Benign Thoughts

Hey everyone! I know it’s been a few days since my last entry, and for that I’m sorry. But, I have an interesting blog for you today. I plan on talking a bit about lucid dreaming and the dream I had just last night, so I’m gonna get started.

Alright, I decided a few days ago that I’m gonna get back into lucid dreaming. Basically, a lucid dream is when you know you’re dreaming in a dream, or you can control yourself inside the dream. If you can control yourself and think, chances are you will eventually figure out it’s a dream. Sometimes you’re dreaming, and you realize you’re dreaming in the dream, but you can’t do anything about it. A major part of this is just remembering your dream. A good site on LDing is Dream Views. I’m a member on the forum, and I love it.

I’m sure you remember Caitlin, right? Well, she was in my dream last night. It was a school dream, but the school I was in wasn’t very much like my school in real life. I should have realized I was dreaming, but I didn’t. Anyway, after Band class, I stayed a bit late, and watched the other band teacher teach his lesson. There was a chorus riser there that I sat on, but I doubt that matters. I was talking to this guy standing on the riser while watching the other band teacher. Soon I realised I was supposed to be in Math class, so, carrying my trombone with me (and somehow dressed in a white button-down shirt, a tie, and black pants), I ran out of the band room up towards my math room. That’s when I saw Caitlin and the rest of the school’s Concert Band 1 waiting in the hallway in front of this weird room (I know, a lot of rooms) all dressed up. Oh yeah, and everyone had their instruments too. Ironic, eh? Apparently they were taking yearbook pictures of the band. Anyway, I entered the room. It was huge and took up both floors, and was entirely white. The floor went down in amphitheatre-like steps, and at the bottom it was flat with a riser, I guess for the teacher to stand on. Anyway, we just sat there on one of the steps waiting for our names to be called. The guy there wasn’t calling them in any order, and Caitlin kept thinking he called her name, when I thought he was calling some other Caitlin/Kaitlyn/Whatever’s name. Then some other stuff happened that I don’t remember, and my dream shifted, or I woke up. I don’t remember. Weird, eh? Almost no point whatsoever.

Well… now what? Oh, now for my little geeky thing. Apparently someone’s making a graphical Gentoo installer. Yeah, it was slashdotted here so check it out. The site’s down (what a surprise), but when it’s back up it should be useful nonetheless.

Alright, I’m done now. I have off all week, so I plan on staying up late. C’ya!

BTW Today’s Bobby’s birthday. If you’re on anything but IE, you can see the message in the header. If you’re in IE, tough luck, but IE doesn’t support semi-transparent pngs and so I had to hide it.

One last thing. I’ve installed Spam Karma 2. If you come across any issues, email me and I’ll revert back to SK1 ASAP. Edit: I’m using SK1 again since SK2’s config page keeps screwing up on me.

Alright, so I’ve been using Opera 8.0 final for a few days now. Holy crap it’s awesome. Seriously, I thought beta 3 was fast, the final version is even faster! Seriously, it’s insanely fast. I don’t know how they do it. They don’t precache the pages as far as I know, because otherwise the XMG account acception page wouldn’t work right. Another thing is the configuration. The preferences dialog and appearence dialog are both nice and clean, with comprehensive options and such, and then there are the INIs (configuration files). Yeah, you can manually edit the INIs in your profile directory to change almost anything. You can change the title bar text, you could change the searchs available in the drop-down search field or the individual search fields, you can even change the menus themselves. It’s incredible. I was so amazed at the new version, I actually bought it. I know, I know, who buys a browser. Apparently, me. I’m sure many people just get a serial number from some keygen to get rid of the ads, but how would Opera ASA make money? Well, that’s why I bought it. I’d feel horrible if Opera went out of business because nobody wanted to buy such a great browser. Anyway, if you want to download the free version, or buy the paid version of Opera, click here to go to Opera’s site. It’s actually an affiliate program. If I get 250 clicks, I get a registration number for Opera. Now, I already bought Opera, so this is no use to me, but I guess I can always raffle it off, or give it away on this site. Yeah, that’s right. If I can get 250 unique clicks to opera.com through my affiliate link, I’m probably going to run some sort of contest, where, say, the first… or eighth person to email me gets the registration code. Sounds good, right? We’ll see if I get enough clicks.

I saw The Ring today! Well, I saw Ring, Ring 2, and Ring 0 last week. This week, I got The Ring out from the library and watched it with my dad. It was a joke compared to the Japanese version. It was still really scary, but not as scary as Ring. There was a lot of parts that were totally different from Ring in The Ring. For instance, in The Ring, Samara’s father keeps her in the barn. In Ring 0: Birthday, he’s a doctor first of all, and he keeps her in this locked room. In The Ring, she gets thrown into the well from her mother, putting a plastic bag or something over her head. In Ring, she gets whacked brutally over the head by the doctor, believed to be her father, and thrown into the well. In Ring, you never see Shizuko/Samara’s face, but in The Ring, you see it, like, all the time. Completely ruins the movie. It’s scarier when she doesn’t talk and you don’t see her face. There are other differences, but I don’t want to give away the movies. You’ll have to see and judge them for yourselves.

Anyway, that’s all. Go download Opera and try it out. You won’t regret it.

OMG! OPERA 8 IS OUT! Get it now. Go on, get it. Opera 8 is the browser you use when you’re on speed. Seriously, it’s wicked fast.

I’ll really blog later or tomorrow.

Well, Scott came out with a new AudioBlog a couple of days ago, and talked about the Japanese Ring. For those of you who haven’t seen the American version (The Ring), it’s about this video, and if you see it, you die in a week. I don’t know the American names since I haven’t seen the American version, but the Japanese version (not The Ring Virus, just Ring) is supposedly a lot better. Well, it scared the crap out of me, and I’m currently trying to get my hands on the sequel, the prequel, and Ring Virus, another version of the original film, except the girl is a young woman, apparently. If you haven’t seen the American or Japanese Ring/The Ring/Ringu, see it now and read this later. Next I’m just gonna talk about my day today so far anyway. Nothing interesting, you can always read it later. Now go to blockbuster or the library or something and get one of the movies.

Soooo! How are you doing? I’m fine, thank you very much! Well, I had my trombone thing today. You know, the NYSSMA Festival? Basically, you prepare a piece beforehand, and then you play it along with 3 songs and a sightreading piece, and he grades you. It’s rather fun. Well, I screwed up. I screwed up big time. I made the world’s dumbest mistakes playing the piece. I had to play it with the repeat at the end, so I fixed them the second time around, but it was still really dumb. I got nervous and worried about miscounting the rests, and my counting got all screwed up and I got lost in like, the easiest part of the song. I messed up parts that I didn’t even mess up sightreading it, and I did good on the ‘hard’ parts. It was insane.

Signups on XMGFree are open again! Yep, now you can sign up for free(!) hosting and get accepted within a few hours. We’re faster than some automated places. However, when Lee recompiled some stuff when the server was screwed up, something messed up the acception/rejection script, so we won’t be accepting or rejecting anyone until this is fixed. However, once it’s fixed, we’ll be good. I promise :-). [edit: it's fixed]

*looks around* So, did you see the movie yet? It’s insane, isn’t it. I’m trying to get my hands on an english translation of the novel, and once I find one, I might just have to write a review on it. Thank you and goodbye.

I actually noticed this about a week ago, but never got the chance to write about it. Wordpress.org has a new page up to help people pick a host, with several reccomended hosts… Now, what I’m wondering is why XMGFree and/or XMGHosting aren’t included in that list… I mean, for starters, the basic plan is very good, and for people with slightly more traffic, they can get the Sponsored plan. For those who want a lot more space and bandwidth, they can pay for upgrades or get a plan from XMGHosting.

So anyway, my God, I keep saying this, I’m gonna try to blog a bit more often now, maybe every other day or something. The only question is what I’d write about. You see, besides XMG and internet stuff, I have no life at all. None. Basically, I need stuff to write about, seriously. I can probably write SOMETHING if I sit down and think, but frankly, I’m a lazy bastard.

WTF? Yesterday I read something that caught my eye. You’re all familiar with Jabber, right? The IM protocal? Basically, it’s an XML based Instant Messaging system like AOL and (dare I say it?) MSN, except it’s Open Source. Well, actually there are two Jabbers. Jabber, Inc. and Jabber.org. Jabber, Inc. is sort of an enterprise IM protocal, fully compatible with the Open Source version, Jabber.org, and they also contribute to it. Anyhow, Jabber, Inc. is teaming up with AOL’s AIM, and in the near future, Enterprise users of Jabber, Inc’s platform (Jabber XCP), will be able to communicate with AIM users without a transport. Does this mean in the slightly further future us Open Source Jabber users will also be able to communicate with an AIM user with the screenname “screenname” just by adding screenname@aim.com to our Contact Lists? Perhaps so…

Holy crap some people are idiots (GOSH!) You all probably know by now that I moderate the forums at Buddy4u.com. Well, I’m not sure if I complained already or not, but a lot of them are retards. I’m being serious here, for instance, there are these two girls that used to go to buddy4u, Shannon (many people think she’s fake because of inconsistancies in her stories), and Jessica (she also used to be a moderator). A couple of months ago, Jessica had a hissy fit and decided, “Hey, let’s destroy the whole freaking forum!” Well, that’s exactly what she did. She deleted almost every topic, banned almost every member and all the mods, and completely destroyed the forums. Shannon helped. Now, guess what? Some members want those two back. HA! HA HA! Dumbasses.

Looks like I’m the dumbass. Right now I’m having a conversation with Bobby (the emo kid), and we somehow got on the topic of people catching on fire and peeing on them to put them out. Yeah, I think he was quoting a song or something. I dunno, he’s emo. Two things I don’t think I’ll ever understand are emo kids, and of course, girls. Well, then we got on the subject “Is urine flammable or not” and we’ve come to the conclusion that it is mostly not flammable. It would only be flammable if you drank gas or something, which would probably kill you. Hoorah for science!

That is all! Well, for today it is. Tomorrow I have this band thing, so I’ll probably blog again. Goodbye!

Alright, I have an interesting blog post for all of you today, so listen up, yo. A while ago, Matt posted a link to Om Malik’s entry on something he calls IAD. So anyway, I found this interesting, and I figure, hey, let’s write about it… but not quite.

What is a disorder? Well, according to answers.com, it’s “An ailment that affects the function of mind or body.”

Now what the hell is that? How do they know how things are supposed to be anyway? Define, order. We really don’t know, we just assume it’s whatever most people do. A lot of people, for instance, have ADD or ADHD, including me. A lot of those same people are on medication to make them “normal”.

You know what I think? I think it’s human nature to get distracted by things. I mean, so many people get distracted, it’s hard to say what “normal” is. In my opinion, I don’t think we’d go anywhere without the distractions. For instance, if people didn’t get bored with things, everyone would just do the same thing at the same time. Everybody’s different, so some people get bored with some things quicker than other things. It’s no disorder. The word “disorder” just makes people feel worse about themselves and make them think that there’s something wrong with them.

Now, of course, this could be bad. For instance, someone might not be able to get done with a piece of work they have due the next day because they keep getting distracted. I think this isn’t something that you would need drugs for, they should just deal with it themselves, and if they screw up, fine. That’s their problem, next time they’ll learn from their mistakes and finish whatever they have to do.

However, it can be good, too. I have a theory that development goes faster when people have a short attention span. Let’s say that this company makes this new program. Let’s call this product, x Wooo! Everyone loves it! A while later, it’s x what? A new feature’s released a couple of weeks later, or one is announced. People get all excited about this wonderful new feature, which in 2 months nobody will care about.

If you’re not interested in it, it’s not worth doing. If you have a job, and you get sidetracked a lot, chances are you need a new job. Face it, it’s boring. Find something where you won’t get distracted with. You know what? Find something that has something to do when you get sidetracked, because then what would you do when you get sidetracked?

Anyway, I got off topic! That’s not a surprise. My main point was that you can’t really define “disorder”, so you shouldn’t call things disorders. There is no way something is supposed to be. There is no normal. There’s just different people who like to do different things. When they don’t like to do something, they’ll get sidetracked. Woo hoo!

Oh, and just for the record:

I’m done with AIM for a while. I don’t want to deal with all the crap-ass IMs I get every day. I always get at least 2 people trying to boot me off or pop up a billion windows or something.. well, guess what? It’s not gonna work. Anyhow, if you wanna reach me, you can IM me on Jabber. My screenname is LouisC@jabber.org. You can also email me or skype me (my skype name is LouisC. [with the period at the end]). You can also reach me on the XMGNetworks IRC server (irc.xmgnetworks.com:6667). I’m usually in #xmgfree, but just in case, you can msg or notice XMG-Louis. If you don’t want to put up with installing a jabber client or something, email me. If I know you, and I know you aren’t a complete dumbass, I’ve set up a secret AIM screenname which I will be on through my jabber screenname. Nothing will work through it except IMing, so deal with it. FYI, Trillian pro supports Jabber, in case you use it. You register the screenname right through the program, also. For more information visit http://jabber.org.

I will probably blog later. If not, I will tomorrow. Also, April Fools day I made a mistake. It’s Google Gulp, not Google Glurp. I edited the post and put a little notice at the bottom. Please leave comments, and if you don’t have one already, sign up for a Gravatar.