Darfuria

Isn’t it funny when you’re doing something, and over time you’ve changed the way you do it. So you look back over the ways you used to do it which got you to the point you are at now.

I was making a simple website at work today, and needed a big space on the page.

When I first started website design I’d do this by hitting enter a few times in Dreamweaver’s design view. Then I started at Cosmic and would type <br /> lots of times in the code view. Then I moved on to typing <p> </p>. Then today I thought, well, why don’t I just make a class in the stylesheet for a big space? So onwards I went to:

.bigspace {
margin-bottom: 200px;
}

And then obviously entered <p class=”bigspace”> </p> in the code for the page, and it worked. Funny how I’ve gone from the Dreamweaver design view thing to that, though.

I’ve never really liked tight spaces, or the thought that I am unable to get out of the place I am in, but it has never really bothered me. However, over the last few months it has started to build up into something more. My breathing will get really quick and my lungs will feel constricted. My body will tense and thoughts will race around my head.

This morning I was sat on the bus, which was late. There was quite a big woman driving it, and she had all of the heaters on. The bus smelled like hot urine. After a short amount of time the bus got full, and people demonstrated their clear disability to be able to stand up on a bus properly, because it’s really so hard. 15 people piled up at the front of the bus complaining because they can’t stand up properly whilst there’s plenty of space at the back, but people can’t stand in a god damn line.

So, some old person came and practically sat on my lap, smelling quite horrible. Shortly after we got stuck in traffic. Pretty much at that moment I realised how hot it was, and how many people there were between myself and the door as I was being squashed into the window.

Luckily things didn’t get very bad, but I just wanted to get off of the bus. I hope this isn’t the start of something.

Thanks to a very kind friend, and a little planning, the new PC is almost complete. Just have to await the arrival of my soundcard and wait until I get paid until I can buy a 22″ widescreen monitor. Then my setup will be complete. All I need to do then is look into increasing my RAM some more, getting a Lightscribe drive and see where things go from there. However, those things aren’t entirely important right now.

The New System:

Motherboard: MSI S775 Intel 975X ATx
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 S775 2.67GHz
RAM: Corsair 2×1GB 240DIMM XMS2-6400 CL4
Graphics: BFG GeForce 8800GTX 768MB PCIE
HDD: Raptor 150GB S150 16m 10000rpm & Western Digital 500GB S300 7200rpm
PSU: Akasa Dual Fan Active PFC 650W PSU
Soundcard: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS Edition
Case: Antec P150
Display: Iiyama Prolite E2200WS 22″ Widescreen LCD Black Monitor (1000:1 contrast ratio, DVI, 5ms response)
Drives: Sony CDRW & Sony DVDRW

*strokes*

So, the above things to come (4-8GB of RAM I think!). I need a new desk though, to team my PC with my laptop of death

The Laptop:

Model: Acer Travelmate 4260
Motherboard: Intel i945PM
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.66Ghz
RAM: Corsair 2×512MB DDR2 5300
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 128MB PCI-E
HDD: 80GB Sata 150 7200RPM
PSU: LI Battery, etc.
Display: 17″ 1280×800 Widescreen
Drives:DVD RAM RW

Recently I’ve been having a huge issue with MSN messenger. I use a Gmail account to connect and talk to my various contacts in much the same way anyone else that uses MSN Messenger does.

I was at my Dad’s using MSN Messenger on my laptop, as usual. I signed out and left to go into town, taking my laptop with me. When I got home later that day I signed in to MSN Messenger on my desktop PC, like I normally do. As soon as my contact list loaded the program crashed.

I turned my laptop on and tried to sign in, thinking it was just a problem with my PC, but it crashed on my laptop as well. I went about uninstalling Messenger Plus and MSN Messenger on both machines, checking my router configuration and such things, but still the problem occured.

Eventually I tried to sign in with a different email account and the program worked fine. I made an @hotmail.co.uk email account, and that worked fine on both computers as well, but when I went to sign in with my Gmail account, it crashed.

So, I’ve been using Trillian to connect to MSN Messenger with my Gmail account, which works perfectly.

I’ve posted on a few forums and emailed Microsoft, but haven’t had any reply.

When I got to work yesterday I tried to sign in to MSN Messenger with my Gmail account, it crashed here as well.

Fucking Microsoft.

Recently I’ve been zoning out a lot, and it’s actually beginning to scare me. I’ll be sitting on the bus and I’ll start thinking about something, and I’ll get so in-depth into my thoughts that I completely zone out into a state of semi consciousness. I’ll awake a little later feeling really disorientated and confused. It’s actually caused me to miss my stop on the bus a few times.

Anyway, that wasn’t relative to this blog post, I just thought I’d say it.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I really can’t stand it when people ask lots of questions. Especially if they’re questions that aren’t rhetorical, but don’t really require an answer. If someone asks me questions which require thought, or where they’ll find something out about me then I don’t mind. An example of what I mean is:

“Are you going out?” When I’ve just put my coat, shoes and bag on.

My response to this recently has just been a form of dry, sarcastic humor, which I can imagine is quite annoying. It keeps me enlightened, though:

“Are you going out?”
“No. I just thought I’d put my coat, shoes and bag on and stay in.”

I get a lot of these questions during a day, and my response will always be in the same context.

I just can’t stand questions where the answer is obvious. It sort of refelcts upon one of my favourite quotes of all time, from Pulp Fiction:

“That’s when you know you’ve found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence.”

Next time you think of asking a stupid question, or a question that doesn’t require an answer, just be silent and appreciate the fact that words don’t have to be exchanged. I’m all for being silent.

An amusing thing that has been getting to me recently, as well, is people on the phone. I love the way they think the person on the other end of the line can see them, because they proceed to talk with their hands, mimicing a normal conversation.

Not only that, though, but this happened on the bus earlier:

[Person 1] *calls someone on mobile phone*
[Person 2] *watches person 1*
[Person 3] *answers phone*
[Person 1] “How long are you going to be?”
[Person 3] *answers*
[Person 1] “An hour and a half?”
[Person 3] *answers*
[Person 1] “Okay, see you then. Bye.” *looks at person 2* “He’ll be an hour and a half.”
[Person 2] “Okay.”

Oh, really!? I never would have guessed that. Why do people on the phone think they suddenly shift to this alternate plane of existance where the person on the other end of the line can see what they’re doing, and the people that are around them can’t hear them anymore?

Argh! People are such annoying organic life forms.