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filling the void

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

I Need A Holiday

I do, I really do, I really need a holiday.
Not an active, go out and do stuff holiday either, just like a week or two maybe, with no pressing engagements to take care or, or stuff I know I really should be doing.

If I could just freeze time and go on a two week poolside vacation with a pile of books and maybe some interesting company, I'd be all set.

Looking at my life, you'd think I do very little than go to school and play games, but this is a stressful exsitance at times. Maybe my guilt for not studying as hard as I should plays inhere, but the worst thing is that there is always stuff that looms on the horizon. I can't just leave work and be truly free until I have to be back the next morning, I always have something I should be doing at home...

Not to mention the fact that I'm thinking of quitting WoW. I've had these thoughs before, and I've quit for a week or two, but it never lasts. This current wave partialyl stems from a silly thing me and the guild leader had. He kicked me out of the raid for posting on the forum about looting problems. He said it was because I was writing the post while in MC, but I'm faily sure he felt hurt because I was complaining about something that he helps run. If he truly felt the system was impervious, and what I said had no validity at all, hewould have just shrugged it off (working as intended, learn2play), but instead he must have been hurt because he know it was true and decided to lash out against the only guy with the balls to actually post int he forum about it, instead of gripe in private.

Anyway, we'll see. Not that I couldn't just join another guild, I could, but I really like my guild, except for some things, but they are usually minor.

Ohh well, back to writing my presentation for friday.

--Markus out

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Escape

I want to escape the shackles of everyday life.
Nothing excites me anymore...
The drudgery of everyday things...
I'm sitting here listeing to some rave/goa/techno stuff from the mid 1990-ies, and I must say that music doesn't come better than this. This is one of the things that makes me so sad. With everything I so, I JUST miss the big wave of when it's happening. I'm always second to know. Not last, mind you, but never first.
My industry is riding the crest of some very cool discoveries in the 60,70 and 80-ies, and the boom of the 90-ies. I get in in late 90, just before the crash, and now I'm reaping the consequences.
With music, it's like I also got in to late. I am happy that I didn't hhave to be a teenager in the 1980ies, with all that that entails, butI'm also angry for my rather protected upbringing. I'm sad that I missed the big rave wave in stockholm form early to mid 1990ies. Also here, I got in on the crest, and now it's just pansy-ass mainstream house, and there are no values in it anymore.

I also very much miss not doing all the drugs I possibly could have in the ninties. I'm sure my life would have been very different if I had, and not neccesarily for the better, but I feel that I have missed out on many experiences that people around my age, both younger and older, have had around that time, and now reminisce about.

The only rare occasions of real joy I get nowadays is the occasional party with some of my old-school friends (that I don't see often enough, I blame the relocation of cities for this one), and the music that I dig out from those days. Days when things were more easy going, the media pressure wasn't as high, and the police presence in everything I stand for wasn't so hihg. (And, I suppose, my spelling was better, shit, I don't know. I must be getting dyslexic in my old age. I can never get double consonants right these days. it's like a damn curse. words don't look right to me.)

It's like I'm alone, and the whole world is against me, but I also much don't like it in the company of other people, unless they are the right people.
I know that alot of dreams you have as a child get shattered as you grow up, but on days like this, it feels like the entire world is crashing down on my head.
It could be my massive guilt over not studying when I know I should, or that I have dishes do do, or any of my day-to-day chores, but I like to try and see the bigger picture.

WoW pacifies me from time to time, but after hitting lvl 60 (for you non-players, it's as high as you get), it's just whack-a-mole for me. Sadly though, it's my favourite escape, so I don't end up doing much else with my time.
I'm not easily addicted to chemicals, but video games has a certain grasp on me that I can't shake, and to be honest, am not sure I want to shake either.
This attitude is probably typical of an addict, but I quite frankly don't give a shit.

I did get my order of the band of brothers boxset and "the complete farside" the other day, things that normally send me into a frenzy of joy (my days aren't always this grey, I assure you), but I can't even bring myself to think about the happiness these things will bring me, lest they'd break into the state that I'm in, and become associated with the crappiness of this day.
This is why I don't like referring to good memories and such when I'm feeling down, for fear of negative association. Granted, patterning can be unlearned, but research (or reading my psychology books anyway) shows that it's very easy to re-aquire these pattners, even if they seemed to have been unlearned.

Whatever, lets get som studying done, and then maybe I can go online and kill someone. That usually makes me feel better.

Out!

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

I Hate OpenOffice!

OpenOffice is like the plague.
I want OpenOffice just about as much as I want cancer or HIV.
It claims to be able to handle other document formats, but when it tries, it all goes so very very wrong.

You'd think that it would be able to handle things like letters and numbers and punctuation and the like, but no. Page layout, no no no.
How about generated indexes from Word 2003? Hell to the NAW!

If there is a god, or deity or some kind, he/she/it was quite obviously asleep in in a very miscivous mood when OpenOffice was concieved.

And not only does it suck at handling other document formats, it just plain sucks for normal use aswell.
Here at school we're forced to use the best due to economic restraints (we're the oldest school in the country, you'd think we would have amassed som money by now).
It is slower than molasses, has a memory footprint the size of BigFoot, it's extremely counterintuitive and it just feels painful to use.

But, the OSS advocates say, it's free and free is good and whatnot, and I can agree that free is good, but then again walking is free, and I don't much want to walk if I'm travelling to south africa or any other far and distant place.
Don't even get me started on the free software movement (that I do support, I just don't agree with everything they have to say, and the goddamn zealotry hasn't saved a single soul), but they get SO many things wrong it's not even funny.
People thing that just because software is free, nothing else matters, it'll get a market share an do great. Such is not the case.
When you write free software you HAVE to be as good as, or better than, the ingrained brands, because if you don't have the usability, your pogram sucks. Free ot not free, usability is king.
And don't you fucking forget it!

Getting back on track here, OpenOffice sucks, and if you want to keep your hair when you're 50, stay the fuck away from it.

You don't shake hands with lepers, and you don't use OpenOffice. Both these things cause loss of limb, so watch out.

More than my 2 cents, but my god OpenOffice sucks!

--Markus Out