error.log is your friend. Repeat to self: it is located in var/log/apache/ All this navigation of unix reminds me of my cs days when I often would take the quick fix to problems. Like a band-aid.

Unfortunately, I still hate vi. I like pico. It reminds me of pine. It\’s cute except that the version (nano) they installed on the server has the delete action backwards. When I press delete in pico, it deletes things to the right of my cursor. It drives me crazy. Mostly because I don\’t know the shortcut to go the other way.

It was so strange to talk to someone who I had \”dated\”…when we had spoken for almost a year. My bitterness is in the background and now it\’s just a lack of trust that exists. The feelings are faded. A fire put out by neglect. A candle that lost its wick. When we talked yesterday night, we didn\’t ask each other about our respective love lives. Yet I felt like we treaded around it. An almost obligatory question usually comes up at some point – are you seeing anyone? It\’s a question to reflect one\’s acceptance of the separation and an obvious jealous stab of are you better off now than we were before?

So just a thought. When people start to date, isn\’t it always the case that they GAIN A LOT OF WEIGHT? I have observed such situations. Because the two of them need to go out, they need to go out to eat. And why should they limit themselves to salads especially when a SIX LB BURGER CAN BE FULLY PAID FOR?

Veering off in totally different direction, I would like to go to Clearview, PA. 2.5 hours from Pittsburgh. I would like to indulge myself with said burger.

I would like to share these two shocking images with you:

So nerds can try to look \”HAWT\”. Mr. Bill Gates, what happened to you!? But I love that floppy disk throwing action. Show me some of that.

On the topic of boy toys, is it just me or is there some nostalgia bug flying around? It can\’t be a coincidence that my FIRST BF, not to be NAIMED, and the mistake from MINNESOTA all have tried or have successfully contacted me within the last month. Especially since it has been more than a year that I have talked to these three. January is not the time of forgiveness and retrospect/reflection, is it?

Now if my second bf Alex suddenly talked to me, then it would not be a coincidence. And possibly even crisco.

My housemate Carol says that everything we do…everything we say…has to make sense to us otherwise we wouldn\’t do them. Is that really true? Do everything we do make sense? People often decide to do things depending on whether they feel like doing it. Is that rational? Is that logical?

So I took a banana off the top of the fridge today. Intending to eat it during class. But when I reached down to my pocket when I got to campus, it was gone. I am not upset that it disappeared, but rather curious of where it ended up. If I had dropped it on the way to the bus, then would it had become frozen in the 15 degree weather? Would it have frozen in the street (considering that it\’s mostly made out of water)? What would happen if a car ran over it? Would it squirt all over the place? And ultimately most of all, would it have ended up like how bananas appear in Saturday morning cartoons? Would someone step on it and slip…and people start laughing?

Exactly one year ago, I had this guy visit me. Yes, someone I met online; he was originally from Duluth, MinnySODA. (Note: he was 50 lbs lighter than the picture and clean-shaven this time last year.) What was I thinking? He was not driven. Not a fit for me. I was only 21 years old then. Yet now a year older, I know if in the same situation, I would have probably done the same thing. It\’s so hard to say no to what you want the most even though you know it\’s not right. It\’s easy to say yes to attention and admiration. Even if the rational mind knows such things will prevent lifelong dreams.

Today I remembered why I never wanted to be a sysadmin. What a painful job.

I performed my first rm -rf * today. It gave me such a power trip that I could delete things with a single command. Now if I could only do the same with my room. Too bad life doesn\’t come with a shell. At least not a physical one.

As I was performing \”maintenance\” on one of my yahoo accounts, I discovered I had an old e-mail addressed linked. An e-mail account that I hadn\’t used for more than 3 years. So I went to the site and tried to remember my password. Of course, my mind went blank. So I clicked forgot your password? It brought me to a question page and for some reason, my custom question was what was before juno.

lsfjlsdjflsjf

I have no idea what I meant. The ISP that I used before juno? Or did I mean the e-mail address that I used before juno? Maybe it was the Spanish month? Sigh. Yet another failure of the usability of passwords. Or maybe it\’s just me.

In other news, I fell down the stairs. Again.

I am fed up with some socal people who are somewhat self-centered about the weather. In Berkeley, my roommate (who was from Arcadia – northern LA) complained a lot about erratic weather.

But then how about Pittsburgh! Where it can swing both ways in short moments of time. Yesterday it was around 60 degrees and today it is a freezing 30 degrees. With a little snow flurry in the morning. We exchanged weather with the west coast!

Recently, my ex-boyfriend suddenly got a kick of nostalgia and asked my friend for my phone number. I haven\’t talked to him (normally) for almost 4 years. My friend asked me first. Oddly enough, I felt nothing. He and I had too many differences. Yet now, we have changed so much, our perspectives and our experiences. So I told my friend that if he wants to find me, he can find his own way. He can always google me. What happened to those stealthy challenges? I suppose people don\’t want to seem like a stalker.

Sometimes mentioning the same person\’s name over and over doesn\’t do you any good.

Looking at my accounts, I realized all the money I saved over the last few years sort of uh disappeared? All that\’s left is my parents\’ $15,000 \”interest-free\” loan to me. Sigh. Yet I wonder is it better to take out school loans so that later on in life, I\’ll have more money to buy a house? Or is it better to pay everything in full as my parents have always taught me (the only time they have paid interest is on mortgages – no interest on credit cards, no interest on anything)? But in reality, I don\’t really intend to buy a house so soon. I intend to inherit one of my parents\’ properties. But then, I can\’t stand the thought of living in my grandparents\’ house. Where there\’s no garage for the car. Ugh, I am so snotty.

Today, I almost stabbed myself with a knife because I don\’t know how to use a can opener. This was my example of a bad product for my Interface and Interaction Design class. I manged to get one side all partially cut with the can opener. And so I was trying to use a knife to finish it off. And I almost stabbed my left hand. I keep touching the palm of my left hand, telling it that it has survived a near-death experience. I would like to also hire someone to open my cans as well as clean my floor.

Like how my sister fed me a truffle through the phone, she\’s going to feed me some cheesecake through the phone today! :D Mmmmmm! I had bakalava yesterday so my sweet tooth hasn\’t lost its kick. It\’s a good thing I am so frugal (and stingy) otherwise I would engulf the candy aisle. I remember the days of the old–when my sister and I would have 300+ pieces of candy during Halloween. And we would split it among ourselves and perhaps even going through some trading agrees for that Starburst or for that box of nerds. We always rejected chocolate tootsie rolls.

I still don\’t like chocolate that much. No chocolate cake. No brownies. No chocolate ice cream.

I got my project assignment. I am working on a multi-modal document access project sponsored by the…Navy. It was my second choice, but I am glad that I got it. When I first read the project descriptions, I was wary about working for the Navy. Considering that I am a citizen of the middle class, I haven\’t been supportative of much military action. As I learned from this oh-so-manipulative book called How to win friends and influence people, it\’s easier to win arguments through a Socratic method and other peaceful means. But I learned from 24, sometimes you have to play tough. Sometimes you got to show who is boss. Who knew that I could learn so much from a tv show?

And hopefully, anything created for the Navy doesn\’t mean it will be for military use. Hopefully, the project will influence something for the masses. Only then will I be happy.

I mean, after I finish my autobiography…

But old habits die hard. This past year has taught me that without EXTREME motivation, I can\’t get rid of my habit of procrastination.

My mom gave me a huge can of ham to take to Pittsburgh. She assured me that it would last the 10 hour trip here since after all it lasted through my grandmother\’s trip to Hong Kong. No punchline here, it did.

But despite its 97% fat free content, today I opened it and my hands ended up greasy. I cut up the ham into pieces which I separated into several freezer bags. Then I made fried rice. I feel so old making food for my lunch the following day. What happened to those days where I would stand outside my apartment building and I would see a Honda CRV literally peeling down the street. Then it would halt in front of me and a hand would extend out with a pink bag containg three styofoam boxes of fried rice. No more, I guess. All I can do now is create a pots of fried rice and pack it nicely into my Ikea containers. And eat it cold.