If that doesn’t work, there’s always torrents. ted would be my application of choice for that. It works with Windows, Mac, and Linux (pretty much anything with the Java Runtime Environment) and is getting better and better as time goes on.

After this month is over, I’ll probably end up canceling my cable TV service entirely (at that rate, maybe even my internet too, because I have a few neighbors nice enough to share ) which would save ~$100 per month

Professors of different subjects define the same word in different ways:

Prof. of Computer Science:
A kiss is a few bits of love compiled into a byte.

Prof. of Algebra:
A kiss is two divided by nothing.

Prof. of Geometry:
A kiss is the shortest distance between two straight lines.

Prof. of Physics:
A kiss is the contraction of mouth due to the expansion of the heart.

Prof. of Chemistry:
A kiss is the reaction of the interaction between two hearts.

Prof. of Zoology:
A kiss is the interchange of unisexual salivary bacteria.

Prof. of Physiology:
A kiss is the juxtaposition of two orbicular ors muscles in the state of contraction.

Prof. of Dentistry:
A kiss is infectious and antiseptic.

Prof. of Accountancy:
A kiss is a credit because it is profitable when returned.

Prof. of Economics:
A kiss is that thing for which the demand is higher than the supply.

Prof. of Statistics:
A kiss is an event whose probability depends on the vital statistics of 36-24-36.

Prof. of Philosophy:
A kiss is the persecution for the child, ecstasy for the youth and homage for the old.

Prof. of English:
A kiss is a noun that is used as a conjunction; it is more common than proper; it is spoken in the plural and it is applicable to all.

Prof. of Engineering:
Uh, What? I’m not familiar with that term.

mmm … pwnage

What few pictures I took (compared to Guy at least) I’ve tossed up here: http://josh.thespiffylife.com/pics/california/ and maybe FaceBook later on, although I could care less about Sir FaceBook

We went to like four different beaches while we were there and what’s funny is that the “more well known” ones were actually the crappiest of them all. The first one we went to was just a regular public beach, closest to Bob’s apartment … and it was all of our favorites. Laguna Beach was just in a slightly ritzy neighborhood which made it “popular” I suppose, but it had tons of seaweed all over the tiny beach and rocks everywhere; not a lot of fun really. We also went to a state park beach that had a $10 fee just to get in (and the only reason we went was because of the fire pits) and was probably the dirtiest, most littered beach I’ve ever seen. But we had a nice little bond fire that night and grilled some bananas (lol) and our toes.

Guy and I walked around the shops at Laguna Beach and found a really cool candy store that nearly killed us with temptation …

We really wanted to get a few handfuls of candy but got a little scared about prices because they neglected to list any (which is rarely a good sign). I got a little kick out of this street sign we saw while walking too:

I (surprisingly) didn’t get overly sunburned while at the beaches. I intentionally left my shirt on most of the time so my poor pale skin didn’t get roasted and bright pink. Although with all the walking around we did (at least a few miles a day I would say) I definitely have a nice little farmers tan once again (yay? … no, not yay). I’m really, really pale compared to the others and skinny too lol.

Guy really enjoyed trying to show off by doing an infinite number of handstands everywhere we were the entire week. It was kind of funny because one night we were there playing basketball and he hurt is hand and complained about how it wouldn’t heal, then he would do handstands for 10 minutes … and repeat. Here’s an epic shot of one I got on the beach the last day:

He also did about a billion of these “kip-up” things too.

We also learned that Life (the game, but probably real life too) is a major pain … even though I won two out of three times. OH and never let someone get both Boardwalk and Parkplace while playing Monopoly … mahaha.

Probably more to come later,
-josh

This is a great song by Lifehouse:
[See post to listen to audio]

I find myself thinking … really thinking … about my mom less and less and the months pass by. Before I know it a year and a half will have gone by since the wretched phone call at 2:30 in the morning. I tend to bring her up nonchalantly in conversation on occasion, but I rarely spend much time making sure I don’t forget her anymore. It’s no less strange to wake up and her not be there today than it was when it happened. I guess it’s good that it’s not completely beating me up on the inside these days, although part of me wish it was (masochism?). I haven’t talked to my sister in months … I haven’t seen her since we went to see my mom’s grave on Mother’s Day. I wish I could say the same for my dad, but he just won’t accept the fact that I want nothing to do with his sorry self. He makes it easier to hate him as each day goes on. And as “un-Christian” I know it is, I like hating him. I like feeling like he’s epitome of what a father should not be and that he will have is own special level of hell to answer for all the pain and suffering he’s caused and continues to cause for all those around him.

Meh.

Finished setting up the server (for Guy) at Vanderbilt. Oh how I do not miss Pentium 3’s. Fedora installed pretty nicely on it … although I’m still partial to a Debian based Linux but there was some retarded backup program that Vandy required to be on there that they only provide in a rpm package, so everyone (but myself) thought Fedora was the only way to go … sigh. I still think rsync setup the right way would have been better, faster, and easier. But no one asked me, huh? (even though they really should have)

I’m really happy Apple released the 2.0.1 iPhone update. Before, I could be typing (or trying to type) on the keyboard and it would have like a 3 or more second delay. That wouldn’t be such a pain if it were real keyboard and you knew you were hitting the right keys. When you have to pretty much rely on the predictive spelling feature, having to wait for it to catch up and see the sentence you just wrote that is so illegible you want to shoot the person sitting next to you … yeah. It seems a little peppier all around now, although 1.1.4 (jailbroken at that) was a lot nicer in many ways minus a couple of the legitimate apps that are out now.

I’m considering redesigning the layout for TheSpiffyLife, but I pretty much loathe doing designs. I don’t mind the programming aspect of websites, but I really don’t have the creative touch that some people do. I’d be fine without any styles as long as it worked (I doubt the rest of the world feels the same :/ lol).

Looking forward to going to California for a week. I just hope I don’t cook like a french fry the first day :’( … sunburns are a real pain (hah) and I seem predisposed to becoming as red as a beet. Yay plane ride!

Not looking forward to the Fall Semester,
-josh

So I got a B in both Differential Equations and Calculus III … yay? I kind of thought I’d get an A in Diff Eq but alas, :’(

So now I’ve got like three weeks until fall classes start. Kinda lame to lose most of my summer but I guess it’s good to make for the lost time … in California! Woot

Me, Guy, and Jeremy are heading up to Cali on the 14th to hang out with Bob for about a week. No clue what we’re going to do when were there … but it’s California! Home of the Govenator! lol

Sigh … my brain hurts.

Sometimes Hello’s and Good-Bye’s aren’t easy
Even so far this poem is pretty cheesy
I love my mom more than anything in the state
And this is not up for debate!

She is the main one in my life
And I don’t know what is the meaning of strife
She is a computer wizard
And I’m not in a blizzard
When she’s sick I feel as though I want to cry
And sometimes I kill myself just as I try
I don’t because it would hurt her even more
So if I want to cry I will go strait through the door!

Last but not least,
She’s as careful with me as you have to be with yeast
And another thing I wish I could copy her to a 3.5 floppy disk
So I can copy all her love with out the risk of missing her love!

I wish that was less lame and made more sense than it did. I got a little laugh out of reading and trying to figure out what in the world possessed me to not only write this, but type it and keep it for 10 years …

Well, I guess it’s good that I can laugh at myself … a lot.

(now you can too … and probably will )

Back to studying

I had to skip going to a concert with Elaine on Thursday because I had to study for a Calc III test :’( . Talk about oober lame. I’d much rather have spent the night enjoying myself than cursing at my book for not making sense.

Summer classes are almost over. About two weeks left, which means finals are almost here … sigh. Differentials Equations seems really easy compared to Calc III for some reason. I suppose the most evident is working in three dimensions, which can get a little hairy sometimes, at least conceptually (which is a lot of what we’re doing). We also discuss the existence of the fourth dimension … and the contours of a shape in the fourth dimension … assuming it actually exists. That was an interesting lecture. “So, yeah, this is how you find the contour lines of a what this function would like like in the 4th dimension, assuming there is a 4th dimension … *cough*” That’s a conundrum if I’ve ever heard one. (I didn’t think my math theory classes were at least until next semester … lol.)

I’ve been having a fight with SVN, Trac, and Apache lately. On the one hand, I can easily install Trac and Apache on my desktop and route a sub-domain to my computer, but I can’t get Apache to correctly identify / authorize users (aka me; 401 & 403 errors FTW!). On the other hand, I can (even easier) setup SVN on dreamhost (our host) and attempt to manually install Trac to go along with it. The second part of the fails miserably. Which is really annoying. I’d prefer to run it on my host, mainly because I can’t rely on my desktop being on all the time or even have the same IP. Trac (or a derivative) isn’t necessary, but it’s nice to have something manage tickets / timelines / milestones / etc visually regardless of what client a user decides to use to manage their local copy. I’ve been hunting for something like Trac that isn’t a total bitch to install on a shared server with software that’s at least 2 years old (which is pretty much the same with any [shared] host). At one point, I had Trac running on our host. The sad part is running it from my desktop and accessing it elsewhere was about a dozen times faster because of the way it had to be setup on our host :(. Talk about lame. (now, for the life of me, I can’t even get it running at all anymore).

So yeah … good times.

Found a new artist thanks to Last.FM last night while trying to not get completely bored and wigged out while studying. The Afters - Never Going Back to Ok.
Here’s one of my favorites on it (so far) [See post to listen to audio]
And, although I refuse to use MySpace, this is another cool song by them.
[See post to listen to audio]

the ads on the right sidebar (not viewable) are slightly NSFW, full of lawl

Creating a pseudo Grading Program from scratch isn’t quite as thrilling as one my think (wait, no one thinks that it would be … hmm).

On another wonderful note … my step-mother (Carolyn) has called twice in the past week about some things that my dad has been up to lately. He dropped by here like a week or so ago on his way back from visiting my sister in North Carolina. Instead of going to his house from here, he called Carolyn and said he had to make an unexpected stop before coming home (aka. he was going to “visit” one of his girlfriends). She knew what that meant and immediately replied with “I fucking hate you.” He ended up spending the night at that woman’s house, telling Carolyn that he only stayed because she said she hated him (because we’re all that naive, right?). She called me the next day and relayed that to me with some extra little tidbits (annoyances) that I’d missed while I was gone. He’s apparently devoid of feelings for anyone but himself (and whomever he’s fucking at the time), and makes it oh so obvious (he talks to his girlfriends within earshot of Carolyn). Better yet, when looking for a box to ship some stuff in, she found a small collection of his porn, which, at any rate, is disturbing, but this also included (at least what appeared to be) child porn. How ridiculous is that? I mean, he’s a middle school teacher for heaven’s sake!
Carolyn tried to warn one of their semi-mutual friends that had offered to set my dad up with someone she knew about his past (and present for that matter). I’ve never understood why, but anyone that my dad knows personally (by know I mean they know his facade, not him) believes absolutely anything and everything he tells him. He reaffirmed what these people thought they knew, and that was that. She listens to him bad-talk her on the phone to most anyone he talks to, especially his not-so-new girlfriends.
All Carolyn was trying to do was to warn them, like my mom tried with Carolyn. For those that don’t know or care, he does put on a good front. That is, until he feels he no longer needs to (which, as a matter of fact, happened with him and Carolyn within hours of their marriage ceremony). Carolyn called me again about an hour ago, in tears. She was so upset that I couldn’t comprehend the first 5 minutes of the conversation. She couldn’t handle how much backlash from numerous sources arose from simply trying to help. I told her if she wanted me to, I’d be more than happy to provide said people with another realistic perspective on the situation (which was a main reason for her call). It’s sad how willing I am to dish the dirt on my dad, although, in the long-run I suppose it might be for the best. I’ve now witness (what will soon be) two divorces at his hand, not to mention the turmoil that always seems to accompany it.

Morals should never be situational, although it seems that it’s hard to avoid these days.

Things They Don’t Tell You About Life (But Should)

Still have another month of Calc III and Differential Equations :-/ I’m so ready for that to be over with! Except for the fact that this next semester is just going to be harder … so maybe I’m not all that ready … lol.

Fourth of July + No Fireworks = Sad :’(
It rained like a monsoon here on Friday … not to mention I have no clue where I would have shot fireworks here besides of my “porch” (if it can even be called that, poor little thing). My pyromania can’t handle not causing uber amounts of loud noises with illustrious explosions!

PS. Sardonic