2/25/2002 ben wow, 10 days off... whatever did you do without me? good things muhgcee was here to post something or you might have all died and gone away. or something. presently right here at this time, i'm sitting here at work thinking of anything i did this week that is worth sharing. well, i had another biopsy on monday, it wasn't to tell me anything, or measure, they just didn't find any cancer in my blood when i did the testing at nih, so they want some actual cancer. even that was a bit difficult, as this chemotherapy, in addition to the wonderful effects of narcolyzing and making me explosively nauseus at times, really wipes out tumours, and the one in my leg kind of went from the size of a nice flank steak to a key lime (the really little ones). very cool, if i ever get to walk normally again. i will, thursday, but for a twitchy tweaker (thanks muhgcee) like me, not walking around and not going out is about as easy as sleeping in a really soft bed when your back is throbbing in time to the miguel migs mix you're listening to. ok, for those that didn't follow that graphic, i had to switch to a much harder bed last night because my back was killing me. it's still hurting, but at least i was able to sleep. or maybe the two lorazepam and two oxycodone helped... who knows? waah, i'll get back to more interesting, throat provoking mental spews soon... what did you expect after a week on the couch with nothing but the food network and the olympics to keep me company? heheh. a demain, tout.

2/17/2002 muhgcee OK so it seems like a lot of Ben and I's sentences start with "OK".

> What I am about to bitch about isn't meant to be funny. But it is interesting and thought provoking nonetheless. Especially since there is a good chance that a lot of you will disagree with some of the things I am going to say. But, thats ok with me. Always good to have checks and balances. I'll stop talking about what I am going to talk about and actually talk about it now.

It is sad that in the last 150 years we have burned enough shit to start changing the color of the damn sky. I don't like the fact that in some cities, industry there has actually, although not directly, been given the right to change the bgcolor value of the sky tag. Its not just changing the color of the sky, but it is f*ing up weather patterns. Just look here for instance. If we have done this much damage in 150 years, how in the hell do we expect to not do horrible damage when you are talking ages? This Earth is billions of years old, and we are only talking about one little fraction of its life here.

How short sighted are we? Very. Maybe its not short sighted . . . I think its having selective sight. Politicians see $$$$$ from their rich donors, but somehow miss the SMOG that creeps by their top floor office window. When you look at it, its not just the politicians. After all, who elects these brainless leeches? Thats right! People like you! OK, they probably aren't like you at all. Probably the only thing you have in common with these people is that you live in the US. But Americans are friggin' ignorant. I mean, really, why elect someone that doesn't give two shits about the environment? Not that I am necessarily a big Gore fan, but he actually gives a shit about the environment. And Nader gives at least two.

Anyway, why don't you go ahead and marinate on that for a minute.

*2/18/02 - Update: I have found another article pertaining to this; Warming and Slowing the World

2/15/2002 ben ok, so i was out for a couple of days, but i've back posted, i wrote it down while i was in the hospital the last couple of days, so, enjoy if you want. so... a conundrum, i wrote this yesterday, and whew i smell from the chemo. anywho. most people i know wnat to be better people. they want to make more money or stop drinking or find true love or something. or they might hvae less concrete goals, i don't know, everyone is different. the logic of help baffles me though. for instance, my boss gave me a planner a little while ago. one of those really nice ones, with the "how to make your life better" guides. it has written "be true to your values simply because they are your values." good start, admirable way of going about it. then it falls down. "do not base your actions on rewards or on others' reactions. be consistent" it goes on, explaining how you shouldn't worry about others when making decisions. and this coming from someone who's not you... anyone else smell the oops? i don't know... just doesn't seem logical to me.

2/14/2002 ben muhgcee OK, so I have gotten lazy enough that I don't even feel like erasing Ben's name and putting my own in. Anyway, I probably start to post on here about twice as much as I actually do. I sit here at work, and when it is slow, I think, "I am bored. OK, so I will put something on beneasilyamuseshimself.tricom.pod." And then I start to write. And then, it either gets busy and I get sidetracked, or I decide, "Well, I don't have anything to say really.", after typing a complete paragraph. Just imagine how much more entertained you all would be if I actually followed through with those posts. Also, maybe I would only get 100 e-mails per day begging me to put out more of my font-filled goodness instead of 500. I have to clean out my umbc account daily because of you people, you know. It is getting so bad that I am going to have to set up Excahnge on my house server just to manage it all. Exchange. For one person. Isn't that rediculous? How about setting up webmail? For one person. OK, so I am not going to go that far . . . but this guy already has. How crazy is that?

Been over to my new(er) site yet? I want you to go so much that I have written special code so all you have to do is click on this text right here and it will send you directly to my site. Doesn't get much easier than that.

I don't know if I can top that picture of the bald Ben - that was pretty cool. I was thinking of shaving my head; I think I'd look pretty weird, all though it might go well with my goatee . . . probably not.

Well, then, I am having fun at work. I am kind of getting better at my job - helpdesk. Most of the problems aren't too hard to fix, either that or there is no way that I would be able to help them even if I knew how just because I don't have access to everything. So then I just put in a "ticket" and I don't really have to worry about it anymore. Anyway, I guess I don't really have any "good" content for you today. Sorry.

ben so i had a thought. what does it say about the disease when the doctors are more concerned about what the cure is doing to you than the disease itself? do you think my tumours are feeling a bit miffed, now that not only are they being killed off, but ignored? morbid i know, but i can't help thinking of vichy france. "ok... we surrender... again, and... what's that? where are you going? come back here! we can't be that harmless can we? le sheesh!" i have no idea, to answer your question... these things just come to me.

2/13/2002 ben they say writing a journal is good for you. just now it made my eyes go all blurry, but that's probably not what they meant. i'm writing this on paper in the hospital, as the doctors couldn't resist giving me some hard to remember drugs for a few hours. vincristin, cytoxin and adryomycin or something. they sound like the next three musketeers. hrm... well, it occurs to me that i haven't done a feature in a while, so, the first of you to email me with an idea - no aim here, i want email - will have a feature of your choice. i can't tell on apper how long this will be on screen, so i'm going to stop now.

2/12/2002 ben a late update today, sorry. i had a doctor's appointment and errands to run. but i have a photo for you. it's me, bald, care of jamie. i know, don't you love that goooooooooooofy grin on my face? hehe. they took the stitches out of my leg today, so that's one less thing to worry about. also, we decided last night that my friend is a sex and alcohol addict. is that surprising? i'm beginning to think that in today's society, it is more normal to have these issues, and that maybe that's where we're evolving to. you know, like, how eyes have deteriorated in the last two hundred years, because they're not as selected for, and we can take care of the problems. maybe since emotional problems can be taken care of (better than before), or at least recognized, they're becoming less taboo, and reproductively, you can be successful even with them. i don't know, just an idea i had to fill up some of this space, heheh. me, i'm going to go learn some more coding.

2/11/2002 ben the fact that my outlook takes so long to load gives me a good excuse to come here every day and add something. i don't know why, but it takes about 3 minutes now, if i close it and reopen it. it just started doing that too... i might someday actually have to wonder why, instead of using that time here. i now officially have .net installed too... working on what icon to have on my desktop for it, hehe. oh. and. i'm thinking of maybe moving someday, this site that is. my friend has 30 megs with asp and scripts on her site for free. tricom.pod gives you 50 megs, but only scripts. well, me being an asp coder, i might be willing to sacrifice size for comfort. also, since it will be an asp site, i could have a database, woowoo... set up sql on my friend's box in california? maybe track all of you, three people who visit here? whee. hehe. that's all, outlook's working now.

Well I am at work and there is nothing to do. I have decided that Internet sucks because there is nothing for me to read so, I will just write something for myself to read. Well, you all know about my (2 hours straight of phone calls and printouts interupted my current

Oh well, what's a man to do. I'll tell you what he's to do. He's to create a nifty new site called OpticalDelusions, and put buttloads of pictures on it. Well . . . only if that man is me. Because I already created that site, so you will have to make a different one. Moral of the paragraph: Go to my damn site.

Well . . . I usually complain about things on this page, so maybe I should do that now. OK, so last semester wasn't the best for me. I was going through a lot of shit that inhibited my ability to do as well as I would have liked. I found out a few days ago that because of this, I would have to drop two classes and retake two of the classes from last semester. It is complicated and messy, so I won't go into the complicated and messy details. The point is that I e-mailed an advisor to ask her a question about this whole process, which I needed the answer to to get the process rolling. Over a week later: no response. So, I just go into the advising office, and talk to a different advisor on Tuesday. She tells me that after I talk to the Calculus professor, I should send her an e-mail right away so she can give me approval to add the class. Immediatly after talking to the Calculus professor on Wednesday, I shoot out an e-mail to the advisor. Keep in mind that the last day to add a class is Friday. So, she e-mails me back yesterday, right? No, that would be the happy ending. Not fucking up my whole semester isn't worth 5 minutes of these advisors' time. I hadn't gotten an e-mail back as of tonight (Thursday night), so I sent her another e-mail. If she doesn't respond by the time I wake up this morning (Its 2:15 AM right now), I am definatly just going in there and saying "You know as well as I do how important it is that you get this taken care of, right NOW." Damn "professionals" and their fucking irresponsibility. I encounter them every day, its a disgrace to businesses and organizations across the country. Anyway, enough out of me.

2/7/2002 ben right so, now i'm bald. yeap... it started to come out in my hands, so i grabbed the clippers and aways it went. it looks a little weird... i have a birthmark i never knew about and it still has a little stubble left... bad norelco ehh? i can't razor it though, they won't let me. and there's a constant breeze, because i'm so agreeable. think about that one heheh. right now this is the hardest part of my day, figuring out what to write. actually, that's not true, figuring out what to listen to is the hardest part. if you have any ideas, let me know. i listen to groovetech a lot, if they have something i like, or to space.fm, at least, their archives, since they're off the air at the moment. sometimes to epitonic and some to musicmatch. so, in that end, i'm going to add another link set over there on the left, of places to listen to the stations that i listen to. well, this bald guy has more exciting work to get to, keep your ears to the grindstone and noses to the ground or something until tomorrow, hehe.

well, well, much to report much to report. right now i'm listening to migs and rasoul, from epitonic, a track called just right. it's pretty good, a little jazzy. i went through the first round of chemo, but most of you knew that already. it was pretty weird. when your arms and legs are really long and useless, you start to look at them a little differently. mostly i'm irritated at my body right now. i've been healthy all my life, and it won't comply with that requirement right now... i'm getting these like, asophagus problems, the whole throwing up thing wasn't very pleasant and all, and of course today is the day my hair started coming out. not much, just like, when you rub a towel through it, some of them come away. i'm afraid to scratch my head in consternation in a meeting now, for fear it will turn into a selson blue commercial. it's ok though, i'm at work, i'm playing on the computer, and some people are trying to get me a laptop. so i can work all the time. that would be cool. i'm going to bring a boombox with me to the hospital next time i've decided. music is what's made me feel good every time, so i'm going to bring it with me. hehe, look at the bald guy, trying to tap his feet and fall asleep at the same time! hehe. well, that's all for now, i'm going to arrange this page again, make some more archives and shrink this down.