Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Jonathan "Moonwick" Bishop's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Thursday, March 17th, 2005
1:00 am	Uberdork, pt. II Following up on last year's post from the Snow Patrol concert at SXSW 2004, right now I'm sitting at Eternal, listening to Mono tune up. And, like a dork, I've got my laptop out (what can I say... I've got a deadline tomorrow, and I was really looking forward to this show). Ironically, though, I'm not the only person who's got his laptop out -- I spotted a softly-glowing Apple logo as I walked in. Current Mood: happy Current Music: Mono (imagine that!) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 8th, 2005
5:47 pm	I'm feeling fat and sassy.             Images wider than 550px are hell for my friends page. Do your part, and learn to use a fucking crop/resize tool if you're going to post images without an lj-cut. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 4th, 2005
9:49 pm	You can tell I'm making an effort to post more. Woke up this morning to a call from the future landlord informing us that the owner of the property wasn't willing to furnish us with a fridge in return for a longer lease. This piece of slightly unfortunate news (since I don't know if I can handle the commitment of owning a refrigerator at this tumultuous point in my life) was offset by the news that the owner had also decided to install a new, high-efficiency heating/air conditioning unit in the property. After summers of $300+ electric bills at the cowhouse, I'm very much looking forward to the fact that summers at the new place won't require us to go into hock. Two more weeks, and we commence moo-ving. I'm ++excited. Current Mood: happy (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 16th, 2005
5:52 am	Commentary After I finished assembling my (partially) new desktop system, I made the brash decision to install Windows XP onto it, perhaps after temporarily forgetting about all of its annoying ideosyncracies that grated on my nerves when I ran it on my laptop. A week into this new install, and I still haven't been able to install the drivers for the video card that powers my second monitor, my sound card randomly ceases to play music, and I still can't name a single feature besides the Remote Desktop server that puts WinXP ahead of its predecessor. I can't offer much in the way of tangible evidence for this prediction, but I really think that Windows 2000 was the peak of the Windows franchise. Clearly, the only rational solution is to buy a Mac. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 9th, 2005
6:09 am	More whining. I don't wanna live in a building with people I don't know. I don't like something as important as the tranquility and functionality of the space that I live in being subject to the whims of a management office and people that I don't know. The Cowhouse has been a great deal -- we all somehow managed to not get on each other's nerves (as far as I can tell; that cow is a quiet one) in four years, the landlord has been prompt about fixing the occasional problems that have popped up, and when someone did something annoying, it was easy to have them stop. Now that I'm getting ready to spin the big housing roulette wheel, I'm starting to worry about ending up someplace where the management is incompetent and useless, our neighbors stay up all night playing the drums (hi, hoyhoy!), or the crime leads to our cars being broken into on a regular basis. Even if we get lucky, who's to say that things will stay that way for long? I'm just hopelessly anal when it comes to things like where I live -- I might even be as bad as nugget. Still, agonizing over all the things that could go wrong only discourages me from doing the inevitable and just finding a place. Oh, and if anyone's looking for a room or two in a nice house here in Milwood, let me know sometime soon. ;) Current Mood: sleepy (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 6th, 2005
5:57 pm	That'll be one arm and one leg, please. The Alexan apartments on Parmer Rd. charge between four and five months of rent in order for you to break your lease. Thanks, but no thanks -- we'll keep looking. I'm already growing weary of searching for apartments, and this is only the second one. I think that from now on I'm going to do more heavy pre-screening of potential complexes via phone before we bother to visit any more places. Current Mood: amused (19 Comments |Comment on this)
2:45 am	I, for one, welcome our new Movable Type overlords. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 4th, 2005
2:26 am	Time is running out! Order now! As time goes by, I'm becoming increasingly aware of the fact that time is very much a finite resource, and that I'm rather bad when it comes to accounting for that fact. The best (and perhaps most obvious) example is probably the way I always seem to put off boring things -- school, usually. It feels like my mind has failed to grasp the concept that a fundamental ingredient in getting things finished is time, and that time will always run out faster than I plan for it to. I'm starting to realize this more and more, but it's been hard to change my habits, especially when it relates to school. (Not that this is intended to be a post complaining about my work habits...) I've started prioritizing the things in my life, deciding what sorts of things are truly important to me, and acting accordingly. Unfortunately, it feels like I still have precious little time left to simply relax, and that's starting to get to me. At least there's another week to go before school starts again -- maybe I can catch my breath in the meantime. I don't know how workaholics manage to not lose their minds, though. Current Mood: tired (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2004
3:42 am	Bloggin' in a winter wonderland Sorry for the miserable title. I couldn't resist. I'm back home in Indiana again, sitting in my old bedroom, and marveling over just how quiet a house can be when it doesn't have a dozen computers running in it. I can hear the grandfather clock tick downstairs, but that's about it. The only computer besides my (nearly silent) laptop that is still on is in another part of the house, beyond my range of hearing. Just in time for my arrival, we're set to get somewhere around 9" of snow within the next day or so. I'm excited. It just started snowing about an hour ago, and I had the nifty idea to set up my camera in time-lapse mode, pointed outside, to see if I can make a neat movie of the snow accumulating. We'll see how it turns out. Happy holidays to all, I'm off to bed. Current Mood: sleepy (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 16th, 2004
5:58 pm	One of those days I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by the dozen things that are competing for my attention right now. If someone can loan me a remote control that would let me pause time, I'd be eternally grateful. Current Mood: stressed (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 14th, 2004
9:48 pm	A life-or-death matter. Alternate title: I'm such a troll. I'm making chili. My chili has not only elbow macaroni in it, but also beans. It's going to be good chili. Current Mood: chili (ha!) Current Music: Mannheim Steamroller - Los Peces En El Rio (24 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 27th, 2004
11:38 pm	This is a first. Tonight marks the first time I've ever had a barista at Mojo's try to upsell me on something. "I'll have a regular Iced Mojo." "Would you like a shot of espresso in that? It'll really speed up your metabolism!" Hmmm. Current Mood: awake (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 25th, 2004
8:29 pm	Random sappiness So, eliset are up in Dallas for Thanksgiving, and we're sitting in the living room watching TV with her stepdad, when an ad for a cute, family movie about a racing zebra comes on. Elise randomly cheers "Go Zebra!" while the movie's striped protagonist races against horses in the commercial. Once the ad stopped, Elise must've noticed my furled brow as she exclaimed "Go Banana!", the Ralph Wiggum quote I was furiously trying to remember. I think I'm keeping this one. Current Mood: Stuffed-up (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 26th, 2004
6:19 pm	Lookin' for a job Anyone aware of any programmer/development positions open here in Austin? I've made the decision to start looking for something full-time (and to get away from my contract gig) so I figure I'd ask and see if anyone knew of anything. Thanks! (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 25th, 2004
2:05 am	Oh, my! Not just one post in a week, but two! As of about an hour ago, I was officially finished with my first session of classes for Regis. Overall, I think I did pretty well; I didn't have much of an excuse but to do well in my CS class, but my Religious Traditions class was more of a challenge and I still think I did pretty well. I certainly did better than I did the last time I tried to do classes online back at IUPUI; somehow I was never able to get myself to take that class seriously since it didn't involve going to a physical classroom. Judging from this semester, I think I've gotten used to the strange format, so I think things will go well. Hopefully I'll be done with school in about two years, so I can fly out to Denver to participate in commencement ceremonies at a school I'll probably have never seen before. :) The flight home from Atlanta was rather annoying, as it turned out the plane I was on for the ATL->IAH leg had a problem with its fire detection system that they weren't able to work out. As a result, the entire plane had to get off and be rerouted. After two hours in line I was finally handed a nonstop ticket on Delta (the original flight was on Continental) that took me to Austin without incident. In the end, I ended up getting home a few hours later than scheduled. Later on Friday night eliset, quelrod, myself, and a few people Elise knew through work went to a haunted house, and then headed down to Wan Fu. Saturday night saw Elise and I working at Haunted Trails, and today was occupied by last-minute obligations for my classes. A busy weekend. This week marks the start of the second session of fall classes, and I'm also in the process of wrapping up a release of the project I'm working on for my client, so I'm a busy bee as usual, but I don't mind so much; it's good to have a job that I enjoy. Current Mood: accomplished (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 20th, 2004
11:36 pm	Not just one, but two random subway freaks! I probably should've paid more attention to the MARTA announcer. As I walked into the Atlanta airport MARTA station, the announcer was saying something about how the Northbound line was delayed. I debated calling a taxi to get to my hotel while I puzzled over the snippets that I heard, but I noticed that people were still buying tokens and going up to the platform. So I went ahead with my original plan, which was to take the subway to the hotel I'm staying at for the next couple of nights. I boarded the train, and proceeded to wait for fifteen minutes before it actually left the station. In the meantime, I also became quite annoyed with the young mother in the seat behind me, whose child stood about a ten-percent chance of becoming anything more than a drain on society, judging from her parenting style (which basically alternated between ignoring his annoying child-ramble and smacking him rather hard when it became too much for her to handle.) Regardless, WorthlessParent was about to drop off of Moonwick's "things to concern myself about" radar. A couple of stops down the line, a rather well-dressed (for someone like this) middle-aged man boarded the train, and proceeded to ask if he could put his rather large duffle bag down in the baggage area next to the door. (It'll become apparent in short order why I bring up the fact that he was able to form a coherent question.) He then proceeded to eat something out of a styrofoam take-out box cupped close to his mouth, and drink a concoction out of a clearly used Powerade bottle that... well, didn't resemble any color of Powerade that I've seen before. And it certainly didn't match the color of the label. So far, I was only moderately aware of the man and what he was doing. But then, a couple of stops later a somewhat older gentleman entered the car, wearing a "C.O.P.S. ("Christians O[garbled] Preaching Salvation")" baseball-cap and some similarly-Jesus-y t-shirt festooned with a "Kerry/Edwards '04" pin. Oh, and a nice, thick bible in a strangely-feminine cover, that looked very well used. Of course, tt didn't take long before the two freaks came across each other and began to react like... well, freakmatter and anti-freakmatter. I think the "confrontation" started when the first freak took notice of the Kerry pin that the other guy was wearing. He started shouting something at him, and then pulled out something from his wallet, while saying something about "Bush". Maybe he was a member of the oft-neglected Freak Cabin Republicans? Anyway, they stood in front of each other for what seemed like several minutes, just shouting at each other. They weren't shouting in anything resembling English, though; but what seemed odd about their "conversation" was that the gibberish they were directing at each other seemed, at least to my un-gibberish-trained ear, like a startlingly similar "dialect" of gibberish. The hostilities, while they never actually became violent, were becoming more and more serious. I thought I was about to witness a full-on freak-fight. It almost seemed too surreal to be a spontaneous occurrence. Yet, somehow, the participants seemed far too experienced to be acting, which ruled out some sort of performance art. At this point I was waffling between feeling rather concerned and furiously thinking about how I could set my camera up in such a way that it wouldn't be noticed but could still take good video of the event. A few moments later, though, the tensions settled, and the first man got off the train. Of course, the second guy stuck around for a little longer, randomly "witnessing" the Gospel of Jesuswocky at random passengers. Fortunately, I apparently didn't give off enough of an air of heathen such that I was ever the target of the man's proselytizing. Not once, though, did I ever hear the man speak a coherent word of English. Eventually he got off, and as we sped away from Five Points station I could see him standing on the platform, facing into the flow of people, looking like a run-of-the-mill street preacher, and spewing the... um, "word"... of Jesus to the teeming masses. As I write this, safe in my triple-locked hotel room, the Fox Theatre across the street has apparently just let out, and there's a team of idiots on speedbikes, bouncing each of their whiny engines off of their respective rev-limiters. The crowd of people departing the theatre is making a commotion that registers in dangerously close to my brain as "riot". I don't remember Atlanta being this scary when I was here a year ago... Current Mood: sleepy Current Music: Teeming masses (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 8th, 2004
8:20 pm	Instant punditry Bush looks like he's about to flip out and kill some (more) people. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 6th, 2004
5:17 pm	Retracted. There used to be a post here about a certain person and their efforts to censor someone for an innocent comment. He still hates free speech, but there's not much point fighting LJ over it. I doubt they appreciate having to deal with said person's whining any more than I do. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 29th, 2004
6:52 pm	Random. Is it bad that I've been considering a career change lately? (19 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 15th, 2004
4:31 am	Taking a break from limits & derivatives There are a select few songs in this world that I'd love to just put on repeat and listen to over-and-over for hours, but I'm reluctant to because I dread the thought of getting tired of them. "A Simple Game" by The Moody Blues is one, as is "Don't Change Your Plans" by Ben Folds Five. "Slow Graffiti" by Belle & Sebastian is turning into another one for me. I know I'm not the only one out there who's weird like this. What are some songs that are like this for you all? Current Mood: tired Current Music: Belle & Sebastian - Slow Graffiti (14 Comments |Comment on this)