One night years ago I was watching TV and suddenly felt hungry. I went into the kitchen and made myself a peanut butter sandwich. Back in front of the TV, I took a bite of my sandwich and realized I was thirsty. I put the sandwich down and went back into the kitchen to get myself something to drink. A few minutes later I was back on the couch watching TV. I sat there for a few minutes and began to feel hungry. Then I remembered I'd had a sandwich. Or did I? I had no actual memory of eating the sandwich. I looked around, but I didn't see it anywhere. What happened to it? Suddenly I jumped up from the couch and looked down at a completely flattened peanut butter sandwich. I must've sat on it for at least five minutes.

I've found that a lot of the enjoyment I get out of reading other people's blogs is dependant on being able to quickly access them through nicely organized links of my favorites. If I have to type in a bunch of URL's, suddenly much of the fun is drained out.

Drivers, drivers, drivers, drivers... In Windows it's all about the drivers. OK, so I got my drivers installed and now I have a display that doesn't look like something from 1992. I now have all the colors of a rainbow and all the patience of a psychopath. Do any of you know just how bad a web site looks with only 16 colors?

I miss Linux.

I'm now officially a member of the world; I have Windows installed installed on my PC. I hate it and it's complete shit, but I have it installed. My monitor, for reasons, I can't fathom, won't display anything other than 16 colors at 480x640 (or whatever), so my display looks like I'm using a 486. I suppose that's one way to get me to not to look at nudie photos online. It's an old monitor, but it displayed things beautifully with Linux.

I couldn't even manually configure my internet connection. It's easy to connect using Linux. Windows 2000's Wizard was counterintuitive. Thanks Microsoft. I ended up having to use the stupid disk from my crummy ISP. Might as well be on AOL.

So, in conclusion, it was a partial success and a partial failure.

I'm absolutely exhausted.

I finally got the new harddrive. I haven't attempted to install it yet. Tell you the truth, I dread putting it in despite the fact that I've installed several harddrives before. Those were either school computers or just an old computer I had. This is new stuff that actually cost me some money, so I'm a bit apprehensive. Hopefully in a couple of hours I'll be back online telling just how darn easy it was to put in a new harddrive and install Windows 2000. Or I'll be back online raving like a lunatic about it all went wrong and how much it sucks being the only person on earth who uses Linux as their primary OS.

What have I been doing over the past three weeks since school ended? I had so much planned, but I pissed it all away sitting in front of my PC looking at blogs and other junk. And now the summer semester's started and I'm back in school again. At least I only have one class, so I'll have time to design and build the robot army I'll use to enslave humanity.

This morning I risked life and limb to go and buy a new harddrive. Every other vehicle on the street is piloted by a lunatic. But I digress. When I got to the store I found out they were sold out of the harddrive I wanted. I probably could've gotten a different model or went to a different store, but I figured I'd leave well enough alone and just go home.

Why do these simple little things have to be so excruciating?

I got the mouse. The trap woke me up a little before two in the morning. I'd all but conceded defeat in this battle of wits.

The sluggishness of Blogger pages is getting really annoying.

That stupid mouse ignored all my traps. I guess it doesn't like peanut butter. I've got a connoisseur on my hands.

I'm going to end my days a raving madman.

I have some advice for people who've just started jobs where they have to use a cash register. When you hit the button that causes the cash drawer to pop out, stand back from the register. This morning I saw this girl press a few buttons on the register and the drawer popped out and hit her hard in the stomach. It actually knocked her back a few inches. But I suppose if that happens enough times she'll learn.

Last night I thought of my previous entry on the moronic articles written about Playmates, and dug out an issue of Playboy to actually read the Playmate article. (For scientific purposes, you understand.) I didn't read the article because I found myself distracted by the photos. Oddly, I began to wonder what this extraordinarily beautiful (and extraordinarily naked) woman looked like with her clothes on. Is this a sign of maturity? Or am just not getting enough oxygen to my addled brain?

I thought of something wonderfully pointless this morning. Every month in Playboy they have a Playmate photo layout and centerfold of some girl no one's ever heard of sans clothes, and these layouts always have an accompanying article about said girl. I don't think these incredibly stupid pieces are actually supposed to be read by anyone, but I, naturally, end up reading them. (You put words in front of me and I'm going to read them.) What makes these articles so stupid is that these women haven't actually done anything to warrant being written about in a respected international magazine with a readership in the millions, other than simply being young, beautiful, and naked. People who are young, beautiful, and naked are a dime a dozen. OK, so here's my pointless idea: publish an anthology of the best of these stupid articles. But only print the articles, no pictures. It'd be a monument to pointlessness and vapidity.

I've got one of those ceilings that's panels held in a metal frame. Above the panels is space about foot and half high with ductwork, light fixtures, wires, and other stuff. On those occasions when a mouse gets up there and runs around, its footsteps are amplified to the point where it sounds as if there's a small dog running back and fourth. As you would expect, it's very difficult to sleep when there's a mouse in the house. I have a long, storied history of mouse murder. I love animals, but things that keep me awake at night must die, so I put the traps on the panels right above my bed. And if I catch a mouse in a trap, and the trap doesn't kill them, I actually take them outside and release them. I know that makes me a total wuss, but so be it. I could never actually kill the thing myself, I just set the trap and hope that the mouse either leaves the house or dies a quick death in the trap. And if they're stupid enough to come back in, the traps will be reset and waiting.

I have another mouse. Since mice typically avoid lit areas, I left the light on all night and slept with a sock draped over my eyes. I only heard it once. Maybe it left.

I just watched a classic Star Trek episode, something I haven't done for years. It was entertaining, but I have one question: why did Capt. Kirk wear eye shadow?

Years ago when my sister had a pet snake, she would go to her local pet store and buy frozen rats in plastic bags. Once she mailed me one of the empty rat bags. (She's a lovely girl; I can't imagine why no lucky man hasn't married her.) The weirdest thing about this is that there's a factory out there someplace where people put frozen rats in bags for a living. It had a brand name, but I don't remember what it was. (I mailed the bag back to my sister.) You never hear about these kinds of factories. This area is economically on the decline because of the drawn out demise the Southern textile industry. On the local news there's regular reports about companies closing their doors and letting all their employees go. So when a company decides to come into this area it's always big news. Imagine hearing the following on the local news: "Good news for the Danville's unemployed, a company that bags and sells frozen rats will be moving into the area creating 150 new jobs." Nope. You're not going to hear anything like that. How would you like to shove frozen rats into plastic bags eight hours a day, five or six days a week? I've done similar things with pasta and pizza crusts and even that gets disgusting after a short period. I can't even imagine what it'd be like having frozen rats rolling down a conveyor belt at me all day every day.

Wow, the weather's actually good; I can see blue sky.

Last night not only did it pour down rain so hard I considered building an ark, but there was a thunderstorm too. So I shut the PC down and unplugged everything. I probably shouldn't even bother unplugging the PC because I have one of those expensive surge protectors that has the insurance policy. I should let the PC get blown up, collect the insurance money, and buy a new one. There's some great computer deals out there. But with my luck my claim wouldn't be allowed because of some trivial technicality.

Yay, it's raining again. I just can't get enough rain. It's my life long goal to live in a swamp. Everything's gotta be soaking wet, it's the only way I can be comfortable. Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain! AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!! All it ever does is rain and I'm sick to death of it. For several years we lived under drought conditions, and now it rains so much I think the entire area may legally be eligible for protection as a rain forrest. Is this Laos or something? Pretty soon I'll be burning off leeches when I get back from the mailbox.

The Indy 500 was a bore.

It's Memorial Day weekend and that means hours and hours of auto racing. The Indy 500 is set to start in a little bit and several hours later the 600 from Charlotte will get underway. Only a short time ago this used to be one of my favorite days of the year, but now I'm only just barely interested. Tony George's jerk-water IRL and CART's self-destructive mismanagement have completely ruined American open-wheel racing. And NASCAR's self-righteous jingoism and endless, mind-numbing races make it virtually impossible for me to get any enjoyment out of it anymore. It's just a bunch of guys driving around in circles to me these days. Utterly pointless. Of course I'll watch some of it, but I'll hate myself for giving in.