it snowed yesterday! there's a snow-line past mid-station! wow, too many exclamation points!
anyways, it was great to walk outside around 9am and see snow down the face of blackcomb past the bottom of the solar coaster. i damn near creamed in my pants (i didn't though).
this better be a good season. el nino is promising us lots of snow, i've got a killer set-up (if you're a snowboard geek, send me a mail and we can play a game of show-me-yours-and-i'll-show-you-mine) and i'm just plain amped for the year.
must . . . go . . . riding.
awwww shit.
my old friend jamie just got back into whistler last night. so erik, jamie and i decided to go out for a beer or 2. all three of us have been good friends since high school and we always end up causing shit together. last night, somehow, we didn't. we did manage to drink half of the alcohol in whistler, however. i'm not much of a drinker these days, so when i go out drinking with these walking livers i know i'm in for trouble.
let's just say that 15 beers later, i'm hungover. and i don't think i did anything too stupid.
back to bed for me, i do believe.
i've had some major computer issues in the last couple of weeks. most of them have been my own damn fault -- i wanted to keep running win98 because it ran unreal tournament the quickest. so, after booting into windows upon my return to whistler and noticing that my partitions were mostly trashed, my net connection wasn't working and my comp was just generally being flaky, i freaked out and fdisk'ed the fucker.
thankfully, i had already downloaded and burnt redhat 7.3 (yes, i know debian is cooler but i didn't feel like fucking around with it at the moment).
let's see: redhat got all my configs right (voodoo3 -- found it, usb mouse -- works perfect, sound blaster live -- here's yer sound) and i had to download no drivers. there was a little bit of flakiness in regards to my network connection and my firewall but it only took about 20 minutes to figure out. and that probably would have been a lot quicker if i hadn't just smoked a large joint. hell, if i'd been connected straight to the net, i would have had no problems whatsoever.
how come linux is apparently still playing catch-up with windows?
so i finally had my wallet stolen last night. this is a first time event for me. the only items i've had stolen before were my dad's old cellphone (that he was just about to replace) and my scientific calculater that i never used.
it's not actually that big of a deal in the end -- i lost some cards that have my picture on them, some cards that get me into areas and some cards that get me money. all of which are replaceable. theoretically. we'll find out how replaceable when i go to get them replaced and i have to produce one piece of id -- and i have NONE left. i was *SMRT* enough to have all of my identification in one wallet. oops. oh well. better get all this done before i have to get back up to whistler.
oh yeah: atmosphere show on saturday night was AMAZING. full review coming soon.
or the lack thereof.
i started writin when i was still in high school -- typical youthful bullshit like taggin my name on bus stops and walls. then i got into real lettering and the occasional figure. progressed onto spray paints and the fun started. i've sort of fallen out of the loop as of late. i just haven't felt the urge to even do sketches in my book anymore. i had no clue why, just haven't been pulled like i used to.
i now think i realize why i'm not so into it anymore. vancouver -- tons o' graf for me to at least look at and steal^H^H^H^H^Hborrow some ideas from. whistler -- 2 or 3 tags in the bathroom by someone who doesn't know how to use a pen. i think the whole lack of art to amuse myself with on boring afternoons (ie. when i used to take the bus to the east side and traverse some sketchy alleys with a camera to see new work) has gotten my mind off of the whole process.
this complete lack of graffiti in whistler made no sense to me at first. i mean, whistler is filled with hip hop kids and most are under 19 -- perfect age for random destruction of property combined with imagination. and i've seen the artwork of some of the pro's up here -- it's amazing and very graffiti influenced. then i remembered: it get's goddamn cold here in the winter. who the hell wants to stand out in the cold painting on a wall when they could be getting hammered in their warm condo while watching snowboard vids? sure ain't gonna be me out there.
check these out:
lata.
so i'm looking for a job. sort of. i've been trying to be all excited about going back to work but when you just spent the last 9 or so months do fuck all as far as thought processes go . . . well, it's just damn hard to want to get back into the work force. lets face it, working means i can't snowboard everyday this season (unlike last) and it also means i can't just lie in the sun all day with my book and a sack of weed (like this summer).
at first i figured i'd just do some construction labour to make money. then i realized i hate doing mindless jobs like that. if it's going to be mindless work, i'm gonna get myself a retail job or be a bartender. at least that way i either get cheap clothes or have random 35 year old women hitting on me.
so . . . now i'm trying to get my ass back into the computer workforce. i've got lots of help making my resume look stellar (thanks beth!), i've got a ton of experience and i'm pretty damn good at programming. however, i don't have a degree (couldn't be bothered to finish it -- really didn't like school) and i refuse to leave whistler. this could present a problem.
so far, i've decided that if i'm not gonna get a job with computers anytime soon (starbucks or whistler lift-jockey, here i come!) i might as well start doing some programming to get myself back into the whole swing of things. i decided on making a small little distributed cd-organizer (I KNOW THERE ARE A TON OF THESE OUT THERE AND IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE DISTRIBUTED -- THAT'S NOT THE POINT) making use of the various technologies i want to work with, such as XML, XMLSchema, XQuery, SOAP, WSDL, etc). be afraid. be very afraid. these dusty neurons haven't fired in quite a while and i'm getting scared as some of them don't seem to be firing at all. oh well, it'll sort itself out and i'm sure i'll get back into the swing of it.
i hope.
i'm an unreal tournament freak. i played *way* too much back when i lived in a dingy basement suite in kits. i used to work 10 or more hours a day coding, go out and get hammered with the work boys (also known as my trouble-friends) and then come home and play ut until 5am. lather, rinse, repeat. people always used to wonder why i was so tired.
now we have unreal tournament 2003. god help me. the idea pf playing with these new graphics is just killing me. and bombing run sounds like possibly the coolest ctf style game i've heard of in a while. apparently pa likes the idea as well. the only thing i have going for me at the moment is there is absolutely no way in hell my old decrepid b0x will run this monster.
so . . . anyone wanna donate the hardware? i need this. bad. i really need a job now so i can buy a new comp to play this game. it's a vicious cycle but i'm not doing anything to break it.
audi.
anyone who's every met me knows i'm somewhat passionate about my opinions on music. ie. i'm right and everyone who doesn't think i'm right -- well, they're wrong.
i've got some pretty varied tastes as far as music goes but my main listening pleasure is derived from hip hop, drumnbass, dancehall and punk. however, when you live in a town like whistler, varied tastes in music are not exactly catered too. if you want to actually buy music up here (no, i don't download everything -- i support my faves) you go to bestsellers. i just bought bad religion - no control, a used copy no less, and it cost me $22 plus tax plus tax plus fucking tax. wackness. as for selection, it's gotten better than it used to be. i still can't find dnb i actually want to listen to but my punk tastes are well satisfied here and the hip hop selection is at least decent -- good luck finding true underground but you can at least get some non-radio styles. of course, i'd much rather hit the village to hear someone spinning some records, be it dnb or hip hop, so i can catch some new hits. riiiiiight. let's see, i can hear: top 40, top 40 rawk, top 40 club, bad house and that's about it. perfect. there's finally a dnb night up here (tuesday's at tommy africa's) but it's plagued by under-attendance and dj's who play the same goddamn sets and records every week. at least they've got skillz or i'd feel pretty stupid about going all the time. as for the "hip hop" nights, you can go hear seanski drop some great radio rap or go for mat the alien on wednesdays at the fish. mat's actually a good dj but the club has turned into a popular meeting place for pro's and pro ho's alike. not so much my style :)
so what do i do? well, i go down to vancouver for shows when i feel like it. i also buy music down at a&b sound or fwuh when i get the chance. and now that i have adsl hooked up . . . piracy is bound to ensue.
if anyone else out there likes live hiphop, come out this saturday. guru, atmosphere. and others will be filing into the commodore for an amazing performance. guru, mc to gangstarr, is one of the ground-breakers of hip hop and a wicked live act. atmosphere (mc slug & mr. dibbs on the 1200's) is without a doubt my fave group of the past year or so. check out god loves ugly and the lucy ford ep's for some mind-blowing beats and rhymes. you'll be at this show if you have any taste at all.
anyways, i gotta stop typing on this thing and get back to working.
oh yeah, if there are any other dnb/hiphop headz out there, blast me a mail and i'll set you up with an acct on my site - tons o' dnb, underground hip hop and dancehall.
lates.
all right. think i've finally got things sort of the way i want them. pretty easy to configure this thing in the end. got some links up and i even went outside for about 10 minutes :)
back to the resume writing / job searching.
pees out.
hrm. always used to make fun of this blogger shiznat (that's for tim) but here i am now thinking it might be a good idea since i see none of my friends anymore. maybe this way that might get a slight clue as to what's running around in my head. that's not to say this is gonna be one of those blogs where i throw down a list of all the lame-o happenings in my day. i truly doubt anyone wants to find out how i went to the gym, sat in front of my computer and picked my nose twice. maybe i'll update with cool things that actually happened in whistler (yes, sometimes interesting stuff happens up here besides watching the rampant alcoholism and cocaine abuse or participating in the slutness -- course that means the only interesting things end up being sporty-ish), my music recommendations/scathing reviews (if you don't love and respect drumnbass/jungle you might as well fuck off now) and some interesting links/articles. oops, guess this is gonna be a pretty typical, opiniated blog. oh well.
things to do: make this page look hella different from the current way it is now (tres ugly), get a job (anyone looking for an uber-hacker who ain't leaving whistler for anything?) and maybe even go outside.
peace.