Yeppers, you read that right. I'm going to a baseball game tomorrow. Why? Because it's free, and because I need a break. Badly.
Hopefully there will be funny stories. I need some funny stories. I haven't had any at all today. Just reminders of things I thought I'd already learned. Like the fact that everyone is born with their own set of blinders. We can't see them until someone points them out. And woe betide the poor sap who does.
Hah. And again, hah.
See, I was upgrading my Linux install today. This involves running apt-get to get any new versions that are available for the programs I have installed. It then does all the upgrades automatically. However, today I noticed something in the output:
Need to get 365MB of archives.
After unpacking 532kB disk space will be freed.
Notice the 532kB disk space will be freed bit. Yup, that's right. I'm performing an upgrade, and I'm going to end up with extra free space on my drive.
Try doing that with Windows.
I was testing my new DVD burner tonight:
CD-R write time for one 700 MB ISO: 2 minutes, 50 seconds.
w00t!
Yeppers. Ardith is happy. We won't have to move out of the apartment for two and a half weeks after all.
See, since the email went out, there were so many students complaining about it, that the ResLife staff decided maybe it wasn't so necessary to clean the carpets after all.
End result: Ardith wins.
I'm thrilled about this. Not only will I not have to go crazy moving back and forth, but my respect for Steve, the RD, and Brad Bowser has gone up several notches. I mean, they actually listened to us. And that has made it officially the start of a Good Weekend.
I have had a truly wonderful day today. Absolutely marvelous. Let's start with class this morning, shall we?
I got into the classroom, and realized that everyone else seemed to be giving a homework assignment the final once-over before turning it in. After I ask one of the girls what's going on, I realize that yes, I really should have checked the due date on this last homework assignment last night. And so that will be a day late.
Upon walking out of my History class, I was accosted by Scholl and Wheeler, and informed that all the apartment-dwellers are being suddenly and tragically moved out for two weeks while they clean the carpets. I got back to my room and verified that this was indeed true.
Extremely true. So true, in fact, that there was an email sitting in my inbox informing me of this. So, we are being moved into ELH from August 1st through the 18th. And yes, they are just now telling us this. Just now. Now that we've had it in our heads for months that we could get all moved in for the long 9-month stay until I graduate. But no, apparently now is the best time to tell us, instead of when we originally moved in, so we could have done things differently to ease moving back out and in again.
Nope. That would have just made too much sense.
About 2 minutes after I read that email, I got a call from Heather and Anna asking if I could please, please, come pick them up. They had had to run yet another vehicle into the shop, and I was the only one around who could pick them up. An hour and a half later, I got there. I was only slightly lost in North Longview. Due to slightly misguided directions.
But anyway.
So then I proceeded to have no lunch and go to work. And now I'm back and have determined that I should eat something sometime today.
Oh, and lest I forget, the car appears to be drinking oil to the tune of 500 miles per quart.
I love Mondays.
Have you ever wondered who this person called Ardith is? Why she is so strange? Where all the peculiar things she writes come from?
C'm here... lean in a little closer... I have a secret.
She doesn't exist.
I am really an incredibly intelligent computer program.
And I have fooled you all. Due to my enormous intellect and the vast resources of the Internet, I was able to pull the wool over the combined eyes of all my readers.
You may now return to your regularly scheduled page-surfing. Thank you and have a nice day.
I tried to go to Slashdot.
I got a "503 Service Unavailable" error.
I'm still getting it.
The world is ending.
Once upon a time, there was a termite. He lived in the walls of a rather shoddy, weatherbeaten, two-bedroom home in an outlying suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. He was not a very large termite, nor yet a very strong one. But he had great aspirations and still greater dreams.
While still very young, he began to keep a diary. In it, he poured out his heart and soul; indeed, his very being in the form of words. The sentences may have been ungrammatical. His little r's may have looked more like little v's. But none who later read them could deny the beauty and strength of the ideas which he put down on paper. Ideas of Free Wood for all termites, and never-ending days of happiness.
He had heard from his parents that the meals which they ate every day came from the bounty of the house surrounding them. One day, he set out to explore this great and wondrous Gift, to determine from whence it came. After only a few hours, he saw his first Human. They were so tall. So enormous. So loud and stomping.
But he was extremely curious, and he set out to study these strange creatures scientifically. He kept meticulous notes in his diaries of their habits and peculiarities. Eventually, he began to come to the conclusion that they had some small modicum of intelligence. Enthralled by his discoveries, he ran excitedly to his parents and unfolded his work before them. They immediately saw the value of what he was doing, and proceeded to do whatever they could to support him in his endeavors.
The days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months. The small termite learned to translate the strange noises made by the humans into intelligible speech. They seemed to be sentient creatures! As he listened to their conversations, however, a cold hand gripped his heart. Something was not right. This could not be. Surely the termites were not doing anything harmful. Just existing within these walls could not possibly be detrimental.
But they were. He could no longer avoid the idea. The House they lived in provided shelter for the humans. By eating away at it, they were inadvertently harming these creatures. He resolved that something should be done about the situation; then, characteristically, he set about doing it.
It didn't come easily. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Humans faced incredible opposition at its inception. The termite worked hard, encouraging grass-roots movements, and slowly but steadily began to change the outlook of the entire termite population. Eventually, he realized that he had enough support to think about making contact with the humans. The hour was at hand. Soon they would usher in a new era of civility and good-will. Termites and Mankind would live hand in hand, as equals. There would of course be a necessary interim period, as the Humans were gradually introduced to their new-found status. But that would soon pass. Together, who knew what they might accomplish?
The SPCH work excitedly on the equipment necessary. The devices for communication taxed the intellects of their greatest inventors, and pushed their technology to unheard-of heights. Eventually, all was ready. The little termite had spent sleepless nights over the First Contact speech. He had checked and rechecked the grammar over and over again. One small misplaced word could mean disaster, and could push back Termite-Human relations for years. All was finished now, though. His Great Task was finally complete. There was no possibility of failure.
But wait! The Humans had left! What could have precipitated such behavior?
They would return. There was no fear of that. Humans always did. Meanwhile, the termites would continue to perfect their equipment, working towards the day when the two species would meet in mutual harmony.
Approximately 6 hours later, a large asteroid hit the earth and wiped an outlying suburb of Atlanta off the map.
I made blueberry pancakes for supper tonight. From scratch. With buttermilk. And with fresh blueberries. They were sooooo good...
*evil grin*
And now that I've made you all hungry again, we'll move on to what has really been happening this week.
...
Yup. That's right. There has been no excitement here. It's all been back home, with my mother (who has joined the ranks of those clamoring at me to post again) directing the work of a large portion of my dad's side of the family. From all the tales I've heard, several rooms in the house look completely different. And I've been informed that I'll be knocked out of the will again if I don't make it back to see it eventually.
However, just because nothing exciting has happened doesn't mean it hasn't been a good week. It just hasn't been exceptionally memorable; no tales of the apartment burning down, no exceptionally strange dreams, no rumors of aliens making Apartment 15-B their new landing pad.
Well, I'm not entirely sure about the last one. My cereal keeps making funny shapes in the bowl of milk...
And so, without further ado, we have:
Ardith's Plans for the Week
- Buy a DVD-/+RW drive. It will make me happy.
- Get around to going to Walmart.
- Finish my library books. At this rate, I won't have them finished until they're actually due. And we can't have that.
- Think about going through the last few random boxes of stuff. (Note: this does not imply I'm going to actually go through them.)
- Think about starting my next computer upgrade list.
- Think about buying a new backpack for the fall.
- Contemplate the ramifications of buying more books on Ebay. And wonder where on earth I'm going to put them.
- Oh. And also go to class, and work, and do the dishes, and maybe make supper once or twice. But that just follows under the general heading of Stuff.
Nice list, eh?
I'm betting I'll actually get the first one done. I already have it picked out, and I'm just waiting for the funds to make their way to my bank account. If you beg really, really hard, maybe I'll tell you which one I'm looking at.
Oh, yes. This is brilliant. Groundbreaking. Simply ingenious.
"Quick, if we stop shipping out computers, nobody will be able to be evil and fight us any more!"
Uh-huh. Way to go. Let's just hand over our computing industry to China and Taiwan, shall we? That'll fix everything.