eric's journal

another short one...

Fri, 08 Jul 2005 19:32:33 GMT

Well I'm back from my trip to the east coast. It's about time. Because pictures tell a thousand words (or whatever the expression is), I created a page of some of the more interesting parts of the vacation here. We did a little bit of tourist crap in DC before heading up to NY to visit relatives and friends. By the end my attitude about everything kinda sucked because all we did was spend time "catching up" with other people and I didn't get to do anything that I specifically wanted to do. While in NY I actually used one of those "print your own digital pictures now" kiosk things in a drugstore, and the quality was surprisingly excellent. Better than film. Maybe I was the only one who thought the machines would be crap, but it turns out they're not.

And because I'm important, or at least I keep telling myself that, I have a pager! If you want to page me, which you better, ask me and I'll give you the number. Apparently it's ok to use it for non-work stuff. Since I doubt it will ever be needed for real business, it might as well be put to use somehow. And you can also email stuff to it. It's an early 90's gadget revived with 21st century technology!

"Take the lift to your flat and eat some chips"

Mon, 20 Jun 2005 05:12:03 GMT

I've been taking an lj vacation for quite a while, and may or may not update the world on what's new in my life sometime in the future. Right now, though, I wanted to share this with everyone:

PostSecret

It's a website that posts anonymous secrets (bet you didn't see that coming) that people send to some guy in the form of postcards. It's hard to explain, so I'm borrowing what they say:

Each secret can be a regret, hope, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, fear, betrayal, erotic desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.

They're posted once a week, and the one I can't stop looking at this week would have to be the one written in braille. I've been following the site for a good length of time now, and this has to be the saddest one I've ever seen.

On a lighter note, Eric Conveys an Emotion can always bring you a laugh.

ima. ima geek.

Tue, 17 May 2005 00:06:41 GMT

Click for larger.

multi-medi-licious

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 02:17:19 GMT

Three things for you.

1) Pringles with words printed on them. And no, there's no way I'm eating these things.

2) The coolest VHS spine label ever. Never seen this before, but it's too bad VHS is kinda, you know, on its way out. Few years too late, Sony. But it's still SUPER COOL!... and notice that I'm just writing on it with the back of a sorta pointed object. (You need quicktime, and I compressed it too much so it looks crappy, but I don't really want to do it again)
Free download!

3) A diagram of something that pisses me off and occurs way too much. Heading toward the school from conoco... that last intersection... why are there idiots who like to cut in between cars from the left lane to the turn lane (over the solid white line, with no signal) at the last possible second to turn onto Orange? Come on, guys, you do it every day. You should be able to follow every other car one of these days.

eric and lauren present the list of things that are overrated

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 02:35:58 GMT

The great list has been updated! Now without capitalization!

Led Zeppelin is overrated.
The Simpsons is/are overrated.
Pink Floyd is overrated.
Chili works is overrated.
Myspace is overrated.
+ C is overrated.
Ashlee Simpson is overrated hotness.
Greenday is overrated.
"Don't even start us on Napoleon Dynamite."
Snowboarding is overrated.
Bach and Beethoven are overrated.
The punk lifestyle is overrated.
"Partying" on the weekends is overrated.
Halo is overrated, especially regarding Mormons playing Halo.
Playing acoustic guitar is overrated.
Red Bull is overrated.
Emo is overrated.
Yellowcard, Story of the Year, and Switchfoot are overrated.
Ugg Boots are overrated.
Hollister, Abercrombie, and American Eagle are overrated, in that order.

jamster commercials
telling everyone how you drive like an idiot
whining loudly about your busy week
starbucks
girly blended drinks with whipped cream on top
"blah blah blah MONKEYS"
happy bunny
addictinggames.com
myspace
"attack with a RABID ___"
ap's
violins
"I got so wasted over spring break"
discussing the oc
scooby doo
honey combs
dr phil
donald trump
the apprentice
survivor
simon cowell
american idol
martha stewart
bob marley
dimly lit restaurants
internet explorer
stealing headphones from the mac lab
hotmail
ipods
'05 mustangs

Additions/comments/attacks welcome.

conjunction junction, what's your function

Sat, 09 Apr 2005 03:05:01 GMT

Scary link of the day. Holy crap.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

(It gets weirder at the end, so watch it all.)

procrastination is a sin

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 00:55:28 GMT

I have lots of homework to do, and I'm not doing it. What else is new.

Before I start, this is the best link ever. Make sure to look beyond the front page.

In other news, I had the pleasure of driving through sullivan this afternoon to drop someone off during the "rush." Holy crap. The lot is filled with sophomores who have to drive as fast as possible to show how hardcore they are when they drive. Makes me glad I'm in the comparatively calm Smith lot. In the minute or so I was waiting in a line of traffic, I witnessed two near accidents involving people flooring it to try and cut in line. Ridiculous. I have more respect now for people who have to put up with trying to get out of there at that time of the day.

Back to this. I need to stop linking to stuff. Sorry.

back in action

Thu, 31 Mar 2005 03:52:12 GMT

Nothing meaningful to talk about, just some random links for all the home boyz and home girlz:

cockeyed.com - The funniest site on the internet, hands down. "Hands down" is a stupid expression. If you don't regularly read this site, start now, here or here.

LAMS food fight - Hard-hitting reporting, just like ol' Dick Knipfing and Erica Ruiz.

Letter to the editor - 8th grader's well-written response to the food fight article.

Save Toby - Don't worry, it's not actually real.

And here are some more. Ok, a few more. (Yes, that last link was cheap.)

Suggested reply topic: what cool sites do you want to share with us?

creativity runs rampant

Thu, 31 Mar 2005 02:41:23 GMT

Late "ooh look at my Easter eggs" post. First time on lj in two weeks and it's a short post. Dissapointing, I know.

Could be a sad attempt to be a weebl (or a bob), but it still looks cool.

Shading!

The result of dipping the egg dipper in dye and tapping it on the egg and dabbing it. I have the process down to a science.

pictures and such

Wed, 16 Mar 2005 04:50:26 GMT

Not doing anything the whole day, even when there is stuff to do (like catch up on homework), is fun. It will be even more fun when it's the last day I have to get the work done. LJ-cut action:

Our awesome project. It's an old iMac. Sorry for the crappy picture.

What do you mean "suck up points"

You're damn right school is off... there 7 or 8 inches of snow in the street at 9:30 in the morning!

shortest post ever

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 00:25:55 GMT

Cliché of the day: "New look, same great taste!"

Back to calc project. I'll post pictures when it's done.

eric and lauren present the list of things that are overrated

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 03:24:27 GMT

The list of things that are overrated
What happens when the rejects of society have too much angst.

Led Zeppelin is overrated.
The Simpsons is/are overrated.
Pink Floyd is overrated.
Chili works is overrated.
Myspace is overrated.
+ C is overrated.
Ashlee Simpson is overrated hotness.
Greenday is overrated.
"Don't even start us on Napoleon Dynamite."
Snowboarding is overrated.
Bach and Beethoven are overrated.
The punk lifestyle is overrated.
"Partying" on the weekends is overrated.
Halo is overrated, especially regarding Mormons playing Halo.
Playing acoustic guitar is overrated.
Red Bull is overrated.
Emo is overrated.
Yellowcard, Story of the Year, and Switchfoot are overrated.
Ugg Boots are overrated.
Hollister, Abercrombie, and American Eagle are overrated, in that order.

More to come. (You're welcome to contribute to The list of things that are overrated.)

DISCLAIMER: This is not a "these are stupid" list. This is a "these are overrated" list. I like several of these things, as I'm sure do others. Everyone ("popular" people) just thinks they're the best at school.

let the good times roll

Wed, 09 Mar 2005 05:00:53 GMT

Fun fact for the day:

The fire drill during seventh period was caused by someone in my class. Yearbook. Apparently the unnamed person decided it would be smart to put two bags of microwave popcorn in the microwave for ten minutes. Ten. Two bags.

Everyone thought it was funny, even when the fire trucks came. "Ohh, look what you did, ____! The firemen are here!" Haha! "Ohh, you completely broke the microwave, _____!" Haha! It's just a party all around when people, you know, cause the fire alarm to trigger and break stuff. I thought it was annoying.

Coming soon... Eric and Lauren present List of things that are overrated! It's fun sharing your cynicism with someone else for a change.

untitled

Sat, 05 Mar 2005 05:04:58 GMT

You know something's not right when you're doing homework on a Friday night, as I was just doing. Hm. Well, I haven't updated in a while, so I feel a need to share my lovely week with you:

Junior testing. Whatever. Everyone's more than covered how much it sucked. In English we had to write an editorial regarding what we thought of the test. Mine was not too shabby, I thought, and if I get it back I'll have to post it. It's long, so it will be reminiscent of my Blurty days.

I've picked up a cold of some sort, and now I'm onto the stuffy nose and "hyuuu-hmm!" phase. Already went through the sore throat early in the week, so I'd expect a cough to be next.

I'm still wondering what my next steps should be to fix the several problems I'm having with someone. I don't really know what many of the problems are anymore, because I thought they were fixed, or even somewhat fixed. Apparently not. I'm getting the idea that I should just stop trying before I waste even more of my time and "contemplative thinking" power.

My web server still isn't working properly. I worked on it for over two hours last night, and all it has done is frustrated me more.

So the server has two web servers running on it, one on port 80 (default port) and one on port 8080. Port 80, good ol' Apache webserver, is running fine, and it stores the "adventures" from the website. The server on port 8080, which runs the content management system and the main page of the site, does not want to cooperate. It runs a whole bunch of cgi scripts. Why not move the cgi scripts over to the working server on port 80? Because I can't get cgi to work properly on port 80, dammit. I've tried for several hours last year with no successes. And even if I could get it to parse cgi properly, all the content management scripts aren't set to exist on that part of the hard drive relative to the root of it.

I need to figure out if I want to keep the site down or finish getting a php-based content management system working on Apache (on port 80). The actual system is around 75% ready, but I'm not happy with the layout, so I'd have to do most of it over again. This would mean putting in half a day's worth of work. However, I really don't think it's worth it, considering how things have been going lately in my life. And that's the technical details!

Also, I've learned not to trust people like I always have. (emo finish, sorry)

problem solved!

Mon, 21 Feb 2005 23:27:39 GMT

Apparently the "delivered to los alamos, nm on Friday" crap was an "error." An error that was never corrected on the status page thing after three days. But the package arrived this morning, so I'm going to be happy and not ask why it was sent to Rhode Island and signed for by an individual. Hm.

So here it is, 'yo:

Picturewhore time!
Classy packaging... the box has a really cool texture:

They seem to be sticking this phrase somehwere on every product's packaging:

Still deciding whether or not to use the ridiculous neck lanyard:

Front mounted USB port = convenient:

It's very small. Pack of gum small:

Thin, too:

Let me reiterate... it's small:

People say it has a 15 hour battery life. Wow. It's really really light, so it's hard to imagine it can crank out music for that long. And the sound quality is good... again, really impressive considering the size of the thing.

My only "complaint" (I can't really even call it that) is that it definitely feels cheap. Not because of the weight, but the little switches on the back are warped or something and the headphone jack is crooked, so the little white thing doesn't fit right. And the headphones themselves came with stupid black foam things, not grey ones. The grey ones look much cooler. I'll have to dig up my extra pair of grey foam things, because I'm incredibly picky.

But hey, for 100 bucks, it's incredibly great. Everyone should get one of these. They're super cool #1.

(I know this whole post makes me seem spoiled, so I'll try to make up for it with my next post and talk about charity work or why we should recycle to protect our planet or how wonderful the world is or something.)

"well, I'm pissed off, rick, how are you?"

Sat, 19 Feb 2005 07:15:34 GMT

Great way to make a bad day even worse... Fed Ex loses your fucking ipod. I don't want to tell the whole story, and it's late and I'm tired and I don't want to write, so here's my email to their "working harder to better serve you" support department:

Nature of Request: Package Trace Support Question
How would you
like us to respond: Email Me
Category: FedEx Express Domestic
Subcategory: Status of Shipment

Package Tracking #: 656118862600
Account Number:
Appx. Ship Date: 02/17/2005
Sender's Name: Circuit City
Recipient's Name: Eric Black

Comments: Hello - I have a problem regarding a shipment. I purchased an item through a retailer who provided me a tracking number for 2-Day delivery. I went to check where the package was at this evening, and to my surprise it was delivered to Los Alamos, NM (where I am) this afternoon and signed for by a J. Ploude (I have no idea who this is). I went further to get Signature Proof, and I saw my address in shipping information, but the package was delievered to 255 Metro Center Blvd. This street does not exist in Los Alamos, NM. A quick search on the internet revealed that "255 Metro Center Blvd" is in Warwick, Rhode Island. How would my 2-Day package landed up in Rhode Island when my address (in Los Alamos, NM) is clearly listed in the Shipping Information? Do I need to report this as a lost item? Thank you in advance for your help.

Again... fucking bad day made worse.

ba-ba-boom

Thu, 17 Feb 2005 00:38:02 GMT

I'm quickly on my way to lj whoredom if I keep updating so diligently. I ordered an iPod shuffle earlier with the promise that the retailer actually had it in stock and would ship it immediately. Feeling skeptical of this assertion on the store's website, I phoned my order in, hearing the same information. Because I'm extremely materialistic, I opted for the "Premium Air" shipping for 7 bucks extra (slow shipping would have been free) because it said it would arrive in "2-3 business days." By the end of the call, I was told "4-7 business days." If this is the case and I get my order closer to seven business days than three, I'm gonna do some bitching. Because I'm very good at it.

The guy on the phone had a heavy eastern accent and kept on having problems with hearing me. There was static on his end. Not very professional. Or safe, for my sake: I practically had to shout my credit card number three times so he could get it.

This experience is a reminder of why I order stuff on the internet - to have less of a chance for error and to avoid all contact with other people.

So yeah... iPod shuffle... exciting. My trusty old 5GB model from three and a half years ago (it's the first model ever made), is showing its age. There are some weird sound quirks, I've abused my earbuds too much so they make crackly sounds, and the battery doesn't hold a great charge, although 30 bucks could have fixed that. With the shuffle I can hold off until the next big revision in a year or so to buy a new "real" iPod. "Real" meaning it can hold all my music, something my old one hasn't been able to do in over two years.

Remember, Do not eat iPod shuffle. Smartasses.

anti scene points?

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 04:45:53 GMT

If a shirt (or another article of clothing) says "California" somewhere on it, its coolness factor instantly doubles and people will pay up to twice as much for it. Just because you can go to the mall and pretend you went to a vintage shop on the west coast, you're not hot stuff all of a sudden. Trust me on this one... I'm right.

Suggested reply topic: can you think of other words or symbols that make clothing instantly cool?

Unrelated, the free itunes single of the week isn't all that bad, at least compared to those from recent weeks:

An almost brief entry. Nice. (And maybe the next one won't consist of me complaining about people I regularly come in contact with!)

random thought number one

Tue, 15 Feb 2005 02:28:03 GMT

Last post January 28? What are you talking about? Anyway, here's my (sorta) random thought of the moment...

Drinking. Sure, it's fun, and sure, everyone does it, but there is no need to make sure everyone knows what you did last night. It comes off as pretty damn desperate if you intentionally get loud and "hostile" when someone brings up the topic of alcohol to attract the attention of others. "Yeah? So? I did have a COUPLE OF DRINKS last night, so what?" "Well we ended up getting TOTALLY TRASHED and falling asleep on her couch!"

And while we're at it, I must say that drinking specifically to get drunk and be funny-haha is retarded. Or to be cool with all of those people who think they're jocks. Or to "get rid of your troubles." It gets you in more trouble when you get trashed. Drinking a moderate amount is fine... because it is enjoyable, after all.

This wonderful idea for something to talk about arose after listening to my parents ramble about some party that occurred this weekend and involved trips to the hospital. "No, mom, I don't know that person, and I don't care."

here we go again

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 04:14:35 GMT

I'm... back, sorta. Peer pressure got to me - we can thank jess for this - and I've given in and created an lj. So now I can go lj crazy! Just like I used to with blurty! Or not, because I can't think of anything interesting to write about!

Speaking of blurty, while copying my blurty's style which I haven't used since the summer over to here (original, I know), I took the time to read a few posts on blurty. I used to ramble on forever about the stupidest things, and my writing basically sucked. After reading some old entries I felt ashamed, dirty, and disgusted. Of course, what's to say attempt number two will be any better? Right, that's what I thought.

I'm currently working on a user picture - userpic? - for myself with jess. It's surprisingly difficult to find a picture of myself that I like. And I might not even want to go with an actual picture of me. Decisions, decisions.

I don't really know anyone's lj usernames, so please tell me who you are so I can become "popular" and have dozens and dozens of friends/brief acquaintances on my friends page.

first post

Fri, 28 Jan 2005 06:28:19 GMT

I've finally caved and signed up for livejournal. here we go...