making a molehill out of a mountain

i woke up around 10am this morning having slept a fair amount, and i woke up feeling a bit shocked and confused as a result.

today was a lot less nice than it should have been. it involved playing tekken 3 and counterstrike 1.6 with mr smear (no other versions run on the windows machine, and no versions run on a mac), and there were some glorious moments. but there were also lots of shitty emotions that came out - some borne of miscommunication, some of mr smear exhibiting a shitty attitude and me taking it more personally than i should have), and as a result the day was not full of joy.

on a different note, i spent a *lot* of time today - mostly between other things - finishing the work i started yesterday on my telephony side project.

i guess i feel a bit more productive, at least more than i've felt all week.

in war news, it was a pretty quiet day today, gd's stomach seems to be feeling a bit better than it has in months, and we had a massive electric storm this afternoon.

emulation

i wrestled quite a bit more with my side project before dinner (pausing to help out with the kitchen and the baking), and then it was dinner. which was delicious, and would have been far more pleasant if mr smear hadn't done a thing about the eggplant and his salad. kind brought the vibe down, but whatever...

after eventually getting him showered and into bed, and then myself showered - i was anticipating a cool shower, but it was plenty hot - i've spent the last couple of hours buggering about with retroarch and duckstation. i can play sunset riders! and i have tekken 3 set up!

there was a lot of irritating effort that went into that, but i'm quite happy with things right now. i should probably go to bed.

the birthday special

 omg i am PAINFULLY tired. as in, i don't feel so good tired.

...

mr smear woke us up to delivery the birthday card this morning, and from there we progressed to making the following (using a combination of gemini and gimp, because the AI guardrails for images are frustrating and the generated images are mostly garbage anyway):

gd loved it, and mr smear and i had a positive educational experience.

afterwards, i spent some more time trying to get notebooklm to make the cinderella reboot comics i was working on last week. i managed to get better results, but still a lot of weirdness. i suspect that i'm going to need to copy/paste across different attempts to get it to the point where i feel comfortable posting it.

i then proceeded to built some small units (i'd promised gd that for her birthday i'd put together as much furniture as i could), while mr smear got his first screen time at home in ages (he used his half hour on oxygen not included), and then suddenly it was noon and time to take mr smear to south tel aviv.

his friend's mother did warn me that it was very far. i didn't think it was such a big deal, but in addition to it very much being a big deal it was also unseasonably warm and very sunny with very little shade. i really hope this doesn't trigger an outbreak for mr smear :)

anyway, he handled the ride better than ever before, was rewarded with his favorite drink (sprite) without even begging for it, and after riding through proper poverty and squalor (and chickens in the streets) i dropped him off in good spirits.

i took a more direct path home, straight through a very busy predominantly sudanese populated area, and the vibe was very different from the other direction...

i only stopped to pick up a desperately-needed coffee on the way home, then arrived home to begrudgingly make good on my promise and begin putting together the first of four chests of drawers.

actually, i guess i must have done something else before then, but i can't remembered anything else and i can't believe it took me quite that long... anyway, i'd constructed the body and two drawers (out of four) before i realized it was 6pm already and i needed to pick up mr smear.

there was no way i was going to ride that distance again, certainly not when it was so late and i was so thoroughly pooped, so i tried to catch a bus (or buses) and was caught off guard by the fact that they weren't operating yet. so i called a taxi. the driver was cool, and i was very grateful when he said "no problem" to picking up mr smear and his bike, as opposed to me walking mr smear and his bike to hunt for a bus stop on the wrong side of the tracks.

it was a story getting the bike into the trunk.

i almost died when mr smear excitedly started listing the contents of his friend's home in front of the taxi driver, and there was nothing i could say to stop him that wouldn't have been insulting. but his friend's family is a true gamer family, with multiple systems online, and he's now extremely excited about their tekken 3 arcade cabinet.

i can't tell you how pleased i am that he's begging me for tekken 3, which is still my favorite of the franchise by far, nor how sad i am that it's so difficult to get hold of.

mr smear has got the chorus from ticks and leeches stuck in his head, he's been singing it on a loop.

i completed the chest of drawers, mr smear helped me get all the cardboard boxes downstairs, and now it's dinner time.

02/07/03

i think i have low-grade insomnia. err... i *think* that's the way to say it.
i finally went to sleep around 2am, woke up around 9am and just could not keep my eyes closed.
and the heat is so uncomfortable - i've just been feeling crappy all day.

bearing in mind our law exam is tomorrow afternoon, this is what i did today (until 20.00 that is):

finished starcraft level 10 watched 28 days later went shopping for a toy boat went shopping for food spent time with her

28 days later is a great film. the cinamatography is excellent, the story is good, and the protagonist is great. the only problem i have is a rather major one - i think the movie would have been a LOT scarier if instead of silly b-movie type monsters, they'd stuck with the story and made it really angry people. much scarier, when your enemies are not restricted to stereotypical zombie attacks.

they don't sell toy boats/ships in my entire city. i went to every f#$@ing toy store, and there're a lot, and i didn't find a single one.
and it's a country that's proud of it's navy, too.

i actually bought healthy food today - and enough to last a couple more. i even bought fruit, which is such big news that i'm mailing my mother just to tell her.

it's now 20.13, and way past time to begin the studies...
*THAT SINKING FEELING AGAIN*

*** later ***

that sucked. i couldn't concentrate on the material - it's all legalese (OBviously), and i'm still buggered from not sleeping properly.
however, i'm coming up with all sorts of other bright ideas - for instance how to cover the vodacom sms site so that you only have to fill in the phone number and confirmation mail once.
i'll probably have that up VERY soon.

i went to get myself a midnight snack (i've been eating pita and humus all day - i WILL get gas from this, i'm sure. note: humus is a bean), and got caught by two tekken players. out of 15 games i lost one. i would be quite impressed and proud if only i hadn't been beaten by a completely lucky run - i know how grootbek plays and he had no clue what he was doing.
it sucks to see so much effort (by us trying to teach him) go to waste.

i've been reading william gibson's count zero for the last few days - it's VERY good. no wonder he got such acclaim (yes, i HAVE read neuromancer - this is cooler).