EXODUS!

i've been shanghied!
since i had to create a username in wordpress to join the thurteem blog, i decided to move this blog over there too. partly because blogger can be pig-slow from varsity, partly because moonflake said it was good, and partly because of peer pressure (i'm cool right? right? riiight?).
anyway. new adress is:
zenstar.wordpress.com
bet you coulda guessed that one right ;)
if you're interested in how the cooking went (i'm still alive if i'm typing this) then you need to head on over and read the post entitled refry.
see you there (don't forget to update your bookmarks... *laugh* like any of you actually bookmark this page)

you can't eat binary

cooking has always been a kind of binary system to me in the past.
you see, either there was someone there to cook for me (i love you moonflake;) or there was someone willing to take money from me and give me cooked food.
microwave tv dinners do not count as cooking in my opinion. neither does opening a packet of chips or making a sandwich. (otherwise we'd have a trinary, quadary, or quintary systems and that's just weird)

of course we're not talking metaphorical cooking here, otherwise i can really cook if you know what i mean *wink* *mac-face* "how you doing?"
ok... maybe i'm not quite the metaphorical chef either, but the point here is: barring a few pancakes and some omlettes, i've never really needed to cook.
first i was living with my parents, then i was making enough money not to need to cook, then i moved in with moonflake...
then moonflake got sent overseas for a couple of weeks...

since moonflake knows me well (she should do by now) she made me promise that i'd make myself food from the freezer.
you see my laziness outweighs my hunger on most occasions. i don't cook not because i don't know how, but because i'm too lazy to try (plus: i do the dishes).
having friends who buy you chip & cheese occasionally doesn't help my cooking skills either (thanks james:)

but the more astute of you will have noticed the phrase "in the past," in the first sentence of this post.
that's right folks. i've mastered the art of reading the back of the box of some frozen, crumbed chicken pieces.
they were hot, but cooked properly.
i may even attempt to make some more for lunch today.
i may go as far as making some sort of accompanying side-dish.
we have some of that microwave rice stuff...
i'm sure i can handle reading the instructions on that packet.

the more i think of it, the more cooking is like ordering from the menu at a restaraunt.
only this menu makes you run around and set timers and things.
it's kinda like being the customer and the waiter all rolled into one...
well my waiter is not getting a tip unless i get some garnish or sprinkles of stuff and drizzles of sauce like they do in restaruants where there's more sauce and sprinkles than food.
well.. actually i suppose it's like being the customer and the cook since i don't really take my own orders (yeah. i'm crazy like that!).

note: i say "cook" not "chef."
if i was a chef i'd do more of the drizzles and sprinkles (is it just me or does that sound like something you shouldn't be doing near food preperation?) and i'd probably have a french accent.
maybe i'll upgrade to chef status after i make some rice.
then i'll be using 2 appliances at the same time to create a unique dining pleasure: chicken and rice.

hmm... that needs a name with more flare.
chook and grain? nah... too auzzie slang.
foul and pilaf? nah... not catchy enough.
bird 'n bead! yes... it's got that catchy sort of name used by trendy little coffee shops that charge far too much for the simple lunches they serve and hire the most annoying waiters. luckily for me i don't have to deal with the waiter (i hope i don't spit in my food though.)

bird 'n bead: tender, succulent chicken breasts grilled to perfection and perfectly complimented by a generous helping of taste-tastic brown rice.

read: frozen chicken pieces warmed up in an oven with however much rice comes in a bag. the chicken will hopefully be cooked as long as the "chef" follows the intructions and the rice will be whatever flavour is in the cupboard. the "chef" probably won't screw it up. good luck. be warned all ye who order here!

the pressure

i feel a need to blog
the only problem is that my blogging attitude seems to be going through a phase of dissatisfaction at the moment.
this blog has gone through a couple of variations in the past and probably will go through many more.

its been a kinda diary thing
its been a source of odd news
its been a rant page
its been a humour column
its been various permutations and combinations of the above
there have been pictures and trivia

the problem i have now is: where do i go from here?
currently i find my hobbies (the bountifull plethora of them) to be running short of time. this means i have to prioritise things and recently i haven't had anything good to blog about.
normally the prioritisation tires me out and i need a nap.
in fact napping often takes a very high priority.
i must be getting old.

it just seems like my available time is always inversly proportional to my required time.
i really don't feel like coding at 04h30 in the morning again.
i wake up with my eyes feeling like pieces of coal after nights like that.

so what's next?
i don't know... things'll probably be a little sporadic.
i may do the diary thing again.
who knows?
i guess you'll just have to stay tuned!

note:

synkronos is blogging again.

i can smell the crazy

so i'm out with a few friends over the weekend and after a nice supper we head on over to the local pool hall.
now this pool place is on the first floor and has an outside balcony bit where you can go when your ears begin to bleed from the music inside.
3 of us planted ourselves there and began to chat about the meaning of life, world affairs, descarte's philosophies, the dichotomy of good and evil, the nature of the human soul, etc (read: "we talked shit for a long time").
suddenly michael jackson on crack appears.
it was like a thriller flashback... if his leather jacket had had any red in it i would've hidden the children right then and there!
this dodgy looking black guy (i make reference to his race only to strengthen the mj image and because it becomes important later) in a black leather jacket and 80's style black jeans oozes onto the balcony and stands *right* next to us (in spite of the balcony being 90% unnocupied due to the cold) like he's trying to huddle up for warmth.
he also puts his back to the wall and sneaks glances through the door like some sort of smooth criminal hiding from the law. made me wonder if there were any children crying inside, but since its a no under-18's place i thought not.
you could smell the crazy!

smelling the crazy is a survival tactic that needs to be learnt if you want to survive (especially in south africa).
in fact you need to learn it if you just want to have a successful relationship that doesn't end in attempted homicide.
forget all that bullshit relationship advice out there about what to talk about and how to have the perfect date etc...
guys, you want real relationship advice?
learn to smell the crazy!
and don't be a dick...
women aren't looking for crazy dicks unless its a one-night kinda affair. and even then they're looking more for freaky than crazy.
your best relationship tool is your crazy-o-meter.
if the girl is coo-coo for coco-puffs then you need to bail like sane rats off the crazy ship.
some helpful indicators of crazy (non-gender specific):
eyes twitch randomly.
when blinking, one eye starts first and then the other.
froths at the mouth.
likes celine dion.
compares everything to the ex.
says thinks like "i'm the illest mutherfucker you ever saw."

that's right. mj pretty much introduced himself by informing us that he "lived in a world that we will never know" (its called crazytown you freak!) and that we "lived in a world that [he] would never know" (its called reality).
and then he told us that he was the "illest mutherfucker [we] ever saw."
by this point the smell of crazy was turning into something more like a palatable taste of crazy like bitter honey that warned of bodily harm.
this guy definitely had the attitude that said: "i wanna be startin' somethin'."
we tried the tactic of smile slightly, nod occasionally, and avoid eye-contact, but he just wouldn't go away and he kept talking until eventually one of my friends cracked and tried to reason with him.

reasoning does not work with crazy people!
how do you tell someone crazy that they're crazy when they're obviously the only sane person in the world, right? right??? right!!!!??!
unfortunately, by acknowleding his existence he had been given power, just like the staypuff marshmellow man was given form.
and from there it went downhill.
mj decided that my friend didn't like him and so he did the only sane thing: ask my friend to hit him. in fact he offered us his hands so that we could hold him while our friend hit him.
we refused. i think that may have confused him.
that's about when he broke out the good old new south africa classic:
(this is where his race becomes important. all 3 of us are white. he's black)
he calls us racist.

being "fucking nuts" (clinincal term) is not race dependent.
we didn't like you because we could smell the crazy on you. and because you were aggressive and trying to start a fight.
but that's just a part of being "fucking nuts!"
you could be green with blue polka-dots and we wouldn't have wanted to talk to you - Because You Are Crazy!
not because you're black, it doesn't matter if you're black or white.
if you call racist without an actual reason then you fall into the "fucking moron" category. If you don't have the brainpower to actually formulate an opinion or response, but instead simply shout "racist" when someone disagrees with you then you are a waste of biological material.
so: moronic, agressive, *and* nuts.
wow. i wonder why people don't like talking to you.

that attitude definitely won't heal the world.
luckily bullshitting is an art, and my friend has done a degree in fine arts (which is like refined bullshitting).
with some flair (and the phrase: "waxing the cryptic" which reminded me of the phrase: "bite the wax tadpole") the verbal war began.
mj started to become more confused and went on about "talking straight" and actually asked my friend not to use such "large terminologichal" words.
moron.
eventually i think he relised that we weren't going to fight and we didn't give a fuck if he thought we were racist or not.
he mumbled something about his "three-fifty-seven" and "coming back to the club tomorrow and killing every mother."
now i'm fairly sure that he was trying to be all self-debasing to highlight what he thought was racism here. problem was that with that amount of crazy you never can tell...

the night resumed to fairly pleasent after he fucked off back inside. we even spoke to some not crazy people (some of whom were, in fact, not white *gasp!*).
turns out mj had been bothering people inside too, we discovered when we met up with our friends again.
people like that make me want to scream.

locked in a box

varsity air, being half-way to space, is obviously depriving our sys-admin of vital oxygen supplies.
i say this because we're all using firefox on kubuntu.
while they do the job that they were designed to do, so does your ass (unless you've got a colostomy bag), and some of the features of both resemble each other.
for example: the kubuntu colour scheme is very brown.
i'd say "baby brown" or even "purity veg brown."
but certain special things that firefox does, especially when combined with the kubuntu operating system, make it extra, super-number-one, hyper, anime-style-over-the-top crappy.
the equivalent "ass" comparison would be to spontanously start shitting out of your belly-button because you accidently changed the tv to the wrong channel.
annoying? yes!
uncomfortable? i'd say so.
messy? certainly!
unwanted side effect? most definitely (unless you're some sort of freak)!

what am i talking about specifically?
well... you know that F5 is the refresh key right???
(for those non "tech-savvy": F5 is, in fact, the refresh key)
and you know how web pages can get cached so you get yesterday's news when you want today's?
(for those non "tech-savvy": again, true... just believe everything i say from this point on... send all your money to me and you'll have a better life!)
now a normal pushing of F5 results in a refresh that calls the cached page again.
to refresh through the cache you need to push one of the following:
shift + F5 or
ctrl + F5 or
alt + F5.
now i never rember which combination it is and i come from the old school of computing where such long combinations as "ctrl" + "alt" + "del" + "swear at bluescreen" were commonplace.
so my solution to the problem: ctrl + alt + shift + F5.
kubuntu's answer to this unique and wonderful solution of pure elegance:
switch off the gui (graphical user interface to you... the "windows bit") and dump you into the DOS-like "konsole"
(stupid fragging kubuntu and its "k" names. was it designed by the kreators of mortal kombat?)

now while i grew up on DOS and feel very komfortable in it i do not want to try surf the web or check my mail in it.
(besides: ascii porn just isn't where its at)
the worst part about this invasive interaction: no konfirmation box!
no little window popping up saying "we're about to ram something unpleasant up there without using lube. are you sure you want to kontinue?"
they just go right ahead and shove you're lovely windows interface where the sun don't shine.
when people tell me that linux/unix is better because you have more power over things etc i think of this and am reminded that i don't mind the odd prompting and forward thinking of a good operating system.

now i see you're all a little konfounded.
"what about firefox?" i hear you wail with gnashing of teeth and klenching of sphincters.
how is firefox involved in this other than the katalyst for the "everything + F5" shortkut?
i'll tell you how:
firefox is stupid!
to prevent you accidently running multiple kopies that access the same profile and screw things up firefox writes a kouple of "lock" files.
if the lock files exist, then you kan't access that profile (including bookmarks and kache etc).
sounds like a good idea right?
wrong!
when firefox krashes (or if you accidently dump yourself to the konsole and need to reboot) the lock files get left behind.
what does this mean? this means that next time you try to run firefox it tells you to go screw yourself and doesn't run.
wtf?
back to the ass analogy: firefox has applied duct tape to the whole area, sealing off all access and blocking proper flow of execution.
now the problem is fixable if you know where to look and what to delete... but delete too much and you're losing the profile anyway.
why it doesn't just check if firefox is actually running (check what services are running) before telling you that "firefox is already running" i'll never know.
and i don't know why it doesn't pop up a helpful little window saying: "we think this profile is already in use, but if things fucked out and we're currently dicking you around then press the 'reset your stupid locks' button and firefox will be start to function again."
(so much for all your supposed unix/linux power and kontrol)

for the non tech-savvy lets have a more real-world analogy here:
you need to use the photocopier and you have your own photocopier in a special room in the photocopier building.
you go over to the building, find your photocopier room and begin photocopying.
(i don't know what you're photocopying... some important documents or your ass or something)
unbeknownst to you, the photocopy machine has locked you into this room while you're using it and the keys have been hung on the back of the door, amongst a whole set of other keys.
you accidently push the wrong button and the photocopier explodes, blowing your shoes off, and a man in military uniform appears.
let's call him colonel crash (*snigger* techie joke).
the colonel drags you out of the window and dumps you in the street outside (where everything is black and white and very sparse).
you replace your missing shoes, or re-boot (*sigh* terrible techie pun) and head back into the photocopier building to finish your work only to discover...
*dun-dun-daaaaaah*

your door is still locked.
not only that, but all doors are locked now and every time you try to open one you hear a voice saying "this door is already open. to open this door you must close it first."
now there are a couple of solutions to your problem here:
1) climb in through the window, search through all the keys and find the right set of keys, unlock the door and walk out so that you can turn around and walk back in (only to get locked inside again).
or
2) knock down the building and replace it with a sleek office-block where you don't get locked into rooms and helpful people ask you if you want to be an idiot before hitting you in the face with a klub.

the climb to enlightened violence

i woke up early this morning.
i woke up really early this morning.
i woke up really early after going to bed really late.
i woke up really early after too little sleep just for the purpose of getting up to varsity without needing to rush and hurry like the last few days.
i made an extra-special effort to set my alarm early and wake up super-early so that i could amble up to varsity in a relaxed manner so that i was fully prepared to absorb knowledge in my comsci lecture.
i made a superhuman effort to prepare myself for an early morning in spite of the evils of television reduceing my sleeping hours to but a scant handfull.

i then went back to sleep and had to rush up to varsity.
i rushed up for my one and only lecture of the day.
on thursdays i have one lecture in the morning and that's it. no more. no less (or so i thought).
and it was cancelled (definite possibility of less then).
thoughtlessly and inhumanely cancelled.
i could have woken gracefully into the day and done all sorts of useful things instead of being dumped into an awake state like a bum off a train cart before it pulls into the station.

the excuse given was that the lecturer was sick.
pfft.
she could be no worse off than i.
i'm still suffering from some bastard cold from outer space.
every time i get to campus my left ear gets block from the change in altitude and refuses to unblock until just before i decide to leave, providing hours of amusement on the way home as i return to a more normal atmosphere remember... my university is a short mountain-climb away from actual civilization.
its kinda like a shaolin temple, only filled with idiots in stead of monks. And the buildings are nowhere as nice. And i don't think there's a prayer wheel anywhere to be found.

but my impending eardrum rupturing fun and search for enlightenment in the freezing dark of the winter morning is not the point.
the point is she shoulda sucked it up and come in to lecture.
if i have to drag myself out of bed before riding a mountain goat to the lecture venue (ok... its a bus... but i have to walk to the bus) then the least she could do is drive in her comfy car, park in her reserved spot, and bore us to death for 45 minutes.

hmm.... actually that doesn't sound so fantastic.
ok. what about this:
she can take as many sick days as she wants as long as she phones me to let me know that i don't need to break out the ice picks and carabiners in the morning.
then i can lie in bed comfortable in the knowledge that i'm not learning important information that will be asked in the exams at the end of the year.

hmm.... actually that doesn't sound so fantastic either.
all right:
she can be as sick as she wants as wants as long as i get 5% added to my final marks every time she coughs, 8% for a sneeze, 10% per sick day, and a whopping 20% if there are any technicoloured yawns involved, 25% if there's blood.
that sounds fair to me.
i could pass with one conversation to god on the big white phone followed by a "get well soon" baseballbat blow to the face.
of course i'd have to claim the wheeze of air leaving her body was a cough.
And no-one would be able to find out who spiked the drinking water at the lecture podium otherwise they might claim something about unfair marking practices.

you know something... i'd do a lot more varsity courses if that was the marking scheme.
hell! with some of the lecturers i've had, i'd be doing so well people would be sponsoring me to stay in varsity.