I’m a geek. That means my house is wired for Ethernet, my office is wired for Ethernet, and I have routers and computers and broadband everywhere.

I live in Florida, the lightning capital of the world.

We’ve been having hellacious electrical storms all week. The toll so far: One router, one PC, one iMac, one cable modem, and one hub, all destroyed.

Add to that the laptop I destroyed yesterday while trying to replace the hard drive, and it’s been an expensive fucking week. Grr.

First, the freaky bit:

Yesterday afternoon, while I was at work, someone broke into my car and opened the hood. Nothing was stolen, nothing was tampered with, but when I went out to the parking lot to go home, the hood of my car was open.

I’m guessing that someone in the street racing community wanted to see if I had a VTEC engine in my car (I drive a Honda del Sol, popular among street racers around here). I don’t, but if I did, I bet my car would’ve been missing when i went to go home.

Fun stuff

lightgatherer is very sweet.

She’s also an excellent model. I should have some images to post online soon. 🙂

Of Giraffes and Alligators

Shelly (bandage) was once told that her problems with isolation were not because she’s messed up, but because she’s a giraffe and she’s hanging around with a bunch of alligators. Hanging around with other giraffes helps with the feelings of isolation.

Seems pretty straightforward, right? Problem is, the world is filled with alligators, and giraffes are fairly rare.

In many ways, my relationship with Kelly (kellyv) was designed with the idea that I would become romantically involved with alligators in mind. Alligators who fall in love with me are quite likely, at some point, to decide they want me to themselves; this is the way alligators work. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if someone is going to force me to choose between her and Kelly, then I’m going to choose Kelly.

Indeed, the terms of the relationship I have with Kelly were inadvertently set up in such as way as to make my lovers ask me to choose, because the terms of my relationship with Kelly make it very difficult for anyone who falls in love with me to feel secure with me.

That’s a problem it took another giraffe to see.

My relationship with both Shelly and Kelly is changing to accomodate the knowledge of this design flaw. Relationship changes are not always easy. they are, however, often necessary; indeed, any healthy relationship can and must change over time.

I do not plan to exclude either one of htese people from any part of my life. They are both wonderful people who bring joy to my life, and I will not willingly part with either.

So it’s all good. 🙂

Windows XP: How do we loathe thee?

Kelly’s laptop has been acting quite strange. Or rather, it’s been acting like a normal Wintel laptop, which is quite strange if you’re used to working with Macs.

The way it works is this: Install Windows 98 SE. All is good, for a while; then, over a period of months, things gradually quit working, or work increasingly erratically, until finally using the computer becomes as frustrating as picking ant shit out of pepper while wearing boxing gloves.

So I reinstall Windows 98. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Well, Kelly picked up a copy of Win XP Professional on the off chance that it does not suffer from Redmond Bit Rot(tm) to quite the same degree as Windows 98.

Okay, so here’s how to install XP Professional on an NEC Versa SX laptop, in a week or less:
Oh, the pain!

http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm

So now you know. 🙂

My own personal favorite is Proof 227, PASCAL’S ARGUMENT:
(1) If God exists, it would be really cool.
(2) If God didn’t exist, it would really suck.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week in New York City, where I learned a very valuable lesson I feel I can take with me for the rest of my days:

Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes, that reason is just to piss you off.

How a bank teller, a political assassin, and the New York Police Department conspired to make me lose my cell phone

bandage leashed and collard me and took me out for some dancing and seeing of the sights. We arrived at the club to behold a most joyous thing.

Q: What’s better than lesbian chicks?
A: Goth lesbian chicks.

Q: What’s better than goth lesbian chicks?
A: Goth lesbian chicks making out.

Q: What’s better than goth lesbian chicks making out?
A: Lots and lots of goth lesbian chicks making out.

Lesbian chicks make the world a better place. God bless ’em, each and every one.

Later, on the way back to the car, a bunch of drunk rednecks hanging out in the parking garage:

“Dude! Is that a leash? That’s fucked! You’re supposed to wear the pants, dude!”

Yes, but I’m going home with Shelly tonight, and you’re not.

Which is not to say I think they’ll never get laid, of course. Even knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers score sometimes. And sometimes, she doesn’t even press charges.

bandage and I have been spending a considerable amount of time lately working on bondage gear, made from clear acrylic rods and illuminated at the ends by LEDs.

Most recently, we’ve been working on a spreader bar, which I have finally finished putting together. This is just a prototype; I want to figure out a prettier way to mount the restraints, and a more attractive end cap to house the batteries and LED lights.

There is a set of LEDs in each end. The LEDs that light it up flash in a pattern of different colors, red, green, and blue, and the colors keep cycling continuously. A static image can’t really convey how it looks, but the effect is something like this:

Here’s one of the endcaps removed, with the electronics inside:

It’s not quite perfect yet, but I think it’s pretty damn cool. Now I just have to tie bandage‘s legs apart with it and molest her at the next S&M party.

I know a secret! Wanna know what it is?
You have to promise not to tell…

…clowns will eat me.

Monday, my friend J. spent the afternoon sleeping on my couch after an eleven-hour visit to the emergency room with abdominal pain.

Yesterday, it was my turn.

For a while, they thought they were going to have to take my appendix out; fortunately, that turned out not to be the case. I’m still in a lot of pain, though.

It’s been a turbulent week. Some memorable parts:

Fourth of July Fireworks with Shelly

This was a last-minute thing. Kelly didn’t really want to go, and we weren’t 100% sure where they’d be anyway.

As it turned out, we parked the car and wandered around aimlessly, and ended up in exactly the right place, right where the technicians wer setting them off, at exactly the start of the show.

I like fireworks. Explosives, burning things…hey, good stuff!

Partying

Saturday was Keirston’s birthday party. It was a blast–losts of people, lots of alcohol, that sort of thing. I spent a good bit of time talking to lightgatherer; I’ve met her before, but never really talked to her. She’s very cool.

Shelly didn’t really want to go at the last minute, for a number of complex reasons, some of which were related to her move to Orlando. 🙁

Moving

Sunday, Shelly and I moved her to Orlando. It’s probably the right thing for her to do, but that doesn’t change the fact that it puts her an hour away, and I’ve become used to having her around. I don’t like the idea that we’ll be able to spend less time together, but there it is.