were two extra jack ports which the instructions said should've been present on my system that weren't. Upon extended use however, it would seem that I've got a system where the extra ports are unnecessary and that all channels are fed through the one single jack port (I'll wait until I'm again able to play some DVDs before being completely convinced of this).
Following the heavy rains we'd been having the prior week, those nasty, filth, disgusting ''cockroaches'' have been making the ''fatal'' mistake of ''trying'' to re-establish a foothold inside this apartment! After all of the plug-&-seal jobs I've been doing at suspected points of entry, seeing how whenever they do show up they're overwhelmingly found hanging inside my shower stall, I'm almost convinced that they're gaining entry via the shower drain... otherwise, they're gaining entrance from ''outside'' through the windows, which seems like less of a probability, but not entirely groundless.
''Week in Review''
January 3-7, 2011 (Monday-Friday)
Earlier in the week I had reached my breaking point of frustration and was absolutely completely ready to give the ''G4 iMac'' the notorious ''Age-the-Rage'' smashdown fury -- even after I'd tried to reconsider and tried to reinstall a completely clean system in hopes of trying to squeeze even the littlest bit of money back out of it as possible, but the bxtch locked up and would not load the final software install disc, nor did it later accept any of the discs when the decision was made to start all over from the very beginning.
Across the next few days while it sat in wait of what dreaded fate could be conjured up for it, the decision was made to look into the possibility of bypassing the originally installed optical drive altogether with the purchase & hook-up of an external drive unit (since I'm sure as hell not going to try taking it apart to install a replacement, nor too keen on the idea of spending any extra money to have someone put one in for me), possibly along with the hard drive that was removed from the ''Win-HP'' if it turned out that it could indeed be salvaged. With this newest consideration in mind, I'd decided to go about trying to find a way to acquire a very cheap edition of since it is the absolute minimum system I'll need in order to get any ''real'' usage out of what's left of the machine... and surprisingly did manage to come across a site where the operating system had been posted as a ''torrent'' link, so I'd decided to save that information to myself in an email as something to return to for consideration.
After & during those days I'd concentrated on setting up the rescued ''G3'' as though it were to take the place of the attitudinal ''G4'' -- it was in fact during this process (being particularly concerned about the fact that the optical drive in the ''G3'' is incapable of reading DVD) that I'd first considered the idea of an external media drive, which segued into the possibility of doing it instead for the ''G4,'' since the ''G3'' is operating at 100 MB less than the ''G4'' which has a barely adequate 700 MB (''PowerPC'') processor.
And as if on cue, I'd gotten word back from ''SuperGeeks'' Thursday afternoon saying that the hard drive I'd left with them was in such bad shape that in order to 'try' recovering any of the data from it they would have to send it off to ''the cleaners,'' which in the telephone message that had been left on my answering machine sounded like they said it would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $700-$1800. Surely, I'd misheard the ''$1800'' (''eightteen-hundred'') part when what was certainly said was $800... but after I'd returned the call he did reaffirm that the number he'd quoted was indeed $1800, and said that given the state of the drive as they could tell I'd likely be looking closer in that ''higher end'' spectrum. After much contemplating, I'd decided that for as much hard work and effort as I'd put into most of what was housed onto that crap chunk of metal-- including the fact that there are indeed a number of personal files I'll have no way of ever getting back or duplicating --there wasn't jack shit on that drive that was anywhere near worth nobody's $1800 fxcking dollars!!!
...And of course all of this wonderful news hit just a few hours after I'd received another call earlier that morning to schedule an interview with the first location I'd applied to work for! Funny how zhxt like that always has a habit of happening right at key, crucial, or otherwise ''curious'' times....
(In fact, I'd not expected any amount of recovery work that needed to be done to exceed $400.) It wouldn't be until a considerable amount of time later that I'd be grateful that I'd procrastinated so long in transferring my ''Mac-resting'' files, and that in order to do so (at least according to my present knowledge about ''transferring files'' between different OS platforms) required me to burn everything to digital media first! Still, it's going to require a lot of work to get back (and especially tweak) everything that I'm either able to remember/recall or retrace/trackdown & preserve. In preparation of the next massive wave of commanded attention that'll yet again be keeping me enslaved to the screen and away from other more productive and/or social activity I'd spent parts of Thursday and Friday to research internal hard drive systems, and seem to have settled upon a couple of ''Hitach'' models, intending to 'go for the gusto,' as it were, looking into at least a one... or perhaps two terabyte system -- thinking maybe it's now a good idea not to be so chintsy with the amount of ''storage capacity'' that can be made available & utilized. (I don't think I'm quite to the point yet where I'd consider establishing a ''RAID'' set-up, although it too would probably be a very smart 'cautionary' move.)
''Week in Review''
January 11, 2011 (Tuesday)
Uploaded a second test video project early this morning using ''Apple's'' ''iMovie'' software program, which was begun last night, to my ''Gen-X'' account, and for the second time it would not play on the site -- so in order to get it to play as intended it will need to be ''converted'' once I've gotten my ''Windows'' system reinstalled & operational.
Went to my job interview tonight as scheduled (18:00), then rode out to ''Radio Shack'' afterward to purchase replacement batteries for the pair of strapless LCD watches which I'd used during my longest held job, figuring that now that I've gotten a watch repair kit it should at least get some extra usage out of it to help the blasted thing ''pay for itself.'' Then stopped by the supermarket to get a few items, most deliberate among them was a bottle of Worcestershire sauce to add as the ''finishing touch'' for my self-concocted ''katsu sauce'' (which, upon its addition, seems to have been just the ticket, but won't know for absolutely certain until I've used it for its intended purpose).
23:55, Hawaii Standard Time.
January 13, 2011 (Thursday)
Decided that I was not going to allow the rain to prevent me from going out and taking care of a few errands, but it did keep me from taking everything I'd planned on for this excursion when it began downpouring to hard to continue riding. (Gave the motorcycle a good washdown before heading out.)
My first stop was ''SuperGeeks'' to pick up my dead hard drive and to inquire about replacing with a 1 or 2 terabyte hard drive and some insight regarding a couple of external optical drives for the ''iMac'' -- and I'm still a bit hesitant about taking him at his word that either purchases should be just fine, while trying to talk me into chucking the Macs I've got on hand and into considering purchasing a new Mac (...yeah, right... like I'm about to do that BS ever again).
I was also unexpectedly offered a ''full refund'' for the labor & diagnostics. They said that since I'd requested for no further attempts at repair & recovery that the initial ''upfront'' charge work order charge would be refunded in full. ''Strange way to do business,'' I'd told them, and meant it.
From there I swung by the appropriate government buildings to pick up copies of my taxation paperwork (not being able to acquire a copy of the appropriate Federal Tax booklet because they were out of stock), then came straight back to the apartment complex through the heavy rain.
Back inside I spent some time fiddling around trying to recall how to replace the batteries in the LCD watches, and upon completion wishing that the ''indiglo'' gimmick on the thoroughly beat-up ''Acqua'' had instead belonged to the far-less beat-up but probably ever ''strapless'' ''Casio''... both of which I think I'd found lost and/or discarded when I'd been working at the community college (I know one I'd taken into personal possession after it had remained unclaimed in the ''lost & found'' for close to a couple of months, but cannot recall which one it had been; the other one I'm honestly not able to recall, and part of me is wanting to say that it may actually have been given to me by someone I'd known or worked with).
While trying to catch up on my email readings and hoping to swing back into the ''OWC'' (''Other World Computing'') website in order to get more details on the optical drives I'm considering for the Mac, I'd gotten engaged in an online chat via ''Yahoo! Messenger'' with a couple of women whom I'd established outside contact with from our online interactions on ''[Google]Tube,'' which was difficult as my reading glasses were downstairs with the motorcycle and I'd needed to switch over to the Mac with it's highly unresponsive keyboard: so I'd had tried to handle two simultaneous conversation with one woman in Detroit the other in South Jersey.
23:55, Hawaii Standard Time.
January 20, 2011 (Thursday)
Figured my replacement hard drive probably arrived today, but it had not. Still, while on the premises I'd decided to take that opportunity to renew my post office box for another six months (still in hopeful anticipation).
From there I decided to try to find Koapaka Street again, in hopes of tracking down the main office of the alternative company I'd wanted to put in an employment application with, and again it was difficult to locate. Of all the places where it could've been located, it was in the same complex as the Hawaii ''Duty Free'' headquarters (where I'd put in one of my very earliest applications for work after my arrival to Hawaii).
During my application process I was informed by the young woman who was handing out the applications that the company I'd worked for which had recently gone bankrupt had been purchased & absorbed by this company I'm now applying with, and that the former company, though an official part of their company, was reorganized to operate as an independent ''branch'' under a new name. (However, any general or business news on the takeover could not be uncovered in any online research -- but did uncover from a tour of the company's official website that contrary to what I'd believed since the company first made it's mark in Honolulu about 12 years ago, the company was not exclusively a ''Honolulu'' operation, but that it is established in at least two of the west coast states.) While there I'd also met with another former co-worker from the ''Cultural Plaza,'' who had come in after I'd completed the initial ''test'' they have us take before presenting us with the actual application for employment.
19:15, Hawaii Standard Time.
January 24, 2011 (Monday)
Finally starting to come down off of fighting a nasal viral infection I'd begun experiencing the symptoms of early Friday morning and was expecting it to be another of those ''fly-by-night'' deals which I've now become more susceptible to these past years. (I suspect I'd contracted it from the ''former co-worker'' I'd run into when putting in my job application Thursday, because she was coughing up something significant while there.) Even though it was one of the least severe ''head colds'' I'd ever been confronted with, it was still enough to disrupt my sleeping periods, and worse, resulted in both my top and bottom lips becoming dried, cracked & painfully split in several places. All of this ''fighting'' going on inside my body while I'd simultaneously forced my body to go into additional ''repair job'' mode Friday morning, when after having decided that I'd had about enough of that irritating lingering ''ass pimple'' that I'd gone to the clinic for refusing to completely go away and which was ever trying to flare back up I'd resorted to trying to ''sandpaper'' it out of existence... only to cause more damage to the surrounding skin than to the pimple spot itself, thanks to not having the necessary balance and leverage needed due to the very awkward positioning & contorting.
I tried to utilize some of that time, when I'd felt able to withstand or resist the symptoms, to re-download the ''OTR'' radio drama files I'd lost in the collapse of my PC hard drive; feeling that it was even more imperitive that it be done because according to the ''OTR'' community, a popular private marketing company which deals in selling OTR programs (which I'll not name, and whose company I'd promoted on one of my pages I'll now remove completely and make no further mention of) has been harassing a certain upload/hosting site where many OTR programs are made available by & for fans of the genre, claiming some bullshit ''copyright'' hold to certain collections of popular programs which are legally in the ''PUBLIC DOMAIN.'' So I've just been saving onto the rescued ''G3 iMac'' virtually the entire available collections of the three remaining series I'd downloaded onto the WinPC as part of my final additions to my ''Radio Dramas'' personal audio library, which I'd only done to such an extent because I'm not able to remember exactly which specific program titles I'd saved out of all of those I'd first listened to in their entirety before deciding whether to save them or not. If anything ''good'' can be taken from this bad experience, it would be that I'd not yet gotten around to ''editing'' & cleaning up any of those earlier files that were lost, although I'll again have to go back through the long tedious process of ''retitling'' and ''relabeling'' those individual files that will be retained. (There's quite a bit of music that I'd saved which I've also lost, but I'm not all that concerned about replacing those to the same extent.)
...And just for a little something extra from the ''Twilight Zone'' files -- I'd only learned about the ''Keith Olbermann'' departure from ''MSNBC'' late Saturday. The bizarre thing about that I'd had a sleeping dream earlier in the day whereupon I'd found myself trying to hold him up, tending to him and trying to sustain him after he'd had a diabetic collapse right after one of his broadcasts. (insert ''Twilight Zone'' theme music here... and you be the judge)
Even though my hard drive replacement has likely already arrived in the mail, I'd decided to stay in and sleep the rest of the day away and 'spin down' from this illness.
23:50, Hawaii Standard Time.
January 27, 2011 (Monday)
Spent just an hour shy of almost non-stop reinstallation & reconfiguration work-- from around 08:00 yesterday 'til a bit after 07:00 this morning when I'd finally decided to shut it down and get some sleep --after retrieving my hard drive from the post office. Woke up again only about 4 hours later to continue with the process, stopping for some real sleep after I'd finished setting personal system preferences and reinstalling all of my third party applications, plus a few new additions. Still working on setting up the desktop icon arrangement which will be followed by re-establishing my desktop & screensaver themes. ''Real'' problems finally arose just a few minutes ago, literally, when I'd discovered that for some reason I've no longer any ability to use the ''print screen'' function; trying to figure out if it was as a result of something I'd done, or if it's a system screw-up.
23:55, Hawaii Standard Time.
February 1, 2011 (Tuesday)
Spent the entire weekend working on reconfiguring the ''Windows PC'' computer: installing reinstalling the remainder of my 3rd-party applications (both those of my former pre-collapse suite [with a few being ''updated'' versions] along with a few newly embraced programs or any number of newly added modifications to a few of the apps that had been part of my originally installed collection), rearranging desktop & menu icons into a new configuration, restoring my visual & audio work environment themes (i.e., ''system preferences'') with a number of new tweaks & modifications, and setting up use & appearance preferences for my collection of web browsers (now limited to four total) and media players. (Restoring preferences to my ''VideoLAN''/''VLC'' multimedia player is all that remains of those tasks.) One of my biggest and most time-consuming tasks, by far, was downloading & installing over 300 new fonts.
Yesterday's activity was dominated primarily by cycling through my ''desktop/screensaver'' images to reacquire as much of the original selection as possible and to sort out which items to set aside as new additions.
In between all that activity, I'd been periodically continuing to re-download the OTR programs I'd lost in the PC collapse, learning that there were quite a few more programs that I'd collected which I'd erroneously thought were all part of the ''safe'' collection.
Also, after nothing but miserable failed attempts to upload video projects onto one of my ''back-up'' hosting accounts and encountering repeated problems with newly reinstalled 'file conversion' programs, I'd discovered that ''GoogleTube'' did indeed extend my upload allotment on my still-active but unused channel, so with all of the headaches that I've been enduring over at ''DailyMotion'' I'd decided that it was again time to swallow my pride (and dignity) and ride on the underbelly of the T-Rex and re-establish my online presence there. (''DayMo'' has nobody but themselves to thank for making me come to this decision. Before making this discovery, I'd already contemplated transferring all of my future work-- and whatever ''past'' work that can be salvaged or recreated --over to ''Vimeo'' instead, even though they have scores of limitations as well.)
Also prevented what appeared to be a new attempt of the part of the ghost ants to re-establish a base inside this apartment Sunday morning: first spotted & crushed one running along just below & onto my window sill in the kitchen, then spotted & sprayed a fertile female running along the corner between my kitchen window & sink cabinets, then another 'worker' just above her on the sill; so I'd used that as another opportunity to spray a follow-up chemical barrier around the windows, as well as spraying several of the areas where they are known to routinely re-colonize.
00:35, Hawaii Standard Time.
February 4 - 11, 2011 (Friday-Friday)
Allowed myself to get too busily engrossed in restoring my files & preferences, along with loading some of my ''saved-to-removable-media'' files and recreating a number of ''personal project'' files & folders, that I've been ignoring much else.
The weekend was largely dedicated to trying to locate & download torrent listings of ''Mac OS X'' ''retail'' versions of their full operating systems -- first searching for 10.5 ''Leopard'' until I'd uncovered that it possibly may not run on a 700 MHz processor, then made fruitless searches for version 10.4 ''Tiger'' (...the absolute bare minimum I'll need in order to hopefully get any sort of real valuable continued usage out of the headache-inducing ''G4'').
It was during these trying periods that I'd determined that ''torrents'' are a load of bullshark, as *NOTHING* I'd tried to download from all the various torrent sites would even so much as begin the process! The only things I'd even been able to locate and ''save'' at all were a 17-part EXTREMELY SLOW & TIME-RESTRICTED download offering of ''Leopard'' (which consisted of blocks of something identified as ''.rar'' files, which I'd downloaded over the course of two days and which I've no idea how to handle, compile & install), and a very long list of very small multiple files (over 70 in all) which the Windows ''File Associations'' page identifies as a series of ''Split Compressed Archive File[s]...created via WinRAR style, file compression utilities...'' -- again, something I'm entirely unfamiliar with.
But it was not only for this reason that I'm calling ''torrents'' a total crock, but even when I'd tried to download the files for the ''Debian'' Linux operating system (which I'm planning on installing on the iMac G3) via torrents, it STILL would not download... and I'm almost certain it's not the fault of the torrent program I'm using.
During one of my breathers from all that search & download madness, I'd gotten this urge to try yet again to play ''people locate'' of some of the names that are/were part of my life. For the first time, I'd gotten this curious urge to try to pull up the son of my first girlfriend, who was not yet even a toddler when I'd met her -- and I'd actually found some information on him, as he'd posted on one of the social networking sites. He'd not moved out of the major area after graduation (only to the next city over, where my mother lives) and had by every indication available grown into a fine and very handsome young man who is now a father himself of a little boy, and he plans on marrying the mother and becoming a family.
His story, however, sparked my motivation to post my first webcam video since getting re-established in ''Windows'' OS environment, because he had expressed in his own text comments his frustrations with trying to deal with & relate to the women he had been engaging with over the years (and though he did not directly come right out and say so, it was apparent enough to me, based on my own history in the area, that he was making reference to ''black'' ('AfricAmerican') women), and it apparently led to his current relationship with the mother of his child, who (unsurprisingly) happens to be a woman of ''European'' persuasion! Yet another indicator of just how black women in America are throwing away the best of their own and allowing ''white women'' to snatch them up, thus fueling & stoking the process for the rise of the ''Light-skinned Elite'' which will quickly establish itself as the new vanguard of the AfricAmerican Community... that is, of course, assuming they'll even be comfortable with being considered and/or identifying themselves as ''black.''
While trying to upload my webcam .wmv file commentary video about this discovery regarding my ''almost-son'' onto my ''DramaNation-X'' alternative hosting site, and yet again for some inexplicable reason being confronted with rejected uploads, regardless of past success and regardless of which web browsers I'd utilized (...a problem which was initially experienced each time I'd attempted to upload projects directly produced in Apple ''iMovie'' .mov format after testing out Apple's horseshXt movie making program, then more recently when trying to upload saved .avi files from the ''dejikame'' -- all during the time while still having only ''Mac OS'' and ''Mandrivia'' Linux to work with), and then later discovering (after the 'Windows'' reinstallation) that it was not possible for me to upload anything onto that site until it had been ''translated'' as a downloaded .mp4 file after uploading it to ''Google''Tube, I'd finally made the conscious decision to remove all of my remaining a/v content from their hosting site and proceeded to (with deepest regrets) re-establish my fully active presence back onto ''Who?''Tube.
The rest of the week was spent between trying to complete the restructuring work with the computer system & files-- and always finding new tweaks & refinements which need being done, including going through several ''reinstallation'' processes with 3rd-party programs in trying to weed out various ''conflicts'' which seem to keep cropping up --and working on re-establishing my (now a total of ''three'') channel pages on ''Not-US''Tube.
Regarding my furious & spiteful re-embrace of (''Who?'')Tube, I'd almost left it in again in seething rage & anger just as quickly as I'd made my ''official'' announcement on the site in a posted vidcom (not even a full day earlier, last Friday night) that I'd be re-establishing my presence onto the site. This was in reaction to the fact that ''Google''Tube had finally made it impossible to circumvent gaining access to my original (''Who?'')Tube account without being pushed against the wall to ''link accounts'' with ''Let's Be Evil'' ''Google'' -- which required that we give them access to our ''email'' account identity. Later on, though still highly infuriated at having to be *FORCED* into accessing their continually bastardized service according to their set-up, I'd already had a couple of email accounts established strictly for updates & interactions from the ''GoogleTube'' user community anyway, which is exactly what they'd all (except for the one associated with my most recently created persona) been originally set-up for in the first place; so as much as it still pisses me off, they've still not won entirely and I've still not lost entirely, especially given the fact that *NONE* of the information I've provided with either of my email or ''GoogleTube'' accounts is correct or fully accurate anyway.
''Full Week in Review''
February 12, 2011 (Saturday)
Found out what may be the major reason why ''Safeway'' supermarkets suck so much ass. When I'd gone in for just a few items (none of which were really needed) Monday night, and one of the price-assurance persons in one of the aisles asked the pat, ''Are you finding everything okay,'' question of trained mock concern, used the opportunity to gripe again about how I'm growing tired of finding all the stuff I've taken a particular liking being pulled from the shelves, again specifically mentioning the fact that the spot in the frozen juice display case which used to stock ''Langer's'' brands has been just sitting completely empty for at least the past four months. Seemingly understanding my disappointment & frustration at these ass-backward practices, she informed me that this has much to do with the fact that our ''local'' Safeways receive their purchasing orders from the ''Mainland'' corporate headquarters, and are not based on local decisions. Even so, she said she'd take my concern to the store manager regarding the frozen juice situation.
''late entry''
February 14 - 18, 2011 (Monday-Friday)
Received a phone call from the second company I'd put in the job application for, telling me to come in for an interview the following morning (Thursday). Even though I'd been awake the entire night Wednesday all the way through up until I'd left to make the interview, I'd still somehow left the apartment much later than planned and ended up arriving about 8 minutes late to site (not a very good first impression, at least as far as 'Yours Truly' was concerned).
The previous night had kept me awake as any & every attempt to reclaim my lost video projects from ''Saley'' Motion (my new name for the vid-hosting site, ''DailyMotion,'' due to their infuriating oversaturation of senses-assaulting unrelentingly intrusive commercial advertisements) trying to use several programs which ''CLAIMED'' to be able to capture & save videos that had been posted on any number of the ''popular'' upload/hosting sites, which again turned out to be complete bullshark, just like those ''torrents'' things. After much searching, I'd found that those so-called ''save 'X'-Tube videos to your computer'' programs & plug-ins would not perform as claimed, but (at least in my circumstances) required a additional program which required the ''access'' things like ''greasemonkey'' and ''Keep-Tube'' could pull up but which actually did the real work of grabbing & downloading the selected videos which ''Keep-Tube,'' ''ClipNabber'' and others wouldn't -- either that, or just ''Saley'' Motion doing all they could to keep programs like that from working as (supposedly) designed, and thus preventing me from reclaiming *MY* shXt! The most difficult part of the process (once the ''solution'' was figured out) was trying to save everythng in the ''.mp4'' format, instead of ''.flv'' -- but several of my projects (favorites, of course) kept hitting snags and would not fully download in that format, so I'd settled for what was available in each of those instances.
So after an entire night and well into the dawn hours of working through those headaches, I'd decided not to chance any ''brief naps'' and ruin all chances of keeping the appointment and doing so in a ''presentable'' manner, as I'd needed to do a considerable amount of grooming beforehand.
I did not return straight back to the apartment after the interview, but next stopped in as part of my annual ritual to pay this year's motorcycle insurance, then chose to ride around some, mainly with the idea of trying to find someplace to eat something. I'd gone about as far as Waialae Ave. before it continues on to the ''H-1 underpass, then swung back towards town, stopping into that little insane-parking strip mall on ''Kapiolani Bvd. somewhere close to Date St., where I'd chosen to purchase a carry-out order of pad thai from a tiny but seemingly popular place called ''Phuket Thai.'' I'd ordered ''spicy'' when offered a choice between that and ''mild'' and ''medium'' -- having no idea that this was one of those ''RAREST'' of rarest times when somebody used the term ''spicy'' in their cuisine offering and weren't just bullshXtting! (the stuff was near volcanic, not that it was anything to complain about, but they could've cut back just a smidgen so that the noodles could've been tasted more).
Back at the apartment I'd returned to trying to reclaim my video projects, until I'd begun to feel so tired & fatigued that it was calling on me to stop everything and get some down-time. Before doing so I'd decided to set my alarm to awaken me at about 22:30, in hopes of catching a nap before venturing back out to one of the ''competing'' department stores, mainly to get the type of dishwashing sponge which ''KMart'' decided to no longer stock, but when the alarm went off I'd no energy to spare for the trip, so decided to get some real sleep instead.
Throughout the night of tossing, I'd feel myself getting hit brief periods of heavy rushes wooziness every time I'd turn my head to either side, but didn't think too much about it. It was not until I'd woken up, actually opened my eyes and started moving around that I'd learned that I'd been getting slammed with episodes of vertigo, again most prevalent whenever I'd reposition my head to tilt in any direction... and the more serious the ''tilt,'' the more severe each episode. I'd recalled experiencing this same sort of thing a year or two ago (cannot remember if I'd mentioned it or not) when I'd thought that it might have been linked to my fight with what was likely a case of influenza at the time. This time, my assumption was that it may have been linked to the ''pad thai'' I'd eaten the night before, perhaps as a form of food poisoning or perhaps a previously unknown food allergy, even though neither of those considerations seemed at all plausible to me, considering the fact that other than my feeling a bit sluggish there were no other ''symptoms'' typically associated with food-related adverse reactions (e.g., nausea, headache, diarrhea, etc.). After doing some searching online, the closest thing which seemed to describe what was occurring with me was something referred to as ''Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo.'' The diagnosis sort of made me wonder if that problem I'd had all throughout the previous week with my right eardrum (where it continually mimicked the condition one gets when there is pressure drop during an increase in altitude) may have been connected to it in some way. Though it gradually faded throughout the day, some of the lingering effects were still being felt well into the night.
''Week in Review''
February 19 - 20, 2011 (Saturday-Sunday)
Continued to experience dizzy spells throughout the weekend, but was mostly associated with periods of sleep & reawakening, although a small degree of lightheadedness & wooziness was still being felt throughout the other periods.
Left late Sunday night to go department store shopping at the former ''Daiei'' -- mainly for my furikake, my dishwashing sponge (which they likewise did not have the type I'm looking for, which, regrettably, leaves the department store chain I've been boycotting) and ant & roach killing spray which I'd just run completely out of after confirming that there is another ant nest hiding somewhere between my sink cabinets and stove, which will be extremely difficult to access.
''Weekend in Review''
February 21 - 25, 2011 (Monday-Friday)
Managed to track down the ant colony I'd become aware of last week on Monday; it turns out that they'd been nesting not behind the cabinets as I'd originally suspected, but in a floor tile directly underneath the broiler, which I'd found quite odd that they were at all able to withstand all of the heat generated from the oven. Nor was it a small nest either, so I'm uncertain how long it had actually been established, i.e., if it had been one of the older colonies I'd missed before, if they were the result of escapees from one of the several other nests I'd exterminated, or if it was a new colony that had since become established.
Tuesday morning saw the last vertigo attack; even so, I'm still being somewhat mindful & reluctantly expectant despite its seemingly having subsided.
''Week in Review''
Winter 2006 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2007 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2007 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2007 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2007 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2008 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2008 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2008 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2008 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2009 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2009 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2009 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2009 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2010 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2010 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2010 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2010 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2011 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2011 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2011 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2011 (Dec-Feb)
