Cav's Place

I ordered some more parts today and these are the first ones that will arrive, next week. It’ll be frustrating to stare at a hard drive and a case for two weeks, and that’s assuming the other shop will keep their word about the CPU and RAM and that I’ll order and get everything else before then as well, but it was either get them early or risk getting the rest and then waiting for these, since it was the last hard drive of that kind they had in stock and they had to order the case.
The contact person the shop assigned for my order has the same name as the only person I could ever truly call my best friend. Or at least the same first and last names, since my former friend also had a middle name. Despite both her names being very common, and therefore the combination also being common, I actually seriously considered mentioning it in passing since you never know. Made me think of her a lot though, not that I wasn’t already. It’s hard not to when you need such a friend so badly.
Otherwise, I have revised the configuration somewhat and I have a very clear feeling that I’m making a big mistake, but there’s no turning back now and I don’t really feel like writing about it. I’m still only pushing myself to handle this so I’ll be able to tell Andra I did it, and it’s still completely pointless since it seems I won’t be able to tell her anything anymore.

On another note, I wish somebody I really care for, even somebody from my past (actually, preferably somebody from my past, since there’s only one person I really care for that I’m still talking to now), would need me for something I can actually do, something I can fix for them. I need something to fix, something to give a meaning to these days, and myself and my life are beyond repair.
I know that’s not exactly a nice thing to wish for since it implies somebody I care for having problems and being unhappy, but since people have problems and aren’t happy anyway I don’t think it’s wrong to wish they’d at least have some that I could fix for them. They’d have one less problem and I’d feel just a little bit less useless, everybody wins… But what major issue could I help anyone with when I can’t do anything that truly matters?

I have the next two weeks already planned so I’ll have something that’ll hopefully help me crawl out of bed each day, but today was the one day my planning failed on. I relied solely on the qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix (Formula One) and it didn’t work since it was early in the morning and I went back to bed afterwards. That meant I spent a good part of today in bed and the rest pretty much doing nothing but feeling like shit. This can’t go on…

On another note, it would appear that the GeForce 9800 GTX will be launched on April 1st, but it will be a very tight battle between a 9800 GTX at default speeds and the overclocked 512 Mb 8800 GTS I had in mind and I actually think the 8800 might win in the tests that are most relevant to me. Of course there will also be overclocked versions of 9800 GTX, but the problem is that it seems to use up a huge amount of power even at default speeds according to what I’ve seen and if that proves true in the end I’ll have serious doubts about getting it. Can’t exactly call myself an environmentalist and get something that uses around 20% more power for only a marginal increase in performance at the same time, can I?
At least I placed an order for the CPU and RAM and was initially told they should have the CPU around April 15th but when they called me after the order was placed they said I should contact them again at some point before then and see if they have a more exact date and if they’ll get enough of them, because there are lots of orders for it placed before mine. Which means I have at least that long to wait either way.
And yes, that means I actually made the order under my name, gave my phone number and talked with them myself, though I don’t really know what I said, was too scared. Of course all of this is because I’m trying to be more like who she’d have liked me to be… And it has no point now since I can’t even tell her about it…

What do these things have in common? They’re methods I’m using in order to crawl out of bed each day, somewhat interesting things to do so I’ll have a reason to actually get up and do something. Since she blocked me I have to plan each day in advance, otherwise I know all too well what will happen. But I won’t be able to keep this up much longer, because I’m cracking even so… Either way, I might as well give some details about that title…

Last week I went to a book fair here thinking it’s just a reason to get out, of course I won’t get anything, after all I have to be absolutely terrified of what would happen if I don’t in order to overcome my fear of approaching the salesperson in order to buy something and that has only happened three times so far. So I went and did just that, just browsed and then left. But there was also a bookstore in the same building, so I went in to take a look there as well and got stuck at the surprisingly well-stocked section with books in English. I read all the titles and a few summaries and was left looking at the full Temeraire series (all four books published so far, US version, paperback), especially after seeing the price. I’m used to books in English being more expensive to buy from here, in the rare event that you find them, than if you’d have ordered them from Amazon, including shipping, and these weren’t.
Eventually I sighed and moved on, but on my way out of the bookstore I went back to that shelf, picked up the first one in the series, since I couldn’t afford more with what I had on me, and bought it before I had time to actually realize what I was doing. Of course it’d have been impossible if I actually had to ask for it, but just walking up to the register and paying for it was something I could do without really thinking. Then I got angry because I only needed 22 bani (about $0.09 or €0.06) more to afford the second one as well, so I went back to the fair and grabbed something rather randomly from there as well so what I had left in my pocket would be useful for something. It’s a book about Reiki if you’re wondering… That caused my anger to subside and I realized what I’d just done, which resulted in about 30 minutes of struggling not to throw up, going in all three wrong directions (yes, including back) at the first major intersection before finding the right way, then going the wong way again at the next one and walking like that for quite some time, until I found myself in a place I obviously wasn’t supposed to be in and managed to snap out of it.
But that’s not all of it! That evening I asked my dad for some money and I actually went back there the next day and got the other three as well, so now I have the full series here. Don’t ask me how I managed that, I didn’t even look up, just went in, grabbed the books, paid and left. (Which meant I spent only a few minutes there and two hours on the way, since it’s an one-hour walk to that bookstore even at my pace and I sit in this chair too much every day not to walk when I want to get somewhere.) Then I sat curled up in a ball in bed for a few hours after I got back here…

Now about the parks… I saw an article in a newspaper from here that ranked Bucharest’s parks, and there were two that sounded somewhat interesting in that list that I’d never been in, so I said I have to go and see. I checked a map, noticed one of them can be on the way to the other, planned routes, estimated it’d take me about one hour and a half to walk all that way, planned my way back using public transportation since it seemed quite tedious to walk all that way back as well, especially since after the first ten minutes or so it’d all be new to me, areas I haven’t been in on foot, at least not since I got back here two years ago, and then yesterday I did it.
Of course it didn’t quite go as planned, I lost my way somewhere, took some wrong turns, but I managed to get there in the end. My estimate also was very accurate, took me one hour to the first park and another 30 minutes to the second. Of course, that included the time lost after the wrong turns, but I can say I took those into account initially as well, since I got confused exactly where I thought I might.
I also took the first book with me to read and I did just that once I got to the second park, then tried to read some more on the subway while coming back from there but the ride was too short. That meant I had just started a new chapter and I meant to finish it, so I stopped in another park around here to do that.
Three parks in a day, two of them new… Not bad! I still hate being out, but it’s looking less and less bad the more I stay here with them around me… And the moments when I see lovers hugging tightly and kissing make my day, and there was one of those in the first park. It was very crowded, there were people on all the benches around them, children running around, the works, but they were locked in an embrace and kissing like their life depended on it, oblivious to anything and everything around. I don’t know how can people oppose public displays of affection. For me they’re probably the most beautiful things to see when going out, at least as far as things involving people are concerned.

Also on my “things to do so I’ll manage to crawl out of bed” list is catching up to a few TV series. Watching TV series is not something I usually do, in fact the only one I watched in the past several years aside from those I’ll list here was Oz, but now I’m using everything I can to buy myself some more time…
Last week I saw season three of Prison Break and all I can say is that it shows they needed to cut it nearly in half due to the strike, too many shortcuts that didn’t make enough sense. This week I’m watching the episodes that have been aired so far from season four of Lost and after the first two I have this nagging feeling that I should have pieced some things together already but I can’t quite manage to yet. And next week I plan to watch season five of Babylon 5, finally finish watching it properly since way back when it was on TV here I only caught pieces of many episodes and missed others entirely. I still consider Babylon 5 to be the best TV series ever, very deep and meaningful if you’re willing to see through to the concepts behind the action but with great action as well.

As for Linux… Right now I’m on SUSE (or openSUSE as it’s now called). It feels like I need to learn how to use a computer all over again, but it’s somewhat interesting. This is going to sound stupid but I haven’t figured out how to run a program once I install it. I mean, where does it put it? Or I’m not even installing them right? That’d be quite embarrassing, since SUSE is supposed to make installing programs very easy.
But no, I’m certainly not going to switch, I’m not even going to use it for too long now… It’s just that I had that old 20 Gb HDD basically not doing anything after I used it to recover things from the one that failed and I was looking for interesting things to do, so I downloaded SUSE, burned a DVD with it and installed it there just to see what Linux is all about. It’s the first time I have any contact with Linux, I haven’t even seen anybody using it before now, but that doesn’t make me feel much better about not being able to figure it out immediately…

On another note, I said I’ll order the parts for my new computer before the end of the month and I plan to, with or without Vista SP1 DVDs making their way to shops. It’ll be a long wait for an E8400 anyway, though some shops seem to have recently started working on backlogged orders. I wonder if getting that will make me feel better for at least a couple of months… And somehow I doubt it… Not without her…

Not for me personally, never even considered having sex in a public place and there’s nobody to do it with anyway, plus that I’m not there, but good news for freedom in general. It appears that having sex in Dutch parks will be legal and in one such park it already is. There are, of course, rules: You have to keep the area clean, can’t be done around a playground and can only be done during the evening or night.
Keeping the area clean is a clear requirement for anything, if only people would listen to it… Not doing it around a playground might be somewhat debatable from my point of view, since I’m not a fan of the idea that children should be kept in the dark about sex, but it’s not an issue either. However, saying you can’t do it during the day is a problem if you ask me, it means people who go there specifically to have sex can do so but most of those who go for a walk through the park or a picnic and at some point would feel like doing it still won’t be allowed to, seeing as a large number of them would take their walks or, especially, have their picnics during the daylight hours.
Still, it’s a big step in the right direction and I wish authorities from other places would follow suit. It doesn’t look likely, but one can always hope… After all, as it says in that statement, it doesn’t really harm anybody but offers a lot of pleasure to some, so why forbid it?

There might be an epidemic going around, because after the new seven wonders we have the new seven sins. The Vatican decided it’s about time to update the list by adding seven more sins that, in their view, send a soul on a one-way trip to Hell. Of course, confession is still the panacea. Screw personal responsibility, right?
Let’s take a look at the list: environmental pollution, genetic manipulation, accumulating excessive wealth, inflicting poverty, drug trafficking and consumption, morally debatable experiments, violation of fundamental rights of human nature. I should also add that in plenty of places accumulating excessive wealth and inflicting poverty were considered a single item on the list, as in creating social injustice by the concentration of wealth, and the violation of human rights was replaced by two very specific actions, namely abortion and pedophilia.

I’ll start with a comment on including abortion on the list. I didn’t see the original article or a full statement and I frankly can’t be bothered to look for it, but it doesn’t really matter whether it was listed as one of the new sins or given as an example of violation of human rights. Either way, setting it aside means the Catholic Church admits that an embryo is not actually alive, because if it would be alive then abortion would be killing it, therefore violating one of the Commandments and therefore already being a capital sin. And an even more interesting thing is that it was presented as a violation of women’s rights! How exactly is having an abortion violating women’s rights and keeping an unwanted pregnancy supporting them?
Next, somebody should define “morally debatable experiments”, because everything can be debatable. Take two people with differing values and you have a debate, simple as that. I know what they’re aiming at, stem cells and cloning, but they could have said it in just so many words in that case. And if those are harmful, then I assume prolonging the suffering of those who could be cured by the results of those experiments is beneficial? Interesting… Scientists should keep that in mind whenever a member of the Catholic Church needs their help due to such an illness.
And if that needs defining, how about “violation of fundamental rights of human nature”? That can mean so many things that it’s not even worth discussing. Especially since they have a completely different definition for “human nature” too…
As for genetic manipulation, it depends on the reason. If you change a creature’s DNA in order to remove a disease, it goes right back to what I said above. And if you change it to create improvements that would benefit the creature itself, then I don’t see a real problem. Of course, when it comes to other issues like genetically modified crops or livestock created for the benefit of people in general and big business in particular, the phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” comes to mind. I might not agree with their reasons for saying this, but I do agree that such things shouldn’t be done.
And when it comes to drugs, what ever happened to free will and those human rights they mentioned? I do agree that using any such substances is bad, but I put personal freedom above such concerns. As long as you don’t force others into it and don’t cause harm to anyone else while under the influence, I see it as your right to use whatever you please and your responsibility to handle the consequences. And dealers only exist because users exist.

However, I’m pleasantly surprised to see environmental pollution being included. I’m also worried, because the more such institutions (not to mention large companies) I hear talking about protecting the environment, the more it becomes simply another marketing scam. Doing something for the environment should be profitable, but the problem is that only saying you will seems to be enough.
Also pleased to see something against accumulating excessive wealth and inflicting poverty there. I’ll be even more pleased when they’ll also look in their own back yard when they’re saying that. I think the Christian clergy needs a lesson in living humbly…