Caoine

today

boo! it's my favorite holiday, and i'm celebrating. my plans for tonight are still kind of up in the air, but right now it's looking like i'm going to end up at the limelight for the zenwarp party. yay!

last night i went to go see the nightmare before christmas at the union square theatre with rich; i'd never seen it on the big screen before, and the sound was amazing compared to my crappy tv speakers [surprise surprise]. i also picked up a gorgeous jack skellington doll at forbidden planet - i've been lusting after it for weeks and i finally gave in. he's sitting on my speakers at home now, next to my gargoyle. i'll take some pictures soon, maybe.

my falls from sinnocence arrived today - or actually, i don't know when they arrived, but my downstairs neighbor gave them to me today. the box was open - the mail thieves have struck again, apparently. looks like i'll be having everything sent to work from now on. the falls themselves are gorgeous - it's just a pain that i almost didn't get them. i'm going to wear them tonight, though. they're absolutely beautiful. the base is very high quality black synthetic hair, with black braids and green and silver streaks. then there's also green ribbon and green plastic lacing - it's all very blacklight reactive, heh. fake hair is so much fun.

halloween fun: brains4zombies is a lifesaver if you happen to be a hungry zombie or even a human with a taste for greymatter. if you're wondering where i got those pumpkin icons in the desktop snapshot above, head on over to the iconfactory, where they've got a whole pile of halloween goodness for you. speaking of desktop snapshots, here's another one from my machine at work that i just took. i dig the pumpkin thing, can you tell? heehee. anyway! off to work for me now. happy halloween!

today

you know, i'll be the first to say i'd rather have cold weather than hot, but this is a little ridiculous - it's the end of october and it feels like january. i've had to dig out all my warmest clothes and my big ugly winter coat and at some point soon i really need to buy a scarf and gloves. a new coat wouldn't hurt, either. as i say, i infinitely prefer winter to summer but that's not the point - i feel like i got cheated in terms of autumn. is this a new york thing that i don't remember from last year, this early cold weather? or is this year colder than usual? give me back the fall, dammit! it's not even thanksgiving yet, it's not allowed to snow.

i'm working on the new version of caoine. this will be version nine, if i remember correctly. if you've got suggestions or ideas or scathing criticism of this version that i simply must take into account for the next incarnation, now would be the time to let me know, because the more it starts to come together the less likely i am to start over.

my apartment still smells entirely delectable as a result of yesterday's jack-o-lantern adventures - singed pumpkin and orange-blossom candles are an interesting but not at all unpleasant combination.

i wish the weekend had lasted a little longer - i know, i know. what else is new, right? but dammit, it's as though no sooner am i stretching luxuriously in my saturday morning stupor than it's late sunday night [or indeed early monday morning!] and i'm scrambling to finish a tangle of little tasks and still allow myself enough sleep so as to make consciousness on monday at least slightly preferable to chewing glass. i suppose part of it is that i essentially live from weekend to weekend, given that my current work schedule doesn't allow much in the way of - well, anything other than work, really. however, i'm going to stop my bitching now because it could most assuredly be and of course has in the past been significantly worse.

hey! i want you all to go check out elucidate.org, the home of the hepkitten. though i found myself reaching for my sunglasses as i read, hep's site rocks almost as hard as hep does herself [which is significantly hard, the rocking is!].

speaking of domains, i just bought my fourth - villainous.org. it was very much an impulse buy, i admit, but really how could i possibly pass that name up under any circumstances once i discovered its availability? either way, the challenge now is to decide what the hell i'm going to do with it. i haven't even finished disintegrate.org, as some of you are so enthusiastic about reminding me, much less had time to think of an entirely new site idea. this is where you come in: unleash the web-related creativity that i know lurks within your hearts and mail me your suggestions!

you know, it's been quite a while since i've posted any new pictures. "we know, emma, we know! whassup wit dat shit yo?" well, i've mentioned before that the digi was having issues [you can't see, but i just made those little quotey marks with my fingers] and i've only recently managed to resuscitate it. that's only part of the story, however - i am, admittedly, getting a little frustrated with the quality of image it produces. my longing for decent print photography is like a fire in my breast, it's true. until i manage to fulfill this need, however, i offer up this dorky shot!

today

what a delicious weekend. you may or may not have noticed that i didn't update yesterday - either way. so i didn't, in fact, update yesterday and i'm completely unrepentant. defiant, even! rar!

so yesterday i scurried into manhattan and met up with spencer at work, where we ordered breakfast and worked on various projects while munching on our omelettes. we spent most of the afternoon playing quake and catching up on work [or, in my case, deliberately not working]. around nine we eyeliner-ized and and generally spiffed up, and headed over to the knitting factory to see rasputina, who are quite possibly the bestest band ever. the wretched ensemble that opened for them put on a rather tortuous set, but it was well worth it - the 'tina themselves were absolutely exquisite. melora is one of the most beautiful people i've ever seen, and her voice only improves during a live show. so the show was fabulous, and i headed homeward when it was done as i was a little sleepy. there were a couple of girls who'd also been at the show on the train with me so we oo'ed and aaah'ed and generally compared notes for a while until we got off at our respective stops.

when i got home i took a long bath and got comfy and read for a while. spoke to tycho at some absurdly late hour, then headed off to bed. this morning, i got all dressed up in my warmest gothy clothes and went to washington square park for a pumpkin carving gathering arranged by some of the people on the nycgoth mailing list. it was a little chilly - okay, it was very chilly - but it was too much fun. my pumpkin is adorable - i'll try to get some pictures up - and some of the other ones created were simply not to be believed. shea brought these cupcakes with little bat and spider sprinkles and other such cuteness, while someone else handed out plastic skulls full of halloween candy. i mean, come on. it doesn't get much better than that. so we carved and pruned and scooped until our hands were numb and our jack o'lanterns grinning, then all of us trooped over to cafe reggio for munchies and hot beverages. yay.

so right now my aparment is lit by my pumpkin and my various candles, and i'm half-watching the nightmare before christmas. i'm in such a good mood - i love this time of year, in case you couldn't tell. i even cleaned up the apartment so it's not such a pit, and right now it smells like slightly burnt pumpkin and the orange candles i have burning. delish.

i don't have a heap of links today, i'm afraid, and i'm just not going to go gather them up, so you'll have to wait till tomorrow. poor you.

today

what i want to know is how i managed to escape the horrific hangover that i was absolutely certain would result from wednesday night's inebriation. i want to know so as to repeat the process in the future, of course. even as i slowly sobered up over the course of yesterday morning, the worst that happened was that i was forced to work in a fully alert state [as opposed to that glorious blurry cheerfulness that comes with my favorite form of altered consciousness].

hey, remember yesterday when i mentioned the penny arcade halloween special shortly to be seen at gamespy? well, it's up, and it's absolutely delectable.

allow me, if you will, a brief moment to bitch. every morning i go to the store next to my office and get one of those little individual-serving cartons of orange juice and a luna bar - that's my breakfast. so far so good. except that sometimes, there's this one clerk there who never gives me a straw for the fucking orange juice. come on! there's a big thing of straws right next to the register, and there's a little straw-hole in the god damn juice carton - this is not something that requires a particularly deft leap in deductive logic! and so then of course by the time i get back to the office and realize the fucker was negligent in his straw-dispensing duties, it's too close to nine for me to head back over there and, for example, open up a can of whoop-ass. hence my fury, you see. i mean, honestly.

so tycho's been coming up with a daily dark monkier for me, a task to which he's uniquely suited given his extreme linguaphiliac tendencies. i've pointed out a couple of these etymological gems here and there, but be assured these instances only scratch the surface, as it were. but so yesterday we were thinking that his challenge would be greatly simplified with a database and a little programming, and this in turn reminded me of wuname, which essentially does exactly that, except that it does so for an entirely different genre of nomenclature. slightly lesser-known but equally entertaining is the glam name generator. now, i could have sworn that i've seen a gothic version of this, but an exhuastive search on google yielded only dead links. does anyone else remember the page i'm talking about and, more importantly, have a link to it that they wouldn't mind tossing my way?

i was reading the guestbook this morning and - what's this? marilyn, you're dressing up as me for halloween? this is something i absolutely demand to see pictures of, my dear.

speaking of pictures, i've taken some more now that i've managed to reanimate the digi. i left them happily downloading from the camera while i went off to work this morning, so with any luck my arrival at the odd-abode this evening will be greeted with the presence of some fresh and potentially piping hot new images.

today

so last night, spencer and i went to the globix fall internet world 2000 party, a massively swank event for which the company in question snagged an equally swank space: espn zone in times square. can you say open bar? i thought you could. what about four floors of free gaming and absurd snacks? yeah, me too. what happened was that a friend of spencer's who used to consult at our company sent some guest passes our way, so even though spencer and i specifically have no connection to globix we were nonetheless in the hizouse, so to speak.

i'm just going to get this out of the way right now: i got very, very drunk. and i'm sure that my hangover this morning would be about equally proportioned, except that i don't think i've stopped being drunk yet. woo! inebriated coding, here i come!

you know, it occurs to me that i've been shamefully neglectful in my pre-halloween linking festivities. i don't know if i can ever fully make amends to all of you for that, but i'd like to try to begin the reparative process, if i may: i'm not sure when it's going up, but tycho and gabe have been working on a penny arade halloween special which is looking mighty cool. keep an eye on this page at gamespy, as i'm sure it will appear in the near future. wow - i just went to gothic.net to look for a link i saw there a few weeks ago, and i see that it's been fabulously redesigned. nice work, darren and chad. the link that i was looking for is actually one concerning martha stewart: go look at this and i promise you'll giggle. did i ever think martha would bear any resemblance to siouxsie? no, i can't say that i did but i can say that it's mighty funny. oddly enough, there's also lots of halloweeny-goodness on the ben & jerry's site; specifically, it's here. i myself have yet to figure out what i'm doing on that illustrious tuesday, but i want to know your plans - tell me about them in the guestbook, won't you?

one thing i'm toying with is maybe redesigning the site. yes, again. i've just got an image that i want to work with and see how it plays out. will you miss this design if it goes the way of all the others with only such a short stint in the limelight? also, what are our feelings on frames? for this version i made a point of getting rid of all the frames [which i think is funny, considering some of my past designs], but the version i've started on would include at least one frameset. i could conceivably nix the frames and have some sort of elaborate dhtml scrolley thing that mimics frames, but i tend to find such things really crashy and potentially even more annoying than frames. so, talk to me. feedback can go in the guestbook as well, i suppose. hey, there's a thought - maybe i should revive the message board i had here about a year ago.

today

i know i touched on this topic yesterday, but i just can't help myself: my heart is all a-flutter whenever i so much as think about the new g4 i'm buying. so i'd like, if i may, to talk hardware for just a moment - a mac minute, even. i briefly considered going for the new cube, but decided against it, adorable though it is. i do appreciate apple's persistent sense of style, but when it comes down to it, the case is not something i really give a flying fuck about - certainly not something i'd compromise the quality of my machine over.

a few of you have mailed concerned inquiries as to the fate of banshee - the imac formerly known as ingrid - and i just want to assure you that she will live on in the emma household, though no longer the shining star in my personal computing sky. i intend to keep her around as long as she lasts, if only to test out other operating systems on: the mac os x public beta will most likely be her first assignment, as i'm not about to try a beta operating system on my primary machine but i'm dying to see os x in action. once the novelty in that has worn off, or os x has a stable release i'm willing to put on the new machine, i want to see how banshee works with yellow dog linux, something spencer has expressed curiosity about as well. i'm sure i can think of plenty of uses for her while her hardware is still spry and fiesty, and even once it's not, there will definitely be something for her to do.

speaking of os x, that's another thing that's really got me wriggling in anticipation. i've seen screenshots and more screenshots, but i know i won't be satisfied till i can try it out myself. if you haven't heard about os x [that's a ten, by the way, not an x] i suggest you catch the fuck up, because this looks to be really cool.

more good news: despite yesterday's dire predictions, i believe i've brought my digi back from the dead. go me! so i'm no longer looking for the moment at getting a new digital camera, although the webcam idea is, i admit, still scurrying through my thoughts. i mean, they are pretty cheap. however, it all depends how much the g4 ends up costing me, really.

today

i'm having one of those weeks where it seems that there literally aren't enough hours in they day. the ratio of things i want to do versus time i have to do them in is just not at all favorable at the moment, and you can just forget the idea of sleep because unconsciousness is the least demanding of the demands upon those precious few hours between workdays. i need a vacation in the worst way, and it's not even that i want to go travel or something - i just need the time. that is quite possibly the aspect of being in college that i'm most nostalgic for - the absurd quantity of free time. at nyu, none of my classes started before ten and for one semester i actually managed to secure a schedule which offered me four day weekends. and with regard to the winter and summer breaks: baby, don't let me commence.

so to be perfectly honest, my mood this morning is less than stellar. i got bitched out by my boss immediately upon arrival, and i forgot to bring a check with me today that i needed to deposit during my lunch hour. i can feel the edges of one of those really monstrous headaches sort of creeping up on me, as well. however, i'm doing my best to take comfort in the soothing presence of my morning orange juice.

one thing that never fails to cheer me up: new hardware. i've mentioned before, if memory serves, that i'm about to purchase a new computer. it's not that i dislike banshee, exactly, but it's getting to the point where she's just undeniably obselete. she's still functional to a certain degree, so i'll probably either keep her around to test things on, or see if i can sell her for some sort of meager profit. wanna see what will be replacing her, though? i knew you did. i'm getting one of these beauties right here, and i've been tweaking the customization for days. dual processors are calling to me like the foul temptresses that they are, but that's a bit pricey. as for ram, i need a minimum of 256 mb, and that's probably what i'll go with, especially as it's not as if i can't add more later [i understand it'll take a gig and a half, all told]. a 30 or 40 gig hard drive'll do me fine, and as for graphics acceleration, tycho's convinced me to go for the radeon. i don't know about you, but i'm drooling already.

i'm also looking at digital cameras and/or webcams. i think my current pet digi might be on its last little battery-powered legs, which is sad but not unexpected. in terms of its replacement, it's a matter of going for something cheap like a webcam which i can use till i can afford a spanky-to-the-extreme new digital camera, or just wait and save for the camera. what with the new machine and everything, it's going to be a while before i'll have the option of shelling out several hundred dollars for another gadget, so i'm thinking i might make do in the meantime with a relatively inexpensive webcam, like maybe the logitech quickcam pro [even if whoever's responsible for that page needs to learn a little more about the capabilities of the <title> tag].

well, i don't know about you, but i feel better already.

today

so yesterday i didn't really do anything that i'd call leaving the house except for a brief scurry to the deli for a veggie sub. and i have to say, that whole not-doing-anything was just deliciously relaxing. because you know how exhausting quake can be, right?

if you have somehow neglected to do so already, i suggest rather emphatically that you go read the tycho's newspost today. it's the kind of humor that you just don't see every day. and maybe that's for the best - he is a bit liberal with the dark monikers, heehee. and speaking of tycho - it's nice to see that someone understands orange juice like i do. kids these days - no love for the oj, i'm telling you.

i'm still kind of groggy this morning. i suppose it's a function of it being monday and all, but i really wouldn't mind being just a little closer to conscious. spencer went and got me sick, too, or so it seems - the Throat of Doom approacheth.

i have no idea who makes the first pot of coffee here in the morning, from which i pour that oh-so-essential immediate cup when i arrive, but i'm starting to wonder why he/she bothers. this stuff is so watery and weak that it can't really be called coffee - more like a coffee-flavored beverage. the substance that i am consuming now is to coffee as yoohoo is to a chocolate milkshake. you see where i'm headed with this? i'm implying that there's someone in my building who's either a caffeine wuss or is just really inept in the coffee-making set of skills.

oh, and for those of you for whom my cdnow debacle burns within your hearts: take comfort. after a rather heated exchange, they've agreed to mail me a replacement order, which i've just received shipping confirmation on. now it's just a matter of it arriving at my house without someone stealing it out of my mailbox. i love brooklyn, i do. wait - no i don't.

so a lot of people came here yesterday from penny arcade. and i didn't get any hate mail, so i'm hoping you weren't disappointed. for those of you who like to get your quake on as much as myself, i mention again [horse. dead. beating. woo!] that spencer runs a quake server where i'm frequently to be found sometime after 6 pm est. it's quake.peepshow.com, or 216.213.36.210 if you prefer that whole ip thing. i am right now making that difficult transition from being a keyboard-only player to making use of a keyboard-and-mouse combination, so my reflexes have gone all haywire - come take advantage of it [as tycho and spencer have so successfully done] and kick my ass!

goth comics. you know you love them. gloom county will touch a soft spot in the heart of those who remember opus, while growing up goth is a creation i discovered only recently, but am very glad that i did. angst boy: you have to love it, if only for the name alone. the gothik girls, or as meninas gothikas are what happens when someone goths the fuck out of the powerpuff girls and then translates the result from portugese into english. in terms of print comics, as in comic books, you know slave labor graphics got it goin' on: jhonen vasquez writes material with a certain goth appeal, intentionally or not, but you've probably already heard of both johnny the homicidal maniac and i feel sick. roman dirge's lenore is another perennial favorite, while gloomcookie is a fiesty relative newcomer to the slg scene. last but certainly not least is the multitalented voltaire, with his adored oh my goth! series, a second incarnation of which is underway right now. good lord, this linkage is outta control.

today

so yeah, it's six thirty seven ante meridian. wondering what the hell i'm doing writing the journal entry at the [for lack of a better term] asscrack of dawn? i'll tell you: i've been up all frigging night. yes, it's true. and for no good reason either! woo!

i decided to forego the joys of the cruxshadows last night, for no reason other than my own laziness and the vague intention of saving some money, as both halloween and the rasputina show are approaching rapidly. so instead i spent the afternoon in another gorey bloodfest - spencer, tycho, and a bunch of bots and i played a hell of a lot of quake. i've now got that nifty thing going where i close my eyes and see pixelated grenades flying at my head.

on the way home i experienced yet another instance of that phenomenon which frequently makes me miss or nearly-miss my stop: every time i get into some sort of vehicle of transportation, be it subway or cab or plane or what have you, i fall immediately and deeply asleep. the advantage to this is that i get to squeeze in another forty minutes or so of blissful unconsciousness on my way to work in the morning, but the downsides end up outweighing this perk, i think: i have to try to sleep with a hand on each pocket and i frequently wake up in the wrong borough.

anyway, i arrived at my abode and spent a little time gettin' my geek on. spoke to tycho for a while, and somehow it's nearly seven am and i'm still awake. it's all good, though - i have today in its entirety to enjoy the comforts of my pj's if i so desire. which is fortunate, because i'm starting to feel like i'm getting sick. i think i caught it from spencer, the bastard. i mean that in the nicest possible way, of course.

now, i know i've linked the bejeezus out of thinkgeek [and rightly so], but it occurs to me i've uttered nary a peep concerning copyleft, which is by no means undeserving of such inattention. if they had this in black, you know i'd already have one. ditto for this appealing garment: i have to admit i giggled when i saw it. for something more in the opiniony-writing vein, check this out; i haven't even gone through the whole thing myself, it's true, but what i've seen looks promising. ditto for this fine sepcimen of web: i read it sporadically, and though i'm not exactly a devoted fan i think it's entertaining.

anyway. i can feel the coherence just trickling away even as i type, so i think i might be off to bed at this point. who knows, though? who really knows?

today

i just have to say, it's all about saturdays. and friday evenings. definitely by far my favorite time in the week. yesterday afternoon was the usual friday quake frenzy, with tycho joining us this week in addition to the bots and the sys admins. incidentally, i've mentioned this before, but i'm going to do so again - our quake server is open to the public, and i encourage you all to come and kick my ass. you can use either quake.peepshow.com or heroin.peepshow.com, or if you're really 1337, the ip is 216.213.36.210.

so i wandered homeward around nine and read for a bit. i don't know what time i fell asleep, but i ended up wide awake at three am, so i fucked around on the web for a bit and went back to sleep around six. despite all that, i actually feel really rested for the first time since last weekend.

the question now becomes what the hell am i doing tonight? the crüxshadows are playing at downtime, so i may end up there, although it being the day of show and everything i'm sure i'll get charged literally up the ass. there's also zenwarp, too, which i enjoyed last time. maybe i'll go clubhopping. i suppose we'll see!

speaking of quake, check this out: it's an architectural group who have started using quake 2 to model their buildings, allowing their clients a better sense of their idea than simple groundplans. this cracks me up. love it. if you want something else to giggle at, albeit in a more gothy vein, have a peek at a list compiled from the "problems only goths have" thread on alt.gothic. teehee. some of these i know only too well - especially the bit about "boots, then corset." for something slightly less replete in the all-out hilarity department but which definitely makes up for it by sending a chill down my spine: the goth baby names list. goths? breeding? shudder.

i'll have some new pictures from the beborn beton show up later today or tomorrow, so keep an eye out. till then, ta.