Y2kk Update: I always feel so damn guilty after getting a phone call...

... no wonder she took back her number... but that's a story for a Y2kk Update, long time ago...

It's just that... last night, a close friend called me. And once again, I blabbed my mouth off to him. I never stop talking. I never stop yammering...

... I'm a yam... yam with ham... I'm a goddam yam sham... a shame of a sham...

... and the saddest part of it all, is that I had really nothing to say. Nothing of interest, anyhew... And if I was talking to anyone else? I wouldn't even had anything to say. I would just be dead silent, acting as the silent cartographer or the best listener in the world, or some crap like that...

But the tables seem to turn whenever I talk to him. He always listen to me, and not the other way around. So obviously, I'm the one who feels guilty when it's all said and done. Because it's never a good feeling, knowing you're the guy who dominants the conversation, when you're supposed to be a nice guy and all... And I feel bad about it each and every single time we chat. I mean, I enjoy our conversations. Hell, I even find them to be fine point, focal points in life... but I just feel so damn bad after each conversation we have, half out of guilt and half out of self loathing, that I just can't help but think it's ironic that I almost fear, that I almost dread the next conversation that I'll have with this close friend of mine...

But he never really gives a hint that I never ever stop yammering. That's why he's still a good friend, afterall these years... That's why I keep talking to him. That's why I keep yammering...

... now... if I only I could manage the same with all those other guys out there, who I still claim to be my friends...

... but I don't know... it's not like this friend and I talked about anything important about my life over the phone. It's just that...

... after three bloody hell, bleeding months on the sidelines, not knowing where I was going in school... not knowing how the hell I'm going to be able to find a job for myself next year... After three bloody hell months of this, I've finally started to stutter and shudder, and maybe shut the hell up, that simply put...

... well...

... I feel useless...

...

... back to the whole "useless, useless" crap of those Ulysses days of mine, now aren't I? But truth be told, I guess three months of sitting on your ass, not even writing writhing Y2kk reports, will eventually get to anyone's brain... And simply put, bold be bold, I'm starting to really wish I was making so-called "progress" in life. And I'm really starting to hate the fact that I'm becoming one of those goddam losers who only want to have some damn progress in their lives...

But what is progress?

Sadly, for me... I just want a job, not for social security, but for my own insecurity... I just want a girlfriend, you know? One that doesn't take back my phone number when I'm bloody hell trying to make a point to her, that her phone number is the only one I ever kept... And of course I want friends. Even knowing that the more people you know, the less people you feel you know, I still don't seem to care right now... I'm tired of being lonely. And I'm tired of always feeling alone, at the bottom of the goddam barrel of fish.

I want bragging rights, goddammit...

... welcome to the world...

It's just that... of course, I've got nothing... I'm moving onto my fourth and final year of university, and it's finally hitting me now... That where am I to go? Sure, I always originally wanted just a quaint little job in the suburbs, doing network administration or something that I can do with a degree and the simple push of a button... But what good is that in the end, you know? What is this of mine? A midlife crisis? Already?...

... again?...

What good is a job, what good is material happiness, if you have no-one and nowhere to share it with, right?... My friend over the phone reminded me, simply by being there for me, why I've been avoiding my university friends in the first place...

... because I miss them... and because I'm scared of them...

It's a double edged sword, of course. A fucking trenchant, if you will... And it's not something I feel I can dive headfirst in... I already sent quite a few of my friends e-mails in the past few days. And have I received any responses?... not yet, I'm afraid... not yet, at least... and I'm afraid that I won't. Not for quite a long time, at least... I mean, I was afraid that they're busy. But now not only are they busy with their new lives, but they're probably a bit afraid of me as well. That's what time and distance will always do to a guy... Proximity is the only thing that seems to matter in existence. By chance, perchance to dream... Only the eye of the beholder seems to count.

So what? What now? Get new friends? Cling onto the old ones like saran wrap, or however the hell you spell that kind of crap?... Progress is progress, and none of that is progress. That's called life... But progress? What the fuck is progress?

No-one can ever define it, without making someone else raise their hand in disgust... The thing is, I hate progress. I've always hated progress. Because it's never liked me... Have I ever made progress? As a person. Honestly. Have I ever made progress?

What is bloody hell progress?... Getting a girlfriend that will ditch me, as the first one, as the only one, as they will always end up doing?... What the hell is progress? Getting a six figure job, as if somehow having no time to yourself and all the support of the meaningless world hierarchy, could somehow equate to progress in the world?... crazy little world we live in...

The problem that I'm having is... Sure, I want to make progress... But in my eyes, wanting progress is a step backwards in progress... Wanting to be someone who wants to be someone, is just not what I call progress... I rather just call that me... I rather just call that the human condition... And what good is wanting progress then, if I don't really want it? I'm fucked up in the brain, right?...

I just feel like I'm swimming in circles right now, that's all... Three months into a dreary new existence, and only now have I opened suddenly my eyes wide shut to finally realize, that my school girl days are almost over... I only have one more year of university left. Can you believe that?... Barring an MBA or whatever else kind of hell I might go back to school for... and God forbid, knock on wood, I fail fourth year some bloody hell how... Barring any goddam circumstances that royally screwed me over in third year... then this truly will be my fourth and final year of university... In just one more year, it will my first time in my entire conscious existence... that I will be free... that I will have absolutely nothing to look forward to, nothing concrete at least, if only for a moment...

... free... for a moment... Is that progress? Or is that nothing?...

... it's normal... that's all I know...

And fear of the unknown... fear of the unicorn... It never really hit me near the end of high school, because I always knew that there would be more school. More focus. More irrelevence, you know?... And technically now, I know that I'm just going to have work after school, so there's really no difference between the two, right?... and yet, there definitely feels like a difference, more so than any failure last year lest remind me of this year... It definitely feels like I'm headed into uncharted waters, and black hearted territories that I simply don't know whether I actually want to explore or not...

Because you know, I've never really gone fishing without a net before...

And it's hitting me now... that in a sense... in a bit of sense and sensitivity... I already am on that goddam fishing trip crap vacation of mine, for the rest of my life at least... that's not so long, right?...

Because I've already seemingly lost my friends. My university friends at least... Sure, they'll eventually contact me back after those e-mails I sent. And sure, maybe some of these days, we'll get together and all have a laugh over their Pakistani pizzas... But truth be told, life is moving on. Progress is going on, whether I know it or not... The thing is, I am going on to my fourth and final year of university. And guess what? They're not... They're working... they're leaving... And still, of course, I'm jealous that they're working... jealous that they're making progress... progress that can be measured, at least... like a tin man cup...

... but what I finally realized while talking to my old high school friend on the phone the other night... what I finally realized I feared... was that in essence, university is over. For my university friends and I, together at least... I'm going onto fourth year. They're not. I may never be able to school with them again... I may never really become close friends with them again. Proximity is a bitch, you know...

... It's hard to believe I never saw it before... the Great Schism, I mean... of course, I saw it coming in high school... Who wouldn't envision and brace themselves for it a mile away, with graduation looming so close to the goddam deer leftover in the headlights?...

... but I never exactly saw this coming... that the second coming of the Great Schism already happened... that my friends will never really be close again, because literally, they will never be close again... We will never share notes again. We will never study in the same libraries together again. And they'll never beat my ass down in ping pong ever again... not until I force us to... and definitely not if the progress of having a job, changes them into the very people that I've always been afraid progress would do to me...

... progress is progress... progress is change...

... If change is progress, would it be progress to change the very meaning of progress?...

... please?...

... progress... What the bloody hell is progress anyways?...

... to me, it's simply the polar opposite of nostalgia...

... and I am Mr. No-Name nostalgia...

... and in this case? In this ceasefire? I don't know if opposites really attract or not...

... but I have been lately thinking of progress a lot...

... guess there's really nothing better to do, three months into a dreary summer vacation, you know...

ATI: Saw over at Rage3d that new Catalyst drivers were released for Windows ME and 98... I would say that version 4.7 would be a good omen for Doom 3, except it seems that without a mod, Doom 3 won't work on Windows 98 or ME kernels. Which kind of sucks, considering only ten geeks out there would ever bother trying to run a game like that on a rig with anything less than Windows 2000... But hey, a guy can dream can he? And a guy can be a hardcore geek at: http://mirror.ati.com/support/drivers/winme/radeonwdm-me.html.

ATI: Well, with Doom 3 just around the shop around the corner, I'm pretty sure that Far Cry (the only decent FPS since Call of Duty) will basically be scrapped to the benchmarking sidelines. But for now, with FarCry 1.2 being released, Firingsquad has fired away with more benchmarks, in preparation of everyone spending $500 US to get a $50 US game to work... Go Doom 3... And go Firingsquad at: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/far_cry_ps2.0b/default.asp.

ATI: Well, don't know what they talk about. But Anandtech has some new details up about the upcoming ATI RS400 chipset... I wish I cared about video cards still, but with no job? Hey, I'll stick to just buying dirt cheap consoles in comparison, not at: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2134.

ATI: Well, if you care for the up and coming Broca or Brocolli Divide between PCI Express and old skool AGP slots, then you might want to check out the comparison over at Tweaktown. Don't know what they say, but once I get a job, I suppose a look at a new mobo might be in order at: http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=article&dId=675.

Y2kk Update: Well, ain't that something?...

... something out of nothing, at least...

Almost an entire month has gone by. Almost an entire friggin' month... And all I've done is sit on my ass at home and whine about nothing at all? I mean, an entire damn month has gone by, and I haven't even updated this download site of mine, not even once... Because the real problem has been, absolutely nothing of consequence has happened in my life. Absolutely nothing to whine about, save for all the cussing and complaining I've been doing on my noname website...

Basically, I gave up on the job search. I had grand hopes for this year, you know. Or this summer at least... I expected to be able to get a PEY co-op job. And when I didn't even get one goddam interview, I expected that I would be given just something, just anything at the government offices over here or some crap like that... And at least those folks actually called me back, only to tell me that all the positions that they would've wanted me for were already taken...

Well, if those positions were already filled, why the fuck are they still listed on the goddam employment website?...

... bah... waste of time...

I had grand hopes of getting actual experience for the first time in my life... and I had even grander schemes of actually being able to pay for all the movies and video games coming out these summer months. But the truth of the matter is, even with all my goddam schooling and so-called smarts, I just didn't have the goddam nerve or initiative to get a goddam job in time. By the time I really poured the effort on, it was already too late, and I paid for it with a) my pride, and b) my cash... Because I still paid for all those movies I wanted to see. I still bought at least half of the games I wanted to get these summer months. But I did so out of my own pockets with the money I've saved in bonds for years... Sure, I work for my parents. I'm planning to devote an entire Tweakui update to the fact I may be taking over the family business much sooner than later, if I don't get a bloody hell engineering job next summer at least... But the money my parents give me ain't the money that I really want to have in my pockets. I just wanted to feel somewhat equal to my university friends, that's all...

Yeah... my university friends... you can cut out the "friends" part of it, by this point at least...

The thing is, I guess it's more my fault that it is theirs... I mean, I never meant to cut off communication between us. At the time, I was overly depressed and pissed off (in my writing and phone tones, at least) that I had fucking failed a year of goddam university. And I was already ashamed of not even getting one damn interview for PEY co-op, so obviously mixing those two fine wines didn't produce exactly the finest of produce personalities... But the thing was, I never said that they shouldn't talk to me. I simply said they didn't need to worry about me, since I was fine and was going to be fine... I expected them to write me back, full of pity again... but since then? Since fucking then?...

... well, now... let's see here...

... one of my closest friends hasn't even responded to the last letter I sent him about bloody hell two months ago... another friend of mine won't even talk to me whenever he sees me online on MSN Messenger... yet another close friend of mine still talks to me, but never seems online to chat... And then there's my former partner from the fourth year engineering design project I have. He actually did call to check up on me the other day... and even though I knew that I was moving onto fourth year, I lied to him that I didn't yet know. I wasn't pissed at him, of course... I was just pissed at my overall group of friends that he was a part of. I know I really should e-mail them all at least, and I will - once I pick my courses for the upcoming year and confirm to them that I'm moving onto fourth year... but right now? I don't know...

... I guess we haven't really had any contact... because they're too busy with their new lives to bother with me... and because I was holding onto the goddam minuscule hope that maybe, just maybe, my marks and futures and fortunes would pick up at some goddam point or another...

... and if there ever was a point where my future didn't look so grim?... it was when I was informed that I would be moving onto my fourth and final year of university... at least I had that... I guess that's something... something from nothing, at least...

... but oh, what about all the nays and cons I still have lingering on the list?... I'm fucking unemployed. I'm fucking still living with my parents. I fucking don't have and never have had a girlfriend. And I fucking don't do anything for entertainment but sit in my bedroom and write goddam noname updates that nobody ever reads...

... I was at least hoping that my marks would improve over the summer, thanks to all those goddam exam rechecks I bloody hell paid for with the money out of own pockets... But I just got almost all of my remark results back in last week, and guess the hell bloody what?

How the fuck did I lose 10% in a course I thought I aced?

How the fuck did I lose 5% in almost every fucking course, no matter how hard I studied for the exams?

How the fuck could I have failed two courses, one of which I was goddam doing well in up until the goddam exams...

I still don't have a bloody hell Mary answer to any of the above...

... all I know is, that according to my professors (whom I even begged for mercy on the internet), that my marks are exactly the way they should be... that I really did as bad as the goddam website is telling me... I don't know how, or why, or how bloody hell it could be... But somehow, just somehow, I failed almost each and every single one of my exams to the point where I didn't even know I was doing anything wrong in the goddam first place...

... talk about delusional... both about myself, and my goddam professors...

Did I write my name down wrong or something? My student number?... on all six of my exams?... who bloody hell knows...

... all I know, is that when I eventually do write back to my friends, I'll have absolutely nothing positive to write to them about. And I can't even guarantee they'd give enough of a damn to finally contact me back after all these months... it'll feel so awkward, you know?... like old friends catching up, without the "friends" part of it all anymore, of course...

But at least it'll be something... something from nothing... and maybe something to actually write about on this goddam website for once...

Y2kk Update: Well, I did it.

I finally did it...

... not that it means much or anything...

... it's not like I got laid...

... though I was on all fours...

... begging like some sort of, um, begging type of dog...

... I finally crawled over the finish line...

Because even with my horrendous marks, thank God I'm moving onto fourth year of university...

...

I went back to my university last week, after the goddam exam committee turned down my goddam medical petition. I mean, my marks haven't changed worth a dime since I failed my exams with bloody hell twenty percents somehow. And goddammit, I still don't know just how I could've done so damn badly... I thought I was actually improving this year. Next year, somebody please kick me in the pills whenever I'm feeling cocky...

But thank God for my clean record... For the past two and a half years of university, I've scrapped by the system, just barely getting the minimum marks needed to pass without getting a goddam permanent blotch on my goddam record. And solely because of that one damn fact, my school is letting me move onto fourth year, even after failing more courses that the rule book allows...

... the only problem?

Well... my fourth year... it won't be my last...

... because unless a miracle happens and my appeal for the medical petition decision to be overturned goes through, I'm going to be going into fourth year with two goddam failed courses in one term. Which means what?... Which means that there's no way in hell that I can finish every damn course that I have to finish in a single year... I'm still half hoping that the engineering counselor can make an exception for me though. The rule book says I can only have a max of six courses in a single term, which means I can't do the two I failed along with the five I need all at once. And with the courses I need not supplied in the first term or goddam summer school, that pretty means I'm getting fucked in the end. And that pretty damn means that I won't be graduating from goddam engineering any time soon...

... there is another problem too, of course...

... my goddam design project...

I've already mentioned that I'm in goddam hot water over the situation with my partners right now, right? Half of my friends in university either got co-op and will be gone for the next year, and the other half of my friends managed to fail the year... and of course, because of my incompetence, my only sole remaining project partner decided to ditch me for some dirty blonde... so simply put, short story short, I really have no hope of ever finding a group of people to team up with for the fourth year design project. I either get randomized into a group that will undoubtedly hate me, or I simply take my chances and try to tackle an entire design project myself...

... pff... yeah, right... I think I'd rather take my chances in a Dodgeball tournament...

... but... there is one last choice that I may be willing to make...

I admit that I'd rather finish university this goddam year, rather than drag on my goddam education for two more years. Because especially after this fascist fiasco of a term, I can finally conclude that the University of Toronto has done what I once deemed the absolute impossible: this university has somehow managed to make me hate school even more than I do the real world... because I suppose this is the real world now, goddammit... and it sucks just as much as any goddam reality TV show...

... but even if I want to get out of goddam school as soon as possible, what are the fucking chances of me actually passing a term with seven goddam courses, all of which I'd be absolutely clueless in as always?...

... so I'm thinking of proposing this to my counselor... That I take all my regular courses now, and simply wait until next year to do my design project once my friends return from co-op internships... Now, there are obviously holes in this plan... a) my friends will hate me by then, considering they've basically stopped talking to me over the summer already... b) they'll probably resent me even more, considering I'm sure none of them want a lazy ass motherfucking idiot like me in their groups... and c) it'll be really awkward to work with people who actually have real world experience with this shit... hell, they'll probably all think they're the shit when they come back, while I'll be nothing more than a goddam pile of shit in their eyes...

... because I'm already all that in my own eyes, at least...

... but on the bright side? If I steer the above course, I'll be formally done my schooling at least... the design project isn't really a course, although it takes up the entire spot of one on the ol' schedule... Having only the design project in my 'fifth' year, so to speak, would actually give me the time and opportunity to get a goddam job for once on the side (which I completely and utterly failed to do this summer around, truth be sadly told...). And it's also almost too late for me to even be randomized into a design project team at this point - all the smart people at least wanted to spend the summer getting ahead of the project since they really had nothing better to do...

... so what am I to do?...

... I'm not sure right now... and quite frankly? Even though my situation still stinks a horses' ass, I really don't give much of a damn about it.

Because goddammit, I made it...

... I may be lacking a girlfriend, a voice, a friend, a brain, a penis, and perhaps most impotently and importantly, my pride...

... but goddammit, I still made it...

I may have barely crawled over the finish line after taking too many goddam shots in the mouth, but goddammit, I made it...

I went to this University of Toronto engineering school for a challenge. That has always been my goal, even since I was a little child...

... and, well...

... yeah, I know... I sure was a dumbass...

... but if I just get that goddam worthless iron ring, it'll be all worth it...

ATI: ATI has released a new Multimedia Center Update. I don't know what version 9.1 does exactly, but go ahead and find out with the Windows XP version at: http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/winxp/radeonopt-xp.html?.

ATI: Well, it's not much news, but Driverheaven has a review up for the X800XT PCIe... Now, I'm not normally the guy who cares for video card reviews anymore, considering I'd rather buy a room full of Xboxes than waste my cash on a video card that'll be outdated in a week. But PCIe does interest me, so go ahead and jump on the not so revolutionary train at: http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/R423/index.htm.