LiveJournal Project - August 2004

August - always an interesting month, since that's when we have both DEFCON and my solar revolution anniversary.

Date: 2004-08-02 07:03
Subject: another year, another defcon
thursday: shaggy and i left phoenix, picked up kevin, and drove up to vegas. nothing all that exciting really happened on the way up there or that day. we went to osaka for sushi and i discovered just how much my spoken japanese has really deterioriated as i attempted to keep up with the waitress, who was a native speaker. bleh. the dc people were running behind with getting early registration going - apparently the badges hadn't arrived yet - and by 10pm there was a line of over 200 people waiting to pick up their shit, only to be told that "the badges were on the ground at mccarran airport." i don't know the sequence of events which led to this delay, but it does seem kinda strange that they didn't have them on time. some sort of airplane or customs delay, perhaps. anyway, i'd been awake since 7pm on wednesday evening, so when the badges finally showed up, i paid for mine and went to sleep, with the intent of hitting several talks the next day.

friday: kevin and i were up pretty early, so we went down to the chill area to see if the wireless network had been put up yet, and amazingly enough, it was up and functional. moreover, since most of the con-goers were still asleep, it hadn't slowed to a snail's pace yet. we hung out there for a little while, worked on some stuff, checked email, and the like, and i ended up talking to a couple of people about the work that dan kaminsky was presenting this year. i'd have to say that this was the high point, intellectually, of the con - primarily because in the span of about 5 minutes, i actually learned something that would be immediately useful for a project i'm working on. very cool. (none of you are likely to care - but basically it involves the use of DNS as a covert channel) - the vendor area opened up at 10am, so i went in there and looked around - was low on cash so i went across the street to the hardrock to use an ATM which i felt pretty confident wasn't hacked - came back and bought some t-shirts and stickers, handed out a few demo CDs, and went to catch a talk on the first international cyberwar. the presentation, given by a political science professor, focused on internet attacks between the israelis and palestinians and the overall use of hacking as a weapon, both on a state-sponsored basis as well as by individuals. i didn't agree with some of their conclusions - namely their claim that a "cyber war" wouldn't lead to a "shooting war." i went to another couple of talks, but by the third one i was getting tired of standing out in the heat waiting to get in, so i ended up back in the room and watched a few more on CCTV. scott fried the power supply on his laptop - this now makes two laptops that he's brought to DC and lost. as the night went on, things started to get interesting - i got my name on the list for "leetest link" - this year's substitute for hacker jeopardy, and was one of the contestants in the second round. i answered more questions right than anyone else in that round, or in the previous round, but when it got down to three people left, i was voted off by the other two. ah well. during this game i managed to consume a bottle of vodka - yes, the entire bottle - in probably less than 30 minutes. i don't expect that i will ever do that again - i felt ok when we left the contest area, and scott dragged me to subway to get some food in me (i hadn't eaten all day) - by the time we made it back to pool 1 at the hotel, i felt the need to sit down, and as i sat there, i proceeded to get more and more intoxicated (even though i'd stopped drinking). about 2 hours later, i called ralph, forced myself to stand up and made it back to the room where round two of barking for sharks did thus commence. fell asleep on the bathroom floor in a repeat of defcon 10.

saturday: woke up around 9:30a with a bit of a headache (nothing major), although the room was still spinning - grab water, throw up one last time, and go back to sleep. made it out of bed again at 1:30p, went across the street to the hardrock, got some food, went back to the hotel. ran into a few people who'd seen my performance in "leetest link" that were amazed i didn't need the stomach pump and that i was still standing. apparently i earned myself a few admirers - both because i actually knew stuff and because of my alcohol consumption. too funny. donated $20 to the EFF for the opportunity to put DT (the guy who's in charge of defcon) in the dunk tank. went back to sleep, and slept more or less all day saturday. scott and kevin and i spent a few hours just sitting in the room shooting the shit about various topics, which was followed by dinner and an early turn-in for kevin and i. scott went out to chill in the hot tub and didn't reappear until 8 in the morning. at least he didn't pass out by the pool and become a tagging victim.

sunday: woke up, packed up the shit, drove home.

overall.. well, in some ways it was better than last year (i learned more things which were directly applicable to stuff i'm working on) but in other ways it was worse. obviously, my vodka mayhem on friday night played a big part in determining my activities on saturday - it wasn't the fact that i drank the whole bottle which did me in, but the fact that i drank it so quickly. i'm not sure how many shots are in a 750ml bottle - but there's far more in that bottle than should be consumed at such a high rate. i think another problem is that i just have no desire to stand out in the 100+ degree heat to ensure a spot to hear some of these talks - sometimes they're really good and they're worth listening to, but a lot of times they just suck - it's a very hit-or-miss endeavor - and sometimes it's all too obvious who doesn't really know their shit or who hasn't rehearsed a couple times to ensure that the presentation flows smoothly. i can't knock the speakers too much - i mean, hell, they're up there talking and i'm not - but given that the price of defcon keeps going up, so do my (and others') expectations. i really think it's time for the con to move out of the alexis park into somewhere larger, but i don't know where that would be which would be willing to host such a conference as well as be open to people 18+ to rent a room (assuming it stays in vegas). i've got a bunch of ideas for things i'd like to do next year - maybe build a robot if they do a 2nd annual robot competition, maybe some other stuff - so hopefully i can keep those things in the back of my mind and actually work on them instead of forgetting about it until the beginning of next july.

pictures... i didn't take any... but here are some links that may or may not still be functional.
http://www.timekiller.org/gallery/DefconXII/photo0013 - that's me on the end with the bottle of vodka
http://www.geeksyndicate.net/digicam/gallery/dcxii/P7310102
http://www.defconpics.org - not much up there right now from DC12, but it will grow over the next week or two.

Time: 17:55
Subject: terrorists - are they really that dumb?
From CNN: "A U.S. intelligence official said the previously unannounced arrest of a 25-year-old computer expert July 13 in Pakistan yielded a "treasure trove" of evidence that detailed potential attacks against financial targets in New York; Newark, New Jersey; and Washington."

ok, now, what i want to know is this... if this guy was such a computer expert, why the hell didn't he encrypt his data? it just seems sorta odd to me - unless the pakistani intelligence service tortured the fuck out of him until he gave up his passwords. or, hey, maybe the US soldiers from abu ghraib were involved. who knows. i suppose if you figure that they got the guy on july 13th, they had over two weeks to drug him up, beat him a few times, and threaten to feed his testicles to a horde of rabid gerbils - probably more than enough incentive to produce his keys?

Time: 18:46
Subject: save the whales, harpoon a NAAFA member!
Also from CNN: "We're living in the middle of a witch hunt and fat people are the witches," said Marilyn Wann of San Francisco, a militant member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. "It's gotten markedly worse in the last few years because of the propaganda that fatness, a natural human characteristic, is somehow a form of disease."

um, hello, you dumb fuck. obesity contributes to all manner of health problems, from diabetes to high blood pressure to heart disease. these are PROVEN facts, shown time and time again in study after study. if you want to be 5'4" and weigh 300lbs, great, but to think that somehow it's "natural" and without consequences is completely ridiculous. sure, some people have genetic disorders or thyroid problems which make it difficult for them to lose weight, and i'll readily admit that the image of the ideal woman as portrayed by american media is unrealistically thin, but come on, get your head out of your ass. it seems to me that things like NAAFA are run by people who can't accept the basic reality of calorie consumption - if you eat more than you burn off, you're going to get bigger. and if you do it day in and day out, year after year, eventually you're going to be fat. you idiots say that i shouldn't care that i'd like to lose 40lbs? what the fuck is wrong with you? if i have things that i'd like to do which, for safety reasons, have a maximum weight requirement, then why the hell not? is it better that i remain a blimp, or should i slim down so i can actually do what i want? and can you legitimately say that the guy who weighs 500lbs and needs a crane to get out of bed in the morning is healthy? i don't care how many times he walks around the block - human beings were not meant to be that large. that's why god created elephants.

y'know, if you're happy with yourself and the way you look, then more power to you - but in a society where much weight (no pun intended) is given to a person's appearance, you can't legitimately expect that others will automatically accept you - whether you're fat, thin, or somewhere in between. everybody's got his/her own idea of physical beauty just as everybody's got his/her own idea of physical grotesqueness. the sooner these NAAFA people get over themselves and stop claiming to be the victim, the happier they'll be, and the more likely they'll be to find people that like them. being a whiny pain in the ass can make even the most aesthetically-pleasing person look like a turd.

Date: 2004-08-03 17:32
Subject: phase 2.5, day 3
finally got back into the gym after the defcon trip, and since cory's not back yet i haven't had a chance to go do my 1RM stuff. a decent workout - i maxed out the squat machine at 855 - i could've gone heavier, but there's no place to put any more weight. =/ as you can see, i'm more or less just doing full-body workouts - i imagine i'll be back on some kind of split routine next week.

Date: 2004-08-04 10:56
Subject: if you can see this, you're invited...
some of you already know about this, some of you don't... cory and i are having a blackjack party this friday. for more information, see the following URL: http://homepage.mac.com/coryann/blackjack/index.html

Date: 2004-08-06 09:25
Subject: market update from schwab.com

Stocks are off their lows of the session but continue to trade in solidly negative territory after a disappointing employment report showed that a mere 32,000 jobs were added in July, well below the consensus estimate of 240,000, while the previous two months were revised lower. The release also prompted bond traders to push yields sharply lower as Treasury prices soared, with investors considering the possibility that the Fed may be able to skip a meeting or two in its quest to return rates to a "neutral" level. On the corporate front, Pixar surpassed profit expectations, MCI announced a quarterly dividend, and Nvidia disappointed. World markets continue to trade lower.

why does this matter? take a look at that jobs figure... 32,000 jobs added in july, vs. the estimate of 240,000 -- that's a 7-fold difference - IN THE WRONG DIRECTION. oh yeah, and the previous two months were revised lower. me, i'm pretty lucky, i have a "job" - or at least a steady source of decent income - but there are plenty of people out there who don't - and it doesn't seem to be getting any better for them.

i don't know about the rest of you, but as far as i'm concerned, security is about more than just not getting blown up. there's that small matter of "economic security" to worry about - and if you don't have a job, and you can't pay your bills, what the fuck difference does it make if there are a few extra airport screeners making sure you don't bring tweezers onboard?

go ahead, vote for bush.

Time: 13:35
Subject: phase 2.5, day 4
i really thought i was going to max out at 300 on bench today... but it was not to be. couldn't even get 295. i'm really kinda pissed off about that, because i've been training for the last 6 weeks and i've seen ZERO improvement on bench press. yep, that's right, zero. i don't know if it's because i used a shit-ass lifting routine, because i didn't eat enough protein (cory's brother says i don't eat enough), or if the planets were just misaligned. it was a good day for squatting, though; after tuesday's 855x10 on the machine, i had no problem with 335x8 on free-bar box squats. i'm pretty sure that when i go to max for squats (monday?) i'll be able to do 400+.

but, yeah, fuck. no improvement whatsoever on bench after 6 weeks. i am not amused.

Date: 2004-08-09 16:16
Subject: random shite
friday night's blackjack party went surprisingly well. we had a couple of no-shows, but overall i think everyone who came had a good time, even those who didn't play or were knocked out early. i imagine that at some point in the future we'll do another one, but without inviting the guy who's allergic to cats because, well, it's not fair that the cats get stuck in the bedroom while the humans have all the fun.

mike, cory, and i are in the process of getting scuba-certified. we did our classroom-based stuff on saturday afternoon and then spend sunday in the pool at the instructor's house learning all sorts of underwater skills. i still don't particularly enjoy performing a "full mask clear" but i think i'm skilled enough at it that when we go for our open-water certification dive i won't freak out and drown myself. =/ i'm not sure when we're going to be doing that - probably either later this month (on one of the few free weekends i have available) or sometime next month. i'm all set to go swim with the fishes.

in other news... there really isn't much other news. i finished second summer session at ASU, got an A, and now it's two more weeks until the fall semester starts. i can hardly contain my enthusiasm (heavy sarcasm there). it appears that somehow ASU has managed to dick me over on my computer science general studies requirement. a few months ago, i had that requirement fulfilled on my degree-audit report, but now when i look at it, i'm told that i don't have that requirement fulfilled. at some point here in the near future i'm going to have to go down and talk to an advisor and get all this shit straightened out. and that brings me to schedule-planning for the fall semester. right now i'm signed up for 5 classes, 2 of which have absolutely no bearing whatsoever on my graduation. the question is... do i drop them so that i can have a lighter load, or do i keep them because i'd like to think that they're going to be fun and interesting? it's kinda sad, really - the whole point in going to school was so that i could take things that i was interested in and not worry about graduation, but now it's gotten to the point where i'm so ridiculously tired of ASU that i don't want to spend any more time there than necessary. i imagine that the ideal way to look at it is that there's absolutely no way i can graduate in december (missing one requirement that i can't get this semester), so there's no point in bogging myself down.

Time: 19:58
Subject: open question to all on my friends list (or anyone else that wanders in)
ok, so, in my infinite anger with the political system and all these stupid fucks that we keep getting in office, rather than ponder ways to support the revolution when it comes time for armed insurrection, i've given a passing thought to, say in 2006 or 2008, running for office. probably house of reps, since unseating john mccain and/or jon kyl in this state is damn-near impossible. but that j.d. hayworth guy? he's gotta go...

do the people really want someone who actually IS more like them or someone that just looks the part? me, well, i'm not exactly mr. clean - i've done drugs and i liked it, and i'm not ashamed to admit it. i've been divorced twice. i've been in trouble with johnny law, although i have no convictions. i like cats, not dogs. i'm not married, i have no kids, and i don't go to church. i don't make millions of dollars per year, nor do i have millions of dollars in the bank. from my perspective, i see myself as having more in common with the average person (except maybe for that church part, which is probably a killer) than these assholes that get elected simply based on the fact that i'm not sparkling pure from an unblemished upper-crust background. so here's where i need your input... would i stand a snowball's chance in hell if i ever decided to go through with this, or would it just be a massive expenditure of time, money, and frustration that would ultimately leave me bitter and pissed off? this isn't so much a question of "would you vote for me?" but a question of "would the average voter take the time to listen to my position on various issues or simply write me off as an unelectable miscreant?"

anyway, input is much appreciated.

Date: 2004-08-10 13:28
Subject: phase 3, day 1 - back/biceps/speed bench
hooray, it's the start of a new lifting program. i'm doing the a similar rep scheme to phase 1, except doing 5 sets instead of 4 and going up to a 4RM instead of just a 6RM. i'm also changing around the splits - this time i'll be doing the more traditional back / biceps and chest / triceps days, and i'm throwing some DE (dynamic effort) work in there to try to increase my fast-twitch muscle fibers. this is what's on the agenda:
day 1: back/biceps/speed bench
day 2: speed squat/speed deadlift shoulders/calves
day 3: off
day 4: chest/triceps/shoulders
day 5: heavy legs / lower back
day 6: off

i'm also doing less isolation work (only one strictly-biceps exercise, for instance) and a lot more compound stuff.

in other news, i saw a guy at the gym today attempt to bench 365 and drop it on himself. he got 345 in the previous set, but then he went for the gusto and didn't bother to ask for a spotter. oops.

Date: 2004-08-11 13:34
Subject: phase 3, day 2 - speed legs/light shoulders
apparently, people at my gym aren't used to seeing 500lbs go off the ground - i got some really funny looks while doing jump squats. overall, a pretty good workout. i actually didn't think i'd be able to get airborne, but i got about 3-4 inches off the ground coming up with my final sets. pretty cool. my traps & lats are pretty sore from yesterday, as are my forearms. hopefully this means my grip strength will be improving - i can smell that 400+ deadlift just as soon as i'm able to hold onto the bar long enough.

Music: The Cruxshadows - Dragonfly

Time: 15:37
Subject: see, it really does happen
we joke about getting hit by a bus all the time... but for this man, it wasn't so funny. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0811buswreck11-ON.html

Date: 2004-08-13 15:16
Subject: phase 3, day 3 - chest/triceps/shoulders (heavy)
eh. the problem with adding new exercises that i've never done before is that i don't always know how much weight to use. i don't know if i went too light or too heavy on the rack lockouts. also, while doing the lockouts i tried to focus a little more on bench press form, and it is considerably easier when you use proper form (shoulder blades pulled in) than when you don't. so i'll have to work on that more.

Date: 2004-08-17 02:02
Subject: phase 3, workout 4 - heavy legs
this was originally supposed to happen on saturday, but due to being out of town and at a hotel without any decent equipment, i had to wait. 'twas a kick-ass day for squatting - at this point i'd calculate my 1RM somewhere in the 450-470 range. when i break 500, it'll be cause for celebration indeed. the goodmornings were really easy - i'd never done these before so i went really light - i can probably add at least 100lbs there.

Date: 2004-08-18 17:01
Subject: update, shmupdate.
well, livejournal completely bungled my friends groups - people that were originally in one group somehow ended up in another and people who weren't even in some of the groups ended up in there. so in the interest of keeping myself sane, i've dumped all my friends groups - so that means a bunch of you are going to start seeing entries that you weren't seeing before. (actually, that's already been happening)

anyway, as for a real update... _purpleglitter_ and i went up to portland over the weekend to go to a wedding and to check out the city. although we were only there a couple days, portland definitely seems like a much cooler (both in terms of temperature as well as overall vibe) city than phoenix. i don't know if it's somewhere that i'd consider moving to, but at the very least i'd likely go back for a second opinion. the wedding itself, well, i could've done without that - a little too much jesus on the part of the minister, especially after i'd been told that it was going to be a non-religious ceremony. bleh. but hey, we got free food and ice cream out of the deal, so i suppose it could've been worse. school starts on monday. not looking forward to that at all - but hopefully i'll manage to survive the semester and not go postal.

that's about it.

Date: 2004-08-19 01:15
Subject: TRAINING: phase 3, workout 5 - back/biceps/speed bench
well, as much as it pains me to do so, it looks like i'm going to have to add cardio back into my workouts. i hate cardio with a passion - it's BORING - but i stood on the ol' mass-o-meter this evening and was not at all amused by the number it spit back at me. bleh. i'm willing to entertain the notion that i've packed on a few pounds due to an increase in strength, but even still, the number on the ol' scale needs to go down.

Time: 02:34
Subject: a reply from washington
some of you might recall awhile back during the whole "we might delay the presidential election" ruckus that i sent letters to my congressman and senators about the issue. well, amazingly enough, i actually got a SIGNED (with pen, not printed with a laser printer) reply from senator jon kyl. it reads:

Dear Mr. xxxxxxxxxx

Thank you for contacting me regarding reports about planning for this year's election in case of terrorist attack.

These reports notwithstanding, there are no current plans to delay the election. On July 12, national security adviser Dr. Condoleezza Rice told CNN that "we've had elections in this country when we were at war, even when we were in civil war. And we should have the elections on time. That's the view of the president, that's the view of the administration." I agree.

Please stay in touch.

Sincerely,
Jon Kyl
United States Senator

Date: 2004-08-20 01:32
Subject: TRAINING: phase 3, workout 6 - speed squat/deadlift/light shoulders
eh, nothing to report. objects were lifted and then put back down again.

Date: 2004-08-22 01:08
Subject: TRAINING: phase 3, workout 6.5 - cardio
yup, i hate cardio. 30 min, arctrainer - intervals of sprinting and climbing. calories burned: 597.

Date: 2004-08-23 01:59
Subject: TRAINING: phase 3, workout 7- heavy chest/triceps
we lift them up, we put them down. next week, we swap out flat bench for incline bench. will the excitement ever cease?

Time: 14:11
Subject: school... day 1
well, i survived the first day of class. it wasn't really all that bad, except that i'm running in an artificially-awakened state due to my usual pre-school fucked-up schedule. first class of the day... GPH314... i don't know about this one. the material doesn't look too bad, the professor seems ok, but that whole new plus/minus ASU grading scale appears to be kicking in. 95-100 is an A, 90-94 is an A- -- and so on down the line. fuck that shit. 94 is an A- ?? and there's no possibility to get an A+? this is one of the problems i see with the way ASU is applying this new system (aside from the fact that i think the whole system sucks goat balls) - it's incredibly nonuniform, and professors are pretty much free to do whatever the hell they want. in this case, it looks like "whatever the hell they want" is tantamount to "dicking the students over". if i'm going to take a class where i have to risk getting an A-, then i sure as fuck want to have an opportunity to get an A+, too. asshattery! JPN, well, that should be a cakewalk. it'll be a bunch of work, because that's just the nature of the class, but it won't be anything difficult.

oh yeah, it's fucking hot outside.

Time: 14:36
Subject: solve bureaucratic problems with.... more bureaucrats!
so i've been reading up on this latest proposal to overhaul the US intelligence service by dismantling the CIA into three separate intelligence agencies which would all report to some new official. obviously, senator pat roberts, who came up with the idea, thinks it's a great plan, but i can't help but wonder what the fuck is wrong with these people. it's blatantly obvious that one of the failures in US intelligence leading up to 9/11 is the lack of information sharing across different agencies - the FBI doesn't talk to the CIA and vice versa and so on -- and now they want to make MORE AGENCIES?!?! what the hell? if you can't get two agencies to cooperate smoothly, what makes you think you're going to get FOUR of them to do it any more efficiently? these people are on crack. i'll agree that US intelligence needs reform, but this is absolutely recockulous.

Date: 2004-08-26 17:30
Subject: TRAINING: phase 3, workout 8
actually, this workout happened yesterday, but i've felt like shit all week due to lack of sleep and adjustment to a new school schedule so i've not had time to update.

Date: 2004-08-27 03:47
Subject: blargh!
well, here we are, 3:45 in the morning, and guess who's not asleep? i don't know what the fuck is going on here - i haven't had a solid 8 hour block of uninterrupted sleep all week. not even yesterday, when i popped a couple of unisom - that escapade still had me waking up every 3 hours or so, the only difference being that i'd wake up in an exceedingly drowsy state and climb back into bed right away. every other night this week, it's 2-3 hours and BOOM, hey, i'm wide awake. i can't figure out what the deal is - nothing has changed in my life during the last week except that school started on monday, and you'd think that if anything, that would make me want to sleep more than usual. maybe i've got some weird brain thing going on - i have noticed recurring headaches this last week which, although not particularly painful or long-lasting, are always in the same spot. who knows?

in my best arnold voice (from kindergarten cop)... "it's not a tumaaah!"*

Time: 07:54
Subject: red pens are eeeeeevil!!
first dodgeball, then tag, now this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2688623.stm

"Teachers at a primary school have been told not to mark children's work in red ink because it encourages a "negative approach" ...

The colour of the pen used for marking is not greatly significant except that the red pen has negative connotations and can be seen as a negative approach to improving pupils' work."

Date: 2004-08-28 22:51
Subject: TRAINING: phase 3, workout 9

Date: 2004-08-29 05:09
Subject: what dreams may come
i don't know quite what the hell is going on lately, but i seem to be dreaming in movies -- in the sense that it feels like these are dreams which are merely replays of movies that i've seen before, or some weird conglomeration of movies and books with some personalized elements thrown in just for good measure. tonight's dream started off with a couple of scientists in a robotics factory who had just run a test on some new robot and watched it go haywire. they knew there was a defect in it, but when the director of the robot factory tells the main scientist to cover it up, he says "no" and is immediately shot by the director and replaced with someone else, who is played by me in this dream-movie. his assistant passes a strip of microfilm to me which contains all of the test data and information on the robot problem. this cuts to the next scene, where i'm ordering some food from wendy's and the girl giving me my drive-through order asks me where i'm going and if she can come along (i'm on my way to a rave, apparently) - so she quits her job on the spot and gets in the car with me. ok, so we end up sitting at a park where she's trying to get my phone number, which i write on a discarded piece of paper from a chinese fortune cookie. we then proceed on to the party which is at some weird-ass outdoor venue, sorta like a cross between a zoo and a botanical garden, where crystal method is playing on one of the stages - except that in this dream, there are three guys instead of two. she and i get separated and i wander around talking to people from DTS and from stage to stage. and then the fucked-up robot appears and starts shooting people. back in the car, time to get the fuck out of there. not entirely sure what happens next, but somehow i end up in an underground hospital / lab trying to explain something to a doctor about the robots, and the doctor looks at the evidence and sees it too, so he signs off on it, we transmit the data to somebody, and then hey, another robot appears and shoots the doctor. oops. of course the robot is also programmed to go after us, so we start trying to shut it down. somehow the robot has become self-aware, so we defeat it by confusing the hell out of it to the point where it's going to self-destruct, which then leads us to be in some car trying to get out of the lab before the whole place goes thermonuclear. oh yeah, at this point, ben affleck has taken over as the main character, and i'm just watching again. strange, i don't even like ben affleck.

fuckin' weird. but y'know, as i retype this, i'm seeing where the various dream-bits are coming from...
self-aware robots: i, robot (saw this a couple weeks ago)
confusing the robots to shut them down: arthur c. clarke's "3001: final odyssey" in which they use incomputable computer virii to disable the monoliths
wendy's: i went to wendy's last night (friday night) on my way back to skott's party

oh, and let's not forget my earlier dream - in which i dreamt that i was dreaming (yeah, a dream within a dream, in which i even woke up from the inner dream and found myself in bed and in need of a drink of water) that i won the olympics in men's shot put with a world record distance and a throwing technique that nobody had ever seen before. WTF?! i think i've remembered more dreams in the last week than i have in the last six months.

Time: 10:36
Subject: phase 3, workout 10: DE squat/legs
left shoulder hurts. left elbow hurts. i don't want to go to the doctor, but this has been going on for awhile and i don't see any escape from it. looks like it's time to start loving cardio, since that's probably all i'm going to be able to do for the next month or so. but, until i actually get to the doctor, i'll keep abusing the shit out of myself. =/

Date: 2004-08-30 08:15
Subject: 363 days until 30....
yeah, so, pretty much every year i get to see how many of my so-called "friends" that i've known for several years or longer manage to forget my birthday. most of you, of course, are not expected to remember the date of such a thing, because we don't know each other all that well, but there are a small handful of you that really fucked up this year and have earned yourselves a spot on my shitlist. way to go.

extra bonus points to descendingbabe and _purpleglitter_.

Time: 14:48
Subject: TRAINING: phase 3, workout 10.5
cardio... 20 min arctrainer, 5 min treadmill cooldown, 20 min elliptical. calories burned: 930

Lots of workout logs. These things are annoying as hell to transcribe.