1.22.2000
(evening)

Toe yeah... I guess I should mention that I got the job. So this Saturday, Gimpysoft.com will pick up and head off to Kansas City, MO. Actually to the suburbs, but I think it'll be OK. I spent an incredibly pleasant weekend in Kansas City last weekend. The highlight was the Bratwurst with Sauerkraut purchased at 3AM on the street. Haven't yet found that in Arkansas. So I will bid adieu to the South (questionable in my book, but the people around here are pretty damn defensive about that...) and head a little north into the Midwest.

I already think I'm going to like it up there. I finally got to see O Brother Where Art Thou, and the town stays open just a bit later. I expect the website to go down at around 10:00 Saturday morning, but will return in the middle of next week at the latest, pending DNS arrangements. (I'm going to miss working for an ISP).

I'm going to like my new living arrangements. My apartment is going to be bigger, has a indoor/outdoor heated pool, and 24 hour racquetball and dry sauna. So watch out, ladies of Kansas City.

One of my chief requirements in finding a new apartment was that they would be pet-friendly. When I used to have a roommate here in Arkansas, we had a hell of a time finding an apartment that allowed cats. As a matter of fact, we never did live in a place that allowed them. For a while, we were blessed with a landlord that looked the other way, but shortly before we left our first place we had a change in management, and they actually threatened to evict us a week before our scheduled move out date because they noticed the cat. Hell, the apartment was already pretty much packed up. After we moved, we just decided to chance it. We got one notice that we needed to get rid of the cat, but they never said anything again until shortly before we were going to move.

Anyway, I had since become used to living with a cat, and I think I'm going to get one when I move to the new place. The only problem is that I'm allergic to most cats. The cat we had living in my old place didn't bother me, and I've met a few others that don't, but most of them throw me into sneezing fits and make my eyes swell shut. I figure that when I move, I'll scour the newspaper for ads asking for people who have cats to give away and ask if I can come over and hang out with the cats for a while and do anything possible to bring on an allergy attack. If I find one, I'll take it home.

Another mindless story: When I lived in Houston, we bought a grey rabbit to live with us. We named her Ash, of course after Bruce Campbell's character in the Evil Dead series. Ash is just an awkward name for a pet, so we just ended up calling her Bunny. When I moved up to Arkansas, I found out that the cat I was living with was also named Ash, but they also found it to be an awkward name, so she was just Kitty. Hmm... That's all there is to that story.

Also of note, over the weekend, I got my first piece of mail commenting on the site from someone I don't know. She has a cat named Gimpy, and variations on the name include The Gimp, GimpyPrecious, and GimpySofty... That's pretty cool. I think I'm going to name my cat Gimpy when I get him/her.

Well, that sleeping pill is kicking in, and I'm up too late once again. Time to go get through The Great Shark Hunt. Gimpysoft.com party in Kansas City in a couple of weeks...

Also, I don't think I've looked forward to a movie quite as much as I'm looking forward to Hannibal right now in a good while.

1.14.2000
(evening)

Now running on the new server. I still need to fix some stuff, but the website has been moved over, more or less. I'm going to download Oracle tonight and get that installed, then thing will really heat up over here.

My hair is gone. After two glorious years growing my hair out, I have finally sold out for the promise of riches and fame at a major telecommunications company. Before and after pictures coming soon. I should post them both on amihotornot.com and see what ratings the two get.

Wish me luck on the interview. I should fly out to Kansas City tomorrow some time. They told me they would get me the itinterary soon, but I don't have it yet. Better give them a call first thing tomorrow.

1.10.2000
(evening)

I've been busy getting all my good applications (and some porn) on my new machine. Now that I finally purchased a CD burner, I can start checking out etree.org and burning lots of CDs full of hippy music. Somebody needs to start taping Big Smith shows. Particularly since I'll be moving out of Arkansas soon.

Speaking of which, I have a phone interview tomorrow. I think that this is probably my best prospect, so if this doesn't go well I'll probably make an investment in cardboard boxes. It's with a little telecommunications company up in Kansas City, MO. The best thing I can say about it is that the job sounds good, the company's solid, and I wouldn't be out of Big Smith range. But I would live in Kansas City, which isn't quite as metropolitan as I was hoping for. I'd much prefer Minneapolis, if it came down to just those two.

The domain name arkansaswhores.com is available for registration. I should grab it before somebody beats me to it.

To finish my thought from a couple nights ago, my single favorite thing on the web, Leisuretown.com has now gone a full year without a new episode. Space Ghost: Coast to Coast passed the one year mark in December. There has to be new cool stuff out there somewhere, but I haven't found it.

About my only new regular web reading these days is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's weekly column on ESPN.com, Hey Rube. He comments on football, politics and breast enhancement, my favorite three topics.

In current reading, I went on a rampage over the weekend and finished up God Emperor of Dune. The first time I tried reading the series, I got hung up in the middle of Children of Dune, and never finished it. I finished it up this time around while stuck up in Chicago over Christmas. So I got the next one, and breezed through it. I'm now reading Steve Martin's novella, Shopgirl. Steve Martin is just a damn funny guy. The book is great so far. If you're a fan of Steve Martin, I'd also suggest reading his book Pure Drivel. It's a collection of short essays, mostly ones that were run in The New Yorker.

The new Linux machine will be set up tomorrow, I swear. I now have everything fully installed on this machine, and I hope to move the website to the new machine this weekend. And none too soon... That old 486 just can't handle the astounding traffic this site generates.

The band "Low" is going to be in Fayetteville in a week or two. I've never heard them myself, but I've had them recommended to me several times by friends. I think I'll check out that show... But time for bed and Shopgirl.

1.7.2000
(evening)

Sunday night. I just got back from the happening town of Mena, Arkansas. Due to my diligence in replacing a bad CSU/DSU, literally dozens of people can once again surf for porn. We have a guy at our company who normally does the driving to do on location repairs, but we couldn't get in touch with him, and I honestly didn't have anything better to do. I figured a nice drive through a national forest couldn't hurt me. It was a nice drive. I've always wanted to drive out and fix something on the network, and I didn't know if I was going to get to do it before I left.

Speaking of which, the job search has seemed to have picked up since the first. I was starting to get worried towards the end of last year, but everybody told me that hiring always picks up in the beginning of the year. I guess they were right. My best immediate prospect looks like a major telecommunications company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I can't think that that would be too terrible a place to live. It's a big city, so I shouldn't have to put up with not being able to find a theatre within 100 miles playing O Brother Where Art Thou, yet I'll still be in a state where I could do lots of cool outdoor stuff if I would get off my ass and do it. The worst thing I'd have to deal with is a bunch of Vikings fans... I have a phone interview with them tomorrow, and hopefully it will go better than the last one I had, which was the absolute worst job searching experience I've ever had. At least it's out of my system now.

Young Pups Episode Guide: Episode 4 is now available. Check it out. Comments from cast members (or anybody else, for that matter) are welcome.

I certainly hope the case shows up tomorrow. I've been tracking it, and it made it to Little Rock late Friday night. Hopefully it made it to Springdale this weekend so I'll have it in my hands tomorrow. I don't know if I'm going to build the new Linux machine right away, though. I really do want to format and do a fresh install on the windows machine, but I have gigs and gigs of porn and mp3s that I don't want to lose. Maybe I'll overnight myself a CD burner tomorrow so I can take care of that little problem.

I think that Tristan A. Farnon ought to print a nice book out of his Leisuretown site. I've run out of cool stuff. It's almost been a year since he last added to that site, and it's ***break***

Umm... As I was about to write that there hasn't been a new episode of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast in over a year, it occurred to me that it was on right now. I caught the second episode. But now it's time for bed. Attention Television Producers: make something cool. I'm bored...