OK, so it’s a Thursday night and class is cancelled. We knew about the cancellation for a month now, so I had planned to go downtown with some friends tonight and have fun. Austin thinks it has it bad? This is Chicago, baby. Below zero temperatures are normal for us! Now Mother Nature has kicked in Phase II of her plan and is attacking us with a pesky 6 inches of snow. Now, that isn’t a lot, but look at what has happened to traffic:

OK, so Lake Cook to Willow is northbound, but considering it probably is the same from Willow to Lake Cook, it would take me 5 hours to get from the ramp closest to my house (Willow) to the Circle. Holy fucking shit! Bah, looks like I’ll be staying home tonight and doing nothing. My friends don’t even want to travel to each other’s houses, thats how bad it is outside. Bah, at least its only 6 inches, thats not bad…

LOL, got this from Raxie

Dear Santa…Dear Santa, This year I’ve been busy! Last Sunday I ruled Duluth, Minnesota as a cruel and heartless dictator (-700 points). Last Saturday I stole enjeruluca‘s purse (-30 points). In April I committed genocide… Sorry about that, ladytiggs (-5000 points). In July I gave change to a homeless guy (19 points). In October I gave taesmar a life-saving blood transfusion (50 points). Overall, I’ve been naughty (-5661 points). For Christmas I deserve a lump of coal! Sincerely, chigrkguy

Today started off shitty as the days usually start out lately. Woke up with four hours of sleep and tried to check my email. Connection error. I did some basic troubleshooting and nothing worked, so I just figured it was my ISP being down. I went to school. I come home in the afternoon only to see that my cable modem lights are borked. After 30 minutes on the phone with tech support, I schedule an appointment for a technician to come by tomorrow.

In the meantime, with no internet, I force myself to touch up my research paper as much as I can (by remembering what I could from my sources). The day dragged. Life sucked.

And then, at 4:43pm, my life changed. My DePaul University contact called me and told me, “Steven, you’re going to have a very merry Christmas this year.” I was thinking that the Registration Office idiots had found my Madison transcripts and weren’t going to screw me over a third time in a row. So I with a bit of relief that I might get an answer to determine my educational fate for next semester by the end of the month, I asked her what had happened. And then she hit me. “Everything has checked out, and you’ve been admitted to the University. Your orientation is on December 15th and the semester starts on January 3. Congratulations!” I don’t remember how many “Oh my God’s” and “thank yous” I threw at her over the phone. I had never felt so happy in almost three years when I got accepted into the University of Wisconsin – Madison. For a year and a half I was living a very depressed life, going to school at a community college cause DePaul screwed up my admission papers…twice. And finally I’ll be able to continue my higher education at a nationally acclaimed institution with one of the best business schools in the world. I can now look people in the eye when they ask me “Where are you going to school?” I feel like I’ve been reborn. I feel so happy, there’s butterflies in my stomach. Screw the internet at home, it doesn’t matter that it is broken. I’m posting from school. And I’m going back to University life. This ray of light has just made all my other problems look so insignificant and tiny.

I really need to start looking for a really awesome Christmas present for this lady that helped me out the past four months. She’s in her early 30s, attractive, nice, and the Director of Secondary School Relations of the School for Computer Science at DePaul. And she’s Greek So, I’m open to all present suggestions I can surprise her with!!!

Why is it that every time this year again. Amidst all that holiday cheer that lifts up my spirits and puts me in a wonderful mood, one thing after another begins to go wrong and brings me down to depression again. It all started with that car accident I posted about in December. My first car accident ever and since then I’ve gotten more bad luck than I’ve had in the last two years. Let me elaborate. About two weeks after the car accident, when I got my car back from the shop, I decided to go have a drink and a bite to eat at the bar. So my good friend Peggy was bartending, and she hooked me up with a few rounds of Bacardi and Coke. I was by no means drunk, but i had a mild buzz, the type that just gives you a warm fuzzy feeling. So I get on the road to drive home and it was freezing outside. My car is stick shift, so I would rev it at every light and usually red line the engine before shifting gears so it could warm up faster. Wouldn’t you know it, I get pulled over. “License and registration pelase.” Crap. I give the officer my whole “I’ve been working all day and I’m coming home from work now. I’m really tierd, and really sorry. I just want to go home and get some sleep before I go back tomorrow morning.” routine that has gotten me out of a few tickets in the past. Not this time. “OK sir, can I see your license please?” Great. I show him my ticket from the accident to prove that my license was taken as bond (cause I’m under 21) and then he pops the question to me, “Did you have anything to drink tonight?” Crap x2. “No officer, I’m just tired and trying to get home. I’m coming straight from work.” He shines his flashlight in my eyes and tells me to follow his finger. My heart was racing. I dunno how I managed it, but I somehow passed the test, even though I knew he wasn’t fully convinced. He asked me to follow him to the station to process the ticket. Luckily, I know plenty of Arlington Heights cops, so I called Scott and he told me to plead innocent and go to court and he’d take care of me. They released me, and told me that I had seven days to mail in the info before I was arrested and held on $5000 bail. Like going 64 in a 45 was such a huge threat to society…

So Thanksgiving comes and goes, and I still haven’t heard from DePaul. I call up the Vice President of the CTI department at the university so she can help me out, and she tells me she’ll look into it. Unfortunately, I’ve had to work on every single day of the week except my school days, leaving me with virtually no time to study for finals or write my research papers and journals. I’m getting that feeling when you procrastinate everything till the last minute and it all piles up on you….but this time I wasn’t procrastinating. So averaging about 3 hours of sleep each night this week, I managed to lethargically do my studies and perform at par level at work. And on Thursday, when I was leaving class, I pulled out of the parking lot normally and wet to the stop sign. I look in my rear view mirror and see the school’s police Jeep with its lights flashing. Great, what did I do now? “Hello, do you know why I pulled you over?” “Honestly officer, I have no idea. Did I do something wrong?” “As a matter of fact, you didn’t fully stop at the stop sign by the parking lot and you were going 31 in a 25. Can I see your license and registration?” I felt like I had reached the lowest of the low. My luck had reached rock bottom. I gave him my Arlington Heights speeding ticket and my insurance card. “Steven, do you know that I will have to suspend your license?” “What, why officer?” “Illinois state law says that if you are under 21 and have three moving violations within a period of 12 months you get your license suspended for six months.” Crap x1000000. “Sit tight, and I’ll be right back.” Sit tight? I started hitting my head against the steering wheel. Not even two minutes later he comes back and hands me my papers back and says, “Listen, you’ve been very respectful. I don’t want you to lose your license because you probably have work and school you need to drive to. Just drive a bit more carefully next time.” I swear I almost jumped out of the car and hugged him.

Today arrives. After coming home last night I went straight to bed. I was so sick I didn’t want to do anything else. Unfortunately, being sick caused me to wake up every hour in cold sweat and toss and turn for 15 minutes before falling asleep again. I woke up at 7am feeling like complete shit. I didn’t eat, I simply took a shower and took off. Where to? The Cook County Circuit Court of course! I had to go and get my license back from the accident. So I had to be in room 101 by 9:30am. I was there at 9:15. The judge was pretty cool actually. He was very nice, was cracking jokes, and created a lighthearted and welcoming atmosphere. So I was waiting until 10:00 before he called me up to the stand. He looks at the case and goes, “Niles? I’m afraid we don’t do Niles in this courtroom. They assigned you the wrong room, I apologize. Here, go to room 103 and the State’s Attorney will come bump you to the top of the list right away.” I didn’t mind, he was a nice guy. Even the attorney was cool as he walked with me and we carried on a nice little conversation. So I go to Room 103 and the atmosphere suddenly went from light to dark, like I was at the entryway to the seventh circle of hell. This new judge had a booming voice and a very cruel personality. Nobody was smiling, and the two State’s Attorneys were scrambling to keep up with his barking demands. When the Attorney I was with handed him the case, he goes, “There’s a line dammit, it will wait its turn like it is supposed to!” The State’s Attorney looked and me and gave me a re-assuring gesture with a soft smile, and I sat down. I watched this satanic judge chew out everyone in front of him, even the officers who simply had to say, “No, yes, no” to dismiss the case. I had a feeling I was going to get screwed with this guy. Three cases later he calls my name. I stand up and he barks my name again, louder, and looking up this time. I raise my hand and say “present” as I walked up to the stand. He looks at my case and goes, “What the hell? Niles? Traffic violation? At 9:30 in the morning? Who is the damn moron that assigned this ticket!” A few frantic officers and an Attorney rushed to his aide whimpering, “It must be a rookie sir, I think he was trained only a few weeks ago.” The Judge showed no mercy as he boomed, “This is ridiculous, this punk shouldn’t even be here until the 19th! We have morons working in our departments. You’re all incompetent!” Then he looks at me and goes, “I should send you home and tell you to come back here on the 19th, but you’d only waste my time again with a pathetic sob story!” My self control was borderlining, as I held in any sly comments my Greekness might throw out at him. I figured he’d make me pay a fine. After mumbling a few words to himself, he goes, “Jaffer, complaining witness? Jaffer?” No response. “How bout the moron officer, are you here?” No response. “Figures, incompetent people. Here, take your license and go!” he growled at me and tossed me my license. Stupid old me goes, “Oh wow, no fine?” He gave me a look straight out of hell and said, “Do you want one?” I quickly said, “No sir, thank you” and booked out of there with a power-walk, license in hand.

My escapade isn’t over yet. I still have to get a court date for my Arlington Heights ticket and go to that to get it taken off. Hopefully, I don’t get the same judge…

This entry is dedicated to all current and long lost victims of AIDS. My thoughts and prayers are with each and every one of you. I hereby dedicate this entry to World AIDS Day. God bless you all.

“World AIDS Day, observed December 1 each year, is dedicated to raising awareness of the global AIDS epidemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. December 1 was chosen because the first case of AIDS was diagnosed on this day in 1981. Since then, AIDS has killed more than 25 million people, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history. Despite recent, improved access to antiretroviral treatment and care in many regions of the world, the AIDS epidemic claimed 3.1 million (between 2.8 and 3.6 million) lives in 2005 of which, more than half a million (570,000) were children. The concept of a World AIDS Day originated at the 1988 World Summit On Ministers of Health Programmes for AIDS Prevention. Since then, it has been taken up by governments, international organizations and charities around the world.

From 1988 to 2004, the World AIDS Day was organised by UNAIDS, who, after consultation with other organisations, chose a theme. In 2005 UNAIDS handed over responsibility for World AIDS Day to The World AIDS Campaign (WAC), an independent organisation. For 2005, they chose Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise as the theme for World AIDS days through to 2010. This theme is not specific to World AIDS Day but also to the work WAC does throughout the year.”

-Wikipedia

Get this Virtual Ribbon for your site/blog by clicking on it and going to the Get the Red Ribbon section.

Am I exhausted or what?! Every time I seem to complete a task, it seems like I need to spend just as much time updating that task to keep it current. To top it off, I was working every day since Wednesday from morning till the evening. Even on Thanksgiving. I only have four class sessions left, and I have to do a 15 page research paper and a 15 page journal. Every day that I plan to use for my school work, I end up having to go to work. Definately not fun.

I managed to sucessfully convert the Wanderhomies website from PHP-Nuke to Invision Power Board with MK Portal. People seem to be liking the new site so far, only one or two people don’t. My only issue now is that IPB doesn’t have as large of a hacking community as PHP-Nuke, so mods and skins are limited.

On top of working, trying to do my school work, and slowly upgrading my websites, I’ve been trying to plan out some personal perks for myself. My main focus has been researching on my Christmas present to myself. I’ve saved up the money, and now I just need to find the right stuff. What I want to get is a new sound system for my car and an iPod to go with it. In the past week I’ve created about 5 CDs with random songs that have ended up as coasters. Hooking up an iPod to my car would be so much more convenient, clean, and money-saving. My cousin is a car audio guru, and he’s helping me out. I don’t have a fancy car, just a 2004 Honda Civic LX. Not fast, but I love it. Very durable and very convenient. Plus, it has awesome MPG. Anyway, it has four speakers total, all 6.5 inches. The bulk of my cash will go into the speakers. Speakers are the most important part of your car audio system. I’m gonna be heading to ABT Electronics today to test out all their speakers and see which ones sound the best. Get some killer speakers, throw in a basic 75×4 head unit with an iPod connector, put in a decent subwoofer and an amp, and I’ve got myself a system that will last a lifetime and sound amazing. We’ll see, might end up going with MB Quart for speakers, cause so far those are the best I’ve heard. Luckily, a friend of mine works at ABT, so he can cut me a deal on prices and installation. Regardless, I’ll be spending about $2000 on this project.

My second leasiure activity has been finding a new game. I’m done with SWG as if I’m done with a bad girlfriend. And I don’t even have to pay for child support. My WoW free trial ended. And I won’t be purchasing the full copy. World of Warcraft simply did not capture me. To me, it seemed like 95% of the content was an exact copy of Everquest 2. I got bored with EQ2 very quickly, and WoW seemed to parallel that. I just hope LotRO doesn’t parallel WoW and EQ2 contentwise. My friend Katherine sent me a 14 day trial to Eve Online. Being a SWG refugee herself, she just started Eve and is loving it. I must say that in the two days I’ve played it, I’m impressed at the content, graphics, and depth of the game. It has a little too much depth though. By the end of the tutorial, I was suffering from information overload. But I was assured by other community members that it would take a good two weeks of continuous play to get used to the interface and game. People who have been playing for two years say that they still learn new things. The craziest thing happened on my first day in Eve as well. Some guy sent me a PM asking me if I was Greek. Next thing I know, I was being invited in a Greek-only Eve chat channel in game, with Greek players from all over the world. Made me feel at home right away (and made me wish such a community had existed on Wanderhome). Turns out this community is called MAZA and it is a Greek online gaming clan, consisting of tons of online games, from CS to WoW. I have about 10 days left in the trial, but so far Eve has done a good job captivating me. I might end up sticking to it.