Recently in Random Category

I have been fairly miserable the past couple of years as I allowed obligations to overtake my personal life. I ended up sacrificing the small things that bring enjoyment thinking that it was better (more honorable?) to put aside personal things for the sake of accomplishing obligations.

That was very much the wrong attitude and I came to find I had nothing left in my life worth living for...I was just living. Unfortunately, after sacrificing everything for a couple years, it has become habit and therefore hard to break. Even after finally getting off the Board of my homeowners association (HOA - the bane of my existence), I did fit in things like exercising and reading, but I wasn't planning on allowing myself to purchase anything really fun that would "waste my time" before I accomplished losing weight or whatever other goals I had set. Isn't that essentially the same thing I was doing with my other obligations?

So today I decided, no, I am going to choose enjoyment. I want to have a life worth living again. I am going to purchase Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. While this may seem trivial, it's the trivial things that I have given up that have really had an effect on me - like mailing out birthday cards. That was such a part of who I was and what I was known for, that I really felt a deep loss when I stopped. So little by little, I am going to take my life back. I used to love playing video games, particularly role playing video games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. I sacrificed video games all during college and after. Well no more! Look out Mario Bros, here I come!

So Mike and I bought a California King bed off of the base bulletin about a month ago. We did test it out before buying it, but after we got it home, we realized that our old Queen bed was quite a bit more comfortable. So we put an ad in the base bulletin to sell the CA King bed. Right away we got a response from the people we bought the bed from. They were having trouble finding an adequate replacement bed and wished they hadn't sold it, so they wanted to buy it back! They picked it up last week and after they left, Mike sat down on our old Queen bed and said, "That was weird."

**All Proceeds To Benefit The American Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund**

My my friend's dad is in a band called Hard Time and she asked me to pass along some information about a benefit concert at the San Bernardino International Airport this coming Saturday, October 1st.

Info may be found on Craig's list or their flyer that I uploaded to my web page.

So I went to a Body Shop party at my friend's house today. I bought way too much stuff of course, but it was pretty neat. I thought they were mostly just lotions, but they're apparently a bit of everything. Go check them out.

Update: Here's a picture that was taken of us while we were trying on various face products. :)

I'm not really a fan of beer, but they do tend to have neat commercials. Take this Carlton Draught Big Ad for instance.

An Australian woman has trained her cat to use the toilet.

I was searching for something to write for my Computer Resources and Information Management class by browsing Slashdot.org and came across an article about a Time Traveler Convention next Saturday (May 7, 2005) at MIT.

It's an interesting idea. "Technically, you would only need one time traveler convention." They are trying to publicize it as much as possible in as many enduring forms as possible, as the advertisements have to last for years to come. Time travel doesn't exist right now, but if the advertisements last and become widely known, then once it is invented, people may go back in time to attend the convention.

I'm doing my part by publishing the details of the convention here. Also, since the webpage will be taken down after the person graduates from MIT, I have created a backup of it here.

Anyhow, this led me to the idea of information disappearing from the internet and the existence of The Wayback Machine, which is what I ended up writing about. A non-profit organization called Internet Archive has attempted to create a library of the internet from 1996 to the present - one of its key features being The Wayback Machine. You type in any URL and it will give you a list of archived versions of that page. If you have a page that you would like to get preserved and you don't see it in the archive, then you may submit it. I did this for the MIT page on the Time Traveler Convention. It says it may take up to 8 weeks for it to become part of the archive.

Late at night, while you're asleep, do you know what your icons are up to?

My dad's friend found a buyer.

A friend of my dad's in Vegas is dealing with the death of his own dad and is offering a bunch of stuff for a quick, flat $2,000. I want to help him out, but I don't want to send a mass email about it and annoy the 300+ people on my mailing list. So I thought posting it to this blog would be a good compromise...I spread the word (sort of - I think there are only 4 people who read my blog), but without sending a mass unsolicited email.

Anyway, his dad died and he needs to go to Florida and take care of things, but doesn't have the funds. So he is offering $194,000 in assets for $2,000. However, he needs it to be in cash and right away. Also, the person needs to come pick up the stuff. The lot includes:

-$25,000 estimate Rock Musician Sting signed self portrait called CHECKMATE

-$1200 walnut chess table

-$750 heart cut diamond engagement ring

-$120,000 in rare complete sets baseball cards and superstars: about 200 complete sets in albums with protector sheets in mint condition and about additional 3200 individually in plastic hard card holders of superstars each valued $1 to $20 some Mickey mantles, Willie Mays, Bonds, Sosa, etc etc

-$300 computer and monitor

-$47,000 in www.Intagio.com barter dollars credit balance can be used for airline tickets foreign and domestic, used cars, boats. They are world's largest Barter network.

He says this is a once in lifetime opportunity for someone to have hobby to build up networth. Everything has already been priced (using a Beckett book from around 3-4 years ago)...with complete inventory sheets available on the cards.

So if you happen to be interested, let me know, and I will get you in touch with him.

Update: My dad's friend found a buyer.