Archive for February, 2004

that’s right. AimPoo2; now written in python! Advantages? It’s a script, so it’s always 100% open source. It runs on windows. It runs on mac. It runs on Linux. It runs in a console. It can be used remotely over telnet. It can be used remotely over ssh. It is easier to code than the old compiled version. Since the source is open, anyone can modify it to change their needs. If they make improvements, they can send them to me and I can implement them. AimPoo2 will be written in python, so it’s really fast to get in there and change the code. Of course, AimPoo2 will be completely free as always. Isn’t Scott a nice guy? I’m gonna get back to work coding my script to let people like you hack 3 letter screen names. At the current rate, I already have a few pages of code written that can sign on a name and determine if it works or not. Now, I simply have to automate it. I don’t see how it could be much longer from this point. Give me your encouragement, for I could use it! But hold off on your ideas for the moment; I have to finish making the backbone first. If you have comments, let me know. I’m sure I’ll get both praised and scorned for my selection of programming languages. The reason for python? The same reason I wrote AimPoo in the first place: I just want to learn something new ^_^

Dang, today was really boring… and of all days!? Oh yes, I wasn’t going to let myself stumble into the bottomless pit of that topic again. I got all that fun stuff out of my system yesterday. Tonight’s blog will be purely about things not relating to SAD (singles awareness day) itself, but rather what happened today, and what I think about things. So, where to start? Oh yeah, I guess I already started. Today was boring. I couldn’t find much to do. I did a little bit of homework. I even watched a little TV (for the first time in forever) Then I got infested by newbishness (more on this later). And now, well now I’m listening to a Korean radio station on the edge of my seat from song to song /so I can hear the DJ/ (more on this later) while googling for pictures of Himalayan women (definitely more on this later). I don’t think today’s article will be at all sad or depressing. It will dodge the fact that lots of people live boring lives, and that we’re just going to grow old and die some day. I hope you enjoy it.

Ok, as if that weren’t the spookiest thing ever. I’m here in the dark typing my blog. It’s a little creepy, because the music is temporarily paused and I every thing’s quiet. There’s a slight hum of multiple computer fans spinning, but other than that it’s silent. It’s dark too. Other than my monitors, I can’t see beyond hand’s reach from my chair. My window (to my right) is about four feet wide and eight feet high. The blinds are wide open. I can peer out into the blackness, but the blackness is all I can see. All the sudden, I saw movement out my window. I turned my head to look, but after looking at the monitors, I could see nothing because my eyes were not yet dilated enough. As my retinas retracted, I could slowly see what resembled two dots about at my waist level. Then I realized… those… those are eyes… there’s a man down there! I started to shrug off the idea when suddenly the eyes moved and glanced at me from a different direction. After relieving myself in my pants, I remained frozen in a state of shock. I decided to play the tough guy and start to swing a punch at the eyes. When my knuckles hit the glass, I saw the eyes turn the other way. Then I saw a cat leap from the windowsill. “Whoa, I’ve got to blog about this”, I thought to myself, “…after I change my pants.”

Scott, ce0 you to 100% again? Yeah. What a newbie. SOMEONE must have been all alone on Valentine’s day =op His aim handle is ce0 (that’s a zero) but you may remember him as the former “TheBlackAlbum”. I must say, even I am surprised at how stupid the whole thing has become. The guy got mad from his own stupidity and started to take it out on me. Yay, now my warning is 100%, I can’t talk to anyone on my screen name (RTS), and the person who caused all of it is… well ok, he’s totally screwed. I’m sure you’re interested as to hear what happened. In a nutshell, he’s a lamer newbie who pretended to me to know what he was doing and asked me how to do something and I told him step by step how to do it then he got all mad at me because it didn’t do what he expected. I’ll let you know that I saved a snippet of the conversation in the quotes page, in case you’re interested. So, what happened? Well, he’s like “yo Scott, I want to install Linux and I need to erase windows, how do I erase windows?” So, more or less, I walked him through how to make a boot disk and run format c: with it. Then he got all mad at me when he realized he erased his computer. It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t lie to him one bit! Well, ok, maybe once I was a little unclear. I mentioned “… to make your hard drive just like new.” Everyone knows that new hard drives have nothing on them, don’t they? So, as he was formatting I realized that he had no clue what he was doing. Then I pretty much gave up on the guy (he got a little annoying) and when he was asked to enter the drive label, I told him to type in “OWN3D”. That’s when he figured it out and got all crazy about it. He (or his friends?) in his/their newbishness ran a little program to warn buddy icons. My buddy icon (mini-kenshin) has been “stuck” ever since I got this SN, so I haven’t been able to remove it, thus it was repeatedly warned until it got to 100%. I’m going to spend a little time tomorrow to write a silly little (python-based, I’m guessing) script to let me sign on to aol’s TOC servers manually and I’ll try to hand-rest my buddy icon file. Now why in the heck does AOL save your buddy icon, but not your profile? I don’t get it. Ok, well, there’s little more to see here. Ce0 is a total newb. He even asked me to take his SN off my website. Then, when I tried to have that arranged, he 100%-warned the two temp. screen names my messengers were on. Such a moron. It could have been arranged too. Things like this makes me sad; what kind of unsuccessful man will come from such an ignorant boy if he doesn’t start changing soon?

Oh well, I’m tired. I’m cranky. And dang it, I need to go to sleep. This is a bad thing I’m about to do, but oh well. I mentioned that I’d talk about Korean DJ and Himalayan women tonight. Well, I’ll tell you… and in the shortest sentences imaginable! I was listening to a Korean DJ on a [Korean] streaming radio station because her voice was soft and flowing and great background sound to work to. I was also in mid-conversation with someone about Himalayan women and what I thought about them. So what? Their eyes are pretty ^_^ Ok, I’d best go. Goodnight, everyone. Happy Valentine’s day.

Oh the decisions! I’m not sure what I should blog about this afternoon. I have a little time and want to write something, but I can’t decide what! I’ve been flirting with a few ideas, but none of them seem that interesting. I could simply write a ‘normal’ blog, but where’s the fun in that? Plus, that would take too long. I’d much rather write about something deep, fascinating, thought provoking, and inspiring! Sure, I have my little note card(s) of “to blog” ideas, but none of them seem interesting anymore. Ahh yes, I’ve got it. Valentine’s day. Someone recently told me that this Saturday (tomorrow) is Valentine’s day. I didn’t even know it was February! Nonetheless, Valentine’s day is tomorrow and what could possibly be a more fun or relevant topic for me to write about!? Ok, maybe not fun, but at least it’s relevant. Well, buckle your seat belts and hold on tightly to the side rails. If you read it, you should comment on it and share your thoughts! I have no idea where this post will go, so be prepared for the unexpected…

I hate Valentine’s day! It is the one day of the year that singles out singles. It seems as if this day were devised to cause single guys and girls to stand alone and watch everyone else have all the fun. Not only are you alone, but you’re alone on Valentine’s day! Quite possibly the most depressing thought known to man, this idea is rubbed in your face wherever you go. Walk around a high school and you see little hearts everywhere. Go in a crowd of people and wherever you look you see boys, girls, men, and women exchanging little red and white hand made cards with hears on them. Then there’s the inescapable proverbial image of a guy buying his girl a heart shaped box of chocolates and handing it to her (most romantically, of course) with a bouquet of flowers and a small kiss. At times like this, the stereotypical single will try to justify their singleness in his or her own mind. They usually come up with a plethora of excuses from “I don’t like cards” to “flowers just die eventually”, not to mention the inescapable fact that “chocolate just causes acne anyway.” After thinking about the advantages of being single and the disadvantages of being coupled with somebody, one might stop and reflect upon themselves and the position they are in. “Hey, why am I like this anyway?” Although Valentine’s day could be a very happy and romantic time for couples, it comes at a price for others who are single. All you can do is sit around and watch all the beautiful people enjoy themselves. What is to happen to the guy or girl who admires someone in silence, only to see them snatched by somebody else because he hesitated for so long? What happens when you buy a single red rose and honestly intend to give it to someone, only to find out that you can’t give it to them because they already have a “valentine”? Then, with little else to do, would you stand in a crowd of people and give your rose to a random person who looks lonely, only to turn around and run the other way? Standing alone with a rose might seem like a sad image at first, but if you stop and think about it, it can actually be a sign of a pretty nice person. Is it not considered more respectable to wait alone in silence with a rose rather than find a person who’s simply willing to say “yes”, only to exchange shallow gifts and words? I think highly the man who holds-out and waits patiently for “the right one” to come along. Valentine’s day promotes couples, but I know some very nice singles that need to be recognized! Wouldn’t it be a great idea to have an Anti-Valentine’s day recognizing singles? Unlike Valentine’s day, Anti-Valentine’s day would not make the opposite party (couples) feel bad, but rather spend a day in recognition of those who are waiting to find their perfect match. This holiday could also be constructive in the sense that singles could meet other singles and get to know each other better! Spending time with close friends (especially those of the opposite sex) can be such a fun and enjoyful experience, and that’s what these two days should be all about! People have to be careful not to get stuck in the superficial shallowness of the date and title. Stop and think about what’s really going on! What’s so special about sharing your appreciation on Valentine’s day? You should share it with the ones you love every day! What a sad and boring relationship it would be if it were devoid of these simple qualities except for one day a year! Valentine’s day is simply another day of the year. For those who are coupled, it’s an excuse buy, trade, and eat some good chocolate. For singles, it’s a time to be happy for who you are and enjoy thinking of the future (while keeping an eye out for the lonely looking guy or girl girl who seems to be in the same predicament as yourself; After all, you probably will have a lot of free time this day). Although it may seem a little unfair in it’s bias toward couples, it can still be enjoyed by everyone! After all, there’s no shame in eating a box of heart shaped candies by yourself ^_^

Craziness! As you may have seen on my webcam I was studying all day today! Today was my first really big school work day of this semester. I have five tests in two days (3 of them tomorrow) and I’m trying to go ever each subject deeply enough that I know I will do well. Both math tests I feel confident with. A programming test will be no sweat. Tomorrow morning I have a Chemistry test. I’m afraid I feel a B coming on. I didn’t know what this guy was expecting from us near the beginning, but it’s become more clear now. I didn’t have as much time to [properly] prepare for the test, but I think I can do well. I’ll shoot for a solid A but not be too surprised if I get a B. I know I will be able to pull up my grade on the next test(s) now that I know how he teaches. You can tell this is bothering me, huh? Yeah, B is for bad. I don’t like B’s. In fact, B’s are BS. ^_^ I would like to be in bed in half an hour, so I’ll do a light blog tonight.

I’d like to start by thanking my friend Rei. Due to some server changes, my entire website was erased and a backup was stamped on the web server so it was more or less the same as before, with one exception. The backup was created about 16 hours before the site was erased. The only thing that changed in that time was a blog post and a couple of comments. But wait, oh no! I lost the blog post! Ahh! That had come to be one of my favorite posts too! I talked about so many fun things! (If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, you should.) Anyway, I was desperate to think of a way to get it back. I didn’t want to retype it (I didn’t think I had it in me to do it justice) so I stopped and devised an idea. I threw a message to my pal Rei (my assistant writer of AimPoo!) and told him not to go to my website until he IMed me! I told him what had happened and he was able to go in windows’ temporary for storing website caches and pull out the old version he still happened to have sitting on his computer. Wow, Internet Explorer’s website caching habit actually did something good for once? Crazy! Caching websites on your hard drive is a bad idea by the way… I don’t use Internet Explorer. I don’t use windows. Woohoo! (Click on the ‘desktops’ section on the left menu to see what I do use). All right, I’m getting off subject. Okay, I say Rei saved the day in his own particular way (no help to Ebay, valentine Fay, or horse hay, neigh?)

So I’m doing math homework tonight and I start laughing. I read a math problem that sounded something like this: “A 6 foot man stood 13 and ½ feet away from a mirror and noticed that the top of the mirror was 39.1 degrees above the horizon…” The rest of the problem was simple and easy to solve, but it left me with one burning question. Who the heck looks in a mirror and notices that the top of it is 39.1 degrees above the horizon! Wow, there are some sick people out there if this is the case. Actually, this isn’t the end of the strangeness. You know what I think is wrong? Those train problems you all had in Algebra. You know, “Two trains are 50 miles apart when one train starts on the left and heads right at 30 miles per hour while at the same time another train starts on the right and heads left at 20 miles per hour. At what time will the trains collide?” Oh, that’s good. I feel safe now. Some man was watching the news and heard a story about two trains colliding and thought to himself “hey, wouldn’t that make a fun math problem for a class room full of 8′th graders?” And my question is what the heck is math book writers’ obsession with trains? Who in the heck rides trains anyway. It should be airplanes, cars, or space shuttles. (Ok, that was wrong.) You know what I want to see? Bikers. That’s right, bikers! “… at what time will the two bikers run into eachother?” Who cares? It’d be hilarious to watch!

I’m a klutz. Tonight around ten thirty I decided I needed a break from my homework. Tomorrow morning I was planning on getting gas, but I decided it’d be a nice little break to go get it tonight. On the way back home, I parked the car, turned the lights off, locked it, closed the door, opened the garage, closed the garage behind me, stood in front of the door to the house, and opened it right into my face. The pull-to-open door was thrust toward my eyebrow. I, being the quick one I am, noticed what was happening. “Hey, I can break the force of the door to my eye by sticking my hand between the two!”, I thought to mself. I raised my hand with lightning-quick reflexes just in time to have it reach my cheek when the door hit. Now, I have a red mark on my hand, a red hand mark on my cheek, and a really bad looking two inch vertical red mark on my eyebrow/forehead. If anyone asks about it tomorrow, I think I’m going to tell them that I was street fighting and got a little careless. However, anyone who visits my website will know that I had a battle I had with a door and lost.

I made my web cam better! I’m sure you’ve noticed the new little picture on the top right of the layout. It’s a little thumbnail of my room. The cool part is this little thumbnail is live. The cooler part is that you can click it. The coolest part is that after you click it, you can see the big one. Oooo. Ahhhh. I spent a little time earlier researching how this thing works and was able to find some hacked drivers that seemed to take a little better quality pictures than what I was using. Also, it gave me more control over some of the little settings that made it possible for you all to see (better, at least) what’s on my monitors without the horizontal sync throwing off the web cam and making the proverbial white blurr. So, there you go. Enjoy it. A few days ago I mentioned the possibility of raising money for a nicer one. I think I’ve decided aginst this idea. The “next step” up (that’s worth making, anyway) from my (free) one is about 80 bucks (eek!) and it doesn’t even do night vision. The only real improvement is the way it snaps the pictures and the size/quality you can get from it. But, since the actual image is being stored on my (crappy, low-bandwidth) home server, a higher quality image would only mean more loading time; and it’s slow enough as it is!

Well, it looks like I blogged a little longer than I was expecting. Thirty two minutes. Oh well, I guess I can’t complain. Not yet anyway. Ask me tomorrow morning while my alarm clock is buzzing and my response might be a dramatically different answer. I doubt I’ll be able to write tomorrow (for reasons relating to my late night class then doubled by exhaustion and squared by other responsibilities). So, until Friday, have a good one! I’m Scott, and you know who you are.

As I sit down at my desk to write, it feels as if I just opened my eyes in the morning. Though I’m still tired, my mind starts glancing from place to place in shallow thought, trying to remember where I left of the day before. Then, suddenly, ideas and memories flash in my mind like rays of light cast from a ball of fire exploding with great power! Suddenly I remember the quest I am on: TWD (total world domination). Then, as if the rug of sanity and order is ripped away from beneath my feet, I’m suddenly reminded of my duties and responsibilities toward my school, my work, my family, and my friends (in that order?). I can do little more than sit here and reminisce in the memories of past times and dream of the way I most desperately desire life to be. Then, while I’m about to collapse from the incredible volume of information, senses, perceptions, thoughts, ideas, and emotions, I shake my head and blink a few times, “Oh crap, I was doing it again! Getting all stupid in my writings. Wake up man /slaps/ get a grip!”

Today in chemistry class, someone said something that stuck me as really funny. I (last week) sent an email to a girl in the class about some of the homework. I mentioned in it something along the lines of “…you might want to contact me via phone or IM if you want to tell me something because I rarely check my email.” Mysteriously, I never got a response… In class today, the girl told me “hey, I got your email!”, and I was like “oh you did?”. “Yeah, I did. I didn’t respond though because I know you don’t get on the computer much.” (I know that’s not exactly what she said, but it must have been close, that was the impression I got) I thought it was really funny to hear someone say “because I know you don’t get on the computer much”! I could feel a grin/smile creep over my face as I tried to withhold the laughter that bubbled up inside me. What a silly thing to hear! I know she knows almost nothing about me, so I can’t expect her to know that I spend so much of my time working neck deep in code, but I just thought it was kind of (dare I say?) ‘cute’ to hear that in such a serious voice from a girl.

Hurry up and marry me! I went to a class tonight (a math night class) and got there ridiculously early. Dorks show up 10 minutes early every class. Nerds show up 15 minutes to early every class. Losers show up 20 minutes early to every class. Scott shows up 25 minutes early to math class. ANYWAY, I simply sat there and listened to some of the conversations that people were having amongst themselves. One of the girls was spilling out the story about her boyfriend. Her boyfriend (who she has known ever since childhood) had talked about marrying her. They have already planned out the wedding and all of that sort of thing, but he hasn’t purposed yet. He’s not purposing. She can’t figure out why he’s not purposing. She thinks he should go on and propose. She thinks he’s being stupid by not proposing. She thinks that he acts like an idiot sometimes and she doesn’t understand why he does the things she does. She thinks that he acts like a retard sometimes. She thinks that his apparent delay and/or change of plans is a really bad thing. She disagrees with what he is doing. She thinks this bad thing, she thinks that bad thing, she thinks this guy is another bad thing. Gawhh! I could feel myself leap out of my desk and run to her and place my hands palm-down on her desk and staring her in the face and screaming “what the heck is wrong with you? If you have such a problem with this guy then why in the world are you marrying him!?” Then I blinked a few times and realized I was still sitting in my seat listening in my amazement. That girl wouldn’t shut up about what a bad person this guy was! It grieves my heard to think about what kind of marriage they are going to have (if they do get married). In a marriage, it is vital to support your spouse! All husbands need to constantly support and uplift their wives! Almost every married woman will tell you that she would like it if her husband would say more nice things to them ^_^ But it also works the other way around! Although men often act all macho and emotionless etc etc, they really do want to be accepted, supported, and uplifted by their wife. These principals obviously apply to boyfriend/girlfriend couples, but no where are they as important as a marriage. Being with the same person for so long, you can develop the feeling that the other person simply doesn’t care about you anymore… that’s why it’s so important to keep saying nice things about them! If you don’t agree with something, then try your best to think of a way to work it out… but going to class and talking about what a horrible person he is! Aww man… I… I just… it… sometimes… it just… ahh! It makes me sad to think about.

side note: this was the same girl that said “I would never marry anyone who knows how to program … he would spend all of his time on his computer and never spend time with me!” that I wrote about a week or so ago

I’m taking my first user-suggested question! This one’s from Seng; She writes, “Scott, why do you think so many people get mad at you?” Bitterness. Anger. Hate. I get it in my email. I get it in my IM window. I get it in my comments boxes. I can’t seem to stop it. I can’t seem to run away from it. Why do people take their time to send me horrible messages of hate? This is a question that I get asked almost as often as I ask it in my own mind. Since every person is different, and each situation unique, it is impossible to derive a simple reason why people do these things. However, I’m sure that many people share certain thoughts and live through certain situations that cause them to show anger toward my family and me. For the simplicity of this article, I will call all negative messages I get “hate mail”, even though some of them are over IM and comments. There are two types of hate mail I get. The first and most common of type of hate mail I get is what I like to call “flamage”. People will open up an email, type many very offensive words (in an order that simply makes no sense), and send it off to me. I’ll read flamage and simply laugh at it’s stupidity! I know that flamge is caused by simple frustration. Maybe a guy just broke up with his girlfriend, got a bad grade on a test, got made fun of, or got mad at his computer the day he decided to write me. These events might cause someone to act stupid and randomly send in junk that, in it’s stupidity, is not hurtful but rather annoying and often quite offensive to others who may read it. Most of the time, I can just laugh-off these mails. I seem to be an easy target for frustration release ^_^ I don’t have a hard time understanding the cause behind this effect. I mentioned, however, that there were two main types of hate mail I get. Unlike the flamage that’s pretty light and simple, I will sometimes get “hate mail”. These mails, unlike the prior type which are seemingly random harsh words and names designed to make me mad, are eloquently written to hurt me from the inside out. Some people find it their responsibility to sit down and conjure-up horrible things meant stick in my side and rip me apart. These hate mails, although more rare, are the ones that I have trouble shrugging off. Lots of them play on true facts and events of myself and my life… and really sting. My guess as to why the people write these letters is because they’re dissatisfied with themselves (and/or their lives) and think that I have a ‘perfect life’ (they are deceived) and hold a grudge against me (in jealousy?) Do these affect me negatively? Yes, they most certainly do… but it’s not all that bad. Reading one of these horrible mails and knowing it was written directly at me is hurtful, yes, but reading wonderful and happy letters and knowing that they were written just for me is ten times as awesome =oD I love getting uplifting and encouraging emails, and thrive on them! They, by far, counteract any negative side-effects of the hate mails that I get. What a wonderful thing it is to hear kind words from a stranger =o)

side note: Seng is the girl pictured by the above paragraph. (The couple is dressed as Mario and Luigi) I met her a while back (she contacted me a long time ago about my software and we became friends). She happened to IM me the question suggestion as I was trying to think of a topic to write about, and managed to hit it at the perfect timing, way to go Seng! If anyone else has a question or topic they think I should write about, visit the “shoutback” link on the left menu!