mahiwaga

Thought I’d get some last thoughts in.

####cat /dev/random

Xanadu1826: “Reading Calvin and Hobbes makes you realize how shallow the world is.”

It might spoil the magic for you, but for some literary criticism, read the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Calvin and Hobbes. Bill Watterson gives some insight to the creative process and to the difficulties of not selling out.

###More tech bullsh-t

Apparently someone exploited a bug in my system on January 7th. Thank God for syslog. But I can’t believe this fool hacked into my system while I was on a dial-up connection. Talk about desperation. Here’s the relevant bit of /var/log/messages:

Jan 7 15:56:50 heartofwonder rpc.statd[419]: gethostbyname error for
Jan 7 15:57:22 heartofwonder useradd[1980]: new group: name=qwerty, gid=504
Jan 7 15:57:22 heartofwonder useradd[1980]: new user: name=qwerty, uid=504, gid=504, home=/home/qwerty, shell=/bin/bash
Jan 7 15:58:17 heartofwonder PAM_pwdb[1982]: password for (qwerty/504) changed by ((null)/0)
Jan 7 15:58:29 heartofwonder useradd[1986]: new user: name=cgi, uid=0, gid=0, home=/home/cgi, shell=/bin/bash
Jan 7 15:58:55 heartofwonder PAM_pwdb[1987]: password for (cgi/0) changed by ((null)/0)
Jan 7 15:58:56 heartofwonder PAM_pwdb[1984]: (login) session opened for user qwerty by (uid=0)
Jan 7 15:59:27 heartofwonder PAM_pwdb[2010]: (su) session opened for user cgi by qwerty(uid=504)
Jan 7 15:59:31 heartofwonder PAM_pwdb[2011]: password for (operator/11) changed by ((null)/0)
Jan 7 16:00:24 heartofwonder PAM_pwdb[2023]: password for (qwerty/504) changed by (qwerty/0)
Jan 7 16:01:00 heartofwonder PAM_pwdb[2027]: password for (cgi/0) changed by (qwerty/0)
</code>

This is in case anyone really cares. He got at most 45 minutes of play time, when I finally logged off. I’m partly annoyed, partly paranoid. I just upgraded my distro (originally Red Hat 6.2) which took about a day because of how painful it is downloading hundreds of megabytes on a dial-up. So hopefully it’s fixed now. I also decided to install my brother’s discarded 3D Blaster Banshee AGP, which is much nicer than my Diamond Viper 330 PCI, except for the fact that it runs excessively hot for some reason and it’s SGRAM eventually gets corrupted and the display goes to hell. I had to get a third fan, but it doesn’t make that much of a difference. I also repartitioned my hard drives just for the hell of it. GNU parted is pretty good. I trust it more than Partition Magic, which doesn’t start half the time and can’t handle Linux partitions anyway. (OK, so it can. But not the version I’m using)

OK, I’m sure your sick of this tech crap. Nothing else really exciting today. For some reason I just don’t feel like sleeping. I know that I have exams in about two weeks, but I don’t feel like studying either. I need some inspiration.

###Backlog flow

I thought I’d put up links for “The Gladiator” since I’ve been obsessed with it lately: Entry on the IMDB Official website

A couple days ago I talked about how me and some of my closest college friends try to review the year just past by making a CD. I’ve also added my 1998 playlist and my 1997 playlist. I’m also going to start keeping a song journal so my lists won’t be so biased towards the end of the year. Maybe some day I’ll go into my schpiel of how I use music to keep track of time. But right now I’m actually getting sleepy.

Let’s put two more up: Here’s a URL to the book that one of my favorite movies is based on: The Princess Bride. It came up as I was looking for more The Last Unicorn stuff. If you haven’t noticed, I put up a link to my favorite The Last Unicorn quotes. Last one: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (yes, they are trying to put a real one together) actually has a little footnote about aswang in this article about Vampires

Holy mother of God! Why am I trembling? Something like joy courses through my veins, but the tears are waiting to fall. Will it be like this for the rest of my waking hours, to stand still, lost in a fog of indecision, while happiness is something that happens to other people?

I dare not rail against Fate, against God, against [Mother] Nature. If they exist—for I am no longer sure they exist—what do they care about this insignificant creature, this transient spark of lightning coursing through meat? I am alone, alone, with absolutely no hope to assuage this grief—either I cast myself down into despair, or I grudgingly resign myself to this doom.

I know with grave certainty, surer than I know my own name, that I can’t do anything but ride [it out] and maybe see the sights along the way.

Christ. I have to stay alive…. Then I can meet my doom with arms wide open.

See, I really don’t, I really don’t. I don’t want to die dreaming of rain, gasping for air, knife stabbing my back. Alone, alone, forgetting everything of love. Ah, what is love? I thought I could see the shape of it, that one morning when I let my heart melt again, because I missed it so badly. I didn’t know how to live without it, I still don’t, only I’ve gotten used to it, and I’m not sure I could call this life, exactly.

Even now, the mask is stripped from my folly. How could I have dared? What was I thinking? Every way I spin the dice—snake eyes. Why did I keep throwing, betting away hope until I was cast into the street?

What the hell was I thinking? How did I let my soul curdle like that, shrinking like a slug writhing in a bed of salt. What in God’s name was I thinking? How did I dare hope for salvation? How did I dare hope? What is the use without hope? And yet I cannot dare. I’m dying inside, gasping like a fish thrown up on the barren shore. Without hope, how can I even dare move?

How have I gotten used to this misery, I don’t even know what to call it any more. It’s so familiar I forget about it, and I just stare off into space, forgetting what I’m thinking about.

Did I get struck with lightning? The world is spinning. Am I to count my luck, lapping up the leftovers of others’ joy? I am happy for them. Yes, I am happy, [that they will] never [know] the misery of my existence. We all have our stigmata, our nail wounds and blade wounds, but wounds will heal if you can clean them out. I feel like I’m digging up blood and gore, putrid flesh and pus, it just keeps coming out. Is this all I am? And good [works] [crumble] to ash when my mind touches upon [them], [becoming] hollow and twisted.

I do not wish to hit bottom, I can’t let go, I’m too afraid to fall. I’m stuck on this barren ledge and I can’t even see a likely handhold above me, the only way is down. There’s a deep pit waiting for me, I can hear the demons cackling.

I’m afraid to let go, afraid to pull myself up, Fear has mastered me. I’m a whipped cur. I gag, but I don’t know what else to do. I am so mentally fucked right now, and there’s no solution at all. Nowhere, nowhere. I turn in all directions and there is only silence and darkness.

Nothing. I’m afraid to reach out. It’s just a reaction. I’m being stupid. Please, please, can I come home now? Just to rest for two minutes and at least pretend that someone loves me because she can, and she wants to, not because she is compelled by her terrible fear. I would give a testicle. I would give up feeling in one arm, just to glimpse my future, if it is bright. And if darkness is truly to claim me, then at least let me see my dying day, in truth, and let me see all who would mourn my passing, if there are any.

It’s so silly. The days I’ve frittered away have all of a sudden come crashing down like bricks, and I’m so tired, too tired to even just lie here and weep the rest of my life away. This is the best I can do right now, I can’t do anything more. The best I can do is numb my pain. Oh God! Can you please give me even a single grain of hope? Just enough for one day. Even just one hour where I can see light!