Monthly Archives: April 2001

Shuttle Launch

Thursday, April 19, 2001

As always, an incredibly moving sight.
There's an electric shock that runs through me the instant those engines ignite. A successful launch of course, and the new billion dollar Canadarm is on its way to the international space station. It's an incredibly diverse crew on this mission — American, Russian, Italian, and Canadian. Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut, will be installing the arm (and making the first Canadian spacewalk).

I've already mentioned the Canadian contribution on this mission. The Italians are installing a habitation module (thank god because NASA was running out of cash; maybe they lost their merchant account ;). It's good for Italy though too because it's sort of a bribe that lets them post more astronauts to the station.

Anyway, if you want to know more about this launch, click here or click here.

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Damn dirty apes

Thursday, April 19, 2001

aka From VERY GROSS to JUST GROSS.

To try and take my mind off the credit card stuff (and to be able to live here) I decided it was about time to clean the bathroom. Anyone that's been here knows that I live in filth. While I may have clean high-end cars, and tens of thousands of dollars of electronics, they are surrounded by garbage, mold, insects, and mice.

The three photos on the left are before. The two on the right are after. Yeah, I realize that the after photos are still way below what most people would find acceptable. At least my sink, toilet, and shower are clean. Anyway, if I'm to believe the movies, this is how mad scientists are supposed to live.

Well, I have to go work on a new search engine for BME, and then edit my user management tools to spit out some files for the new programs, whatever and whenever they may be. I don't even want to think about that.

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Substance Abuse Poll

Wednesday, April 18, 2001

How many dollars worth of any of the following drugs/pseudodrugs have you consumed over the period of your life, up until today. Now, I know you don't do these horrible things any more, but it's always interesting to figure out just how much has been wasted. If I've missed a drug, just rank it with its closest neighbor. If you do this poll, drop me an IM. I think that overall I've been fairly responsible:

Alcohol ....................... $3500.00
Coffee/Caffeine ............... $1000.00
Cigarettes ...................... $20.00
Marijuana ...................... $500.00
LSD/Shrooms/etc. .............. $1000.00
Ecstasy and other "Rave drugs" .. $20.00
Cocaine/etc. .................... $10.00
Morphine/Dilaudid/etc. ......... $200.00
Heroine/etc. ..................... $0.00
Speed/etc. ...................... $60.00
Steroids/Hormones/etc. ........... $0.00
Psychiatric Medication ......... $350.00

Total wasted .................. $6660.00

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Effity eff eff

Wednesday, April 18, 2001

So it's not going to be long before I move into a one-room isolated cabin and spend the next twenty years sending credit card companies mail bombs. They're driving me insane. BME has incredibly low chargeback numbers and a very high repeat customer rate. Yet there's something that has made merchant issuer after merchant issuer either slack off and make it clear our business isn't wanted, or turn us down absolutely.

I've sent so many damn faxes, and sent so many bank statements and processing records that I'm starting to know all the information off by heart. I still have no good information to tell you, but hopefully I'll know something good tomorrow.

But there's not much else I can do today. I do know that if I hadn't taken that vacation, I'd have had a nervous breakdown from the stress. And seeing BMEshop doing so well is nice as well, and all the generous people here on IAM that have chipped in via PayPal donations have been a real lifesaver…

I'm starving, so I'm going to find something to make for supper (Tacos!), drink a couple more of my exotic beers, listen to the Father Yod records, and maybe start implementing a “word of the moment” feature for the cover page.

Grrr.

I should have just gone to Quebec with Saira and thrown bombs at the world bank thugs.

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Father Yod and the Spirit of '76

Wednesday, April 18, 2001

Woo woo! It finally came — Saira and I each ordered a set. It's a 13 CD boxed set of insane psychedelic rock put out by what amounts to a hippy cult run by Father Yod… Seriously incredible stuff if you like that sort of thing. Captain Trip records just rereleased a limited set of it, so we managed to nab copies.

I also picked up my Maori shirt from Ryan today. It's got to be one of the nicest shirts ever, seriously! I know I said we weren't going to run them again, but they are so nice that I sort of want to (and considering they sold out in basically 24 hours, I think there's a demand). I also got some great mail — some rolls of film, two video tapes of procedures, a CD-ROM of genital tattooing, and some other stuff. I'll go through it later.

Finally, Ryan got his large gauge barbells for BMEshop. As soon as he adds them to inventory, this is where they'll be. I also got my arm traced for another sit on my Frank sleeve on Friday.

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