It appears as if nobody’s using this site, because of several things I can see. Nobody has signed up for a user (I checked the database, not just the Registered Users page, which is an opt-in listing). And nobody posts comments or anything like that. Oh well.

This is at least a venture for me to find bugs in the code for this website at least, as it gets used far more than any of the other two sites that use the same codebase. Maybe it serves a greater purpose, like answering philosophical questions. Like “if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a noise.” If you use this site as an example, yes, it does make a noise. There’s plenty of “noise” on this site, yet nobody to read (“hear”) it, but it’s definitely still here.

Whatever, I’m ranting (hence, the ‘Rants’ section!). Thanks for reading, if you did. Post comments here if you do read any of this!

Okay, so I couldn’t think of a good subject; bite me. (No, not literally) Anyways, I haven’t posted here in a long time. So I decided that I would today. Needless to say, not much has been happening in my life for the past several days. I’ve talked to all of about 3 people (Robert, Andy, and Will, but not necessarily in that order). If I forgot anyone, I’m sorry. Or maybe I’m not, that’s for you to decide :-P

All rightey then. Lets see, on Friday (that would be the 28th), I didn’t do much. Ran out to the grocery store after dinner to get milk. Then I went to the Best Buy in Durham (because I doubted the ones in Raleigh and Cary would have what I was looking for). Wow, I didn’t realize it was so far away. Luckily I remembered which exit to take off of I-40 (it was dark, and the shopping center is hidden, so it was guesswork). Luckily my first guess was right. Anyways, I got there and it was packed. I got an Audigy2 for those of you who know what that is, and for those of you who don’t, it’s immaterial. I got it in my computer and working, and the difference it makes is incredible in some cases, and unnoticable in others.

The drivers are bloatware, and my computer crawls now (in Windows… the Linux drivers don’t support the Audigy2/emu10k2 yet). And besides, Linux is usually void of bloatware, so I have no qualms about that. Anyways, that’s about all that happened Friday… not very interesting.

I think I effectively wasted away Saturday. We did some yard work Saturday morning, and I got to chop some wood. I can’t hit a target with an axe to save my life. (it wasn’t an axe, but I don’t know its proper name) Regardless, I then came inside and wasted away the rest of the day.

Sunday we went up to Williamsburg, VA because my parents wanted to. The christmas decorations sucked, so there wasn’t much to see (that we hadn’t seen already :-) My brother didn’t want to drive (he drove for about 2 hours and then turned the car over to me, for some reason). So I had to drive 1.5-2 hours up, and then all 3 hours on the way back (it took longer on the way up for those of you actually doing the math.) We had dinner at a remote place called “The Library,” which is a college restaraunt, but it was empty because college is out of session right now (College of William and Mary, if you must know). The reason we knew about it was because we went to a friend’s graduation last spring.

And today… well, I really haven’t done much. I’ve typed this, so hah. I’ll probably practice. Actually, I’ll go do that now. I’ll post anything interesting later (but nothing interesting’s been happening recently, so I doubt I’ll update).

Aufwiedersehen. Actually, I’ll just talk to you later… (maybe). I’m done now.

Really.

Bye.

I haven’t posted in a while. Heh. Anyways, not much has happened around here recently. I think I’m going skiing on the last weekend in January, so that’ll be great. I actually managed to not get anything for Christmas, which is almost a feat. I didn’t really want anything (or as I’ve said, what I want nobody could give). Dinner was good (always is). Though I wonder how some people manage to survive the holidays, as they can’t and/or have chosen not to eat traditional holiday foods (cough Laura and Seth cough). I’m thoroughly bored at the moment.

I managed to get MIDI working in Linux by using TiMidity++ and ALSA, but that probably makes no sense to most of you (too many acronyms!). That’s how bored I’ve been. I’ll post later if something interesting happens, besides practicing, which I ought to do. But the way things have been for the past three days, the chances of anything interesting happening are very slim. meh

Ciao!

All right, for those of you who noticed, I failed to post anything yesterday, so I’ll try to include stuff from yesterday…

Okay, so I got up at my usual time, somewhere between 11 and noon, I wasn’t paying close attention. Then I had leftover Mac & Cheese for lunch… fun fun! Then I managed to waste away about… 3 hours until 3:30 rolled around. Then people started IM-ing me about Liz’s party, and I was like “oh crap, I forgot” (I usually forget these things). So I had to run up to the grocery store (because my mom needed some lettuce and stuff) and I had to pick up a gift for the ‘exchange’ we were doing. So then I got home, wrapped my thingamajiggy and headed over towards Liz’s. Luckily I remembered where to turn off of Norwood, as I didn’t check for directions before leaving (which was dumb, but hindsight’s always 20/20).

Anyways, at the party we didn’t do much. We sat around and talked, then watched Dumb and Dumber (the first time for a few of us). Then we had pizza, which is normal I guess, and talked some more. We basically hung around and listened to music. We did listen to one of our band recordings from 8th grade, which made me really sad for two reasons: (1) It reminded me of “the better times,” and (2) It sounded better than Wind Ensemble does…

And after that, I got home around 9-ish. I had some IM’s hanging around from what some people had said while I was gone (you know who you are) and so I read those. I then (much later) got out the CD from the winter concert and started encoding it for my computer, and listened to songs as they were encoded. The Eighth Candle was really good. Actually, I’m listening to it as I type this! So I got done, got bored, and actually made it to bed before midnight (11:56 if I recall correctly). So that was basically my day yesterday. Now to double the fun with today’s edition!

Basically my parents got me up at 11 and we went out to get lunch around 11:30 (while listening to The Eighth Candle in the car… noticing a pattern?) Unfortunately they were closed! Foiled again! So Dad and I came home, while Mom and my brother went out looking for a turkey. They got home shortly afterwards, and we all had to change into nicer clothes. We then went out and really got lunch (at the place we’d tried to go earlier). Once finished with lunch, we headed over to the Memorial Auditorium to see The Nutcracker.

Overall, The Nutcracker was great. The music was spectacular (NC Symphony), and the ballet was fairly good. I can’t really say one way or another regarding the ballet, as I am a music person, not a dance/ballet person. The production was good from all I could tell, so that was definitely an interesting experience. We got home around 4:30-ish, and then I took a shower, as I didn’t have time to get one this morning. I put on a new pair of shoes (that I was supposed to start wearing after Marching Band was over, but I chose not to), so that was interesting. And now I’m just here typing this; my playlist has advanced to Sleigh Ride, and I’m sipping on a drink. Wheee.

If anything else interesting happens (which I doubt), I’ll post an update. That’s it for now, folks!

I met him sometime during Middle School, though I’m not sure when. He’s also in German, which is good (being the second of 2 friends I have in that class). Anyway, we’re also both in IB, and he’s one of the few band geeks in IB, so I associate with him a lot more than anyone else (save David Wilder, maybe). Oh, and of course he plays bass clarinet too. Not one of my closest friends, and he feels the same way too (he said it in class once). Though there’s something interesting, which I’ll discuss later. But yeah, we’ve been through school together for a while (including the DC trip in 8th grade), but that’s about as far as it goes—he’s played some less-than-friendly jokes on me at less-than-opportune times (he stole The Stranger from my bookbag the day before I had to finish reading it… needless to say, it was “a last”).

The interesting part is that we share a common definition of friend—someone who you can place your total confidence in: to tell them everything, without fear. Though we’re acquaintances (by this definition), we’re unfortunately not friends. Though using this definition, having too many friends defeats the purpose of being able to confide in someone. I’ll probably update this one later, as it’s not nearly as complete as it should be.

Met him in sixth grade, in this weird problem solving class we took together… It was weird, indeed. Though we’ve been friends for a long time, we were in the same band throughout Middle School, but that fate has not followed us through High School. He’s taking German with me (actually convinced me to take it over Spanish, and I’m somewhat regretting that decision…). Although we’ve been friends for a long time, I can say he has some tendencies (cough pyromaniac! cough) that I tend to disagree with. However, we usually put aside our differences and get along realtively well… this has definitely been one of my, umm, rougher friendships, so to speak.

A great guy, although he is very different from me, we still manage to get along.

All rightey, I have a lot to say folks. First off, I got up at 9:30 this morning, which is definitely rare for me on vacation days. But after I spent half an hour shaving, getting dressed, and otherwise cleaning up (this includes my room), I had nothing to do. So about 10:20 I left the house, with my brother (more on this later…) to go pick up two of his friends. So we got to the pizza place at 5 ‘til 11, and were nearly the first ones there, but we pulled up the same time Anna and Will did.

We ate lunch, everyone got two slices of pizza, and we spent about 30 minutes trying to get all the money sorted out and repaid appropriately. Lorna didn’t have a ticket, and I thought that I had accidentally gotten an extra one. So I sold her my “extra” one. As it turned out, however, the ticket wasn’t extra, and it was for somebody that my brother forgot about when I asked “is everyone who’s going here?” So that made me feel really really bad. I always seem to be able to screw things up like that. The movie was good, so that was nice.

I then had to wait half an hour for this “forgotten” friend’s parents to pick him up after the movie, because he didn’t have a phone to call them with, nor had he given them a ballpark estimate of when the movie would be over. Then I had to drive the other two friends home again! So I finally got home around 4 O’clock. Whew, busy day. It was nice going out with everyone, though.

Definitely my very best friend; We’ve only “known” each other since sixth grade, even though we go back farther than that. I was in a play with him in second grade, at Emma Conn, but then I left for 3rd grade on, so I didn’t meet him again until sixth grade. What a small world it truly is! I have honestly been able to tell him everything without really worrying about him telling anyone; that is the sign of a true friendship. We’ve been through both band and marching band together, and as with all my friends, it has served to unite us, per se.

We have both been through our ups and downs, hands down, and each of us has been there for the other when they needed it the most; something that I respect in him, and in myself to some degree, albeit not quite the same. I hope nothing ever comes between us; not even thousands of miles can separate true friends.

Probably one of the few people left from Elementary School that I’m still friends with. This is partially due to the fact that I didn’t have many friends in Elementary School, but that’s besides the point. We have, for many years, shared common interests; we’re both heavily into computers, running our own servers… his is available here and mine is available here. We also did Odyssey of the Mind together in fifth grade, which was an interesting experience. We were “band buddies” (or banned buddies?) throughout middle school, as with most of my friends.

In High School this has remained true, but I no longer make All-District, so he’s gotten to do that for 2 years now. And we both do Marching Band, but he picks up swimming after that and I don’t, so we differ there. Overall one of my best, and oldest, friends, and I hope that never changes.

Here, I have set forth my thoughts and opinions pertaining to Christmas this year. Unlike years passed, I somehow feel very different this year, and if you read on, you will discover why. Please remember, that this site is one of the few places I truly get to vent sans consequence, and there might be some offending and/or touching material here: proceed at your own risk.

I do however, ask you to read it, as I think many of the things I say should be taken to heart by many people; If I inspire or help at least one person, than I have done a service to the community—something that I try to do as much as I possibly can.

Post-mortem

Looks like I never actually wrote much here. This was a very solemn Christmas for me, as I recall. It’s not crystal clear for me, so I doubt many of my friends remember it, but read the surrounding posts and I think you can figure out why. I do believe I was feeling quite lonely in the world amidst friends who had all found … “significant others.”

Okay, I’m typing this from history, at the moment. I’ll probably say more later. I managed to get a 79 on my exam (I have no clue how…), and given the highest in our class was an 88, then I don’t consider that to terrible. I’ve got band next which is going to be easy (everyone gets a 100, from what I’ve heard). My last hard exam is over, and we’re going to see The Two Towers tomorrow, so I’m pseudo-happy. Right.

More to come later, the bell just rang.

I’ve finally managed to get my site up and running! Not that anybody would check this or anything, but it’s here. I’ll add features as time goes on, but this isn’t a quick process. However, it’s really easy for me to add updates! It’s a database thing; yes, that’s sort of a one-uppance =).

Anyways, concerning today. I had one exam! That was really great! So, I took the Calculus exam, went to Marsh, and dropped off the Alto Clarinet. It was in dire need of repairs (or so Marsh said), so I’m glad I did that. I then proceeded to go get fitted for my tux (which we now need for Wind Ensemble). But they were closed!!!! So I came back home and slept for… 5 hours! I’ve got my history exam tomorrow (and band, but that’s a joke), so I really really need to study. It’s sad though; I really won’t see many of my friends for TWO WEEKS. I wonder how I’ll do it… somehow, obviously. I get to find out who my secret snowperson is, tomorrow, so that’s going to be loads of fun. Then on Friday, we’re going to go see The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which WILL be a blast, regardless.

Whew, that’s enough… I need to go study for my exam now. More later!