Linkstew

One year ago, the death of the Dreamcast was announced. I was very fond of that little white box, and that was a very sad day. At the time, I said that there were still a number of upcoming Dreamcast games that I was looking forward to playing. I was looking forward to Crazy Taxi 2, and Sonic Adventure 2, and Shenmue 2, and Phantasy Star Online.

But I never bought Crazy Taxi 2, because they removed the two player mode. (Though admittedly, my roommate picked up Crazy Taxi 2 on clearance from Toys R Us last week, but more on that some other time.)

I never bought Sonic Adventure 2, because it was announced as Gamecube bound.

I never bought Shenmue 2, because sadly it became an Xbox exclusive in North America, and I didn't get a chance.

And I never bought Phantasy Star Online, because I kind of lost interest in it.

In fact, I didn't buy a single Dreamcast game once its death was announced. I actually feel kind of guilty about abandoning the poor little fellow. It's not that I ever stopped liking it, it's just that the circumstances changed. Though I didn't buy any new Dreamcast games, my little white box got at least as much play as my even-deader N64.

So it goes.

Whew, I guess it's a good thing I wasn't taking the train home to Bakersfield Yesterday. Thankfully, the train didn't derail, because that's when things tend to get really messy.

I left my office and walked down Bancroft, on my way to see Rush Hour 2 with my roommate. "Hopefully Spud Brothers will reopen before school starts," I mused. "I'd really like a potato." But when I passed Spud Brothers, a sign in the window caught my eye.

"Asuka's Donburi House Coming (very) Soon"

Oh, that's not right! It would seem that Spud Brothers is gone, leaving behind countless fans of their work. Students will return in a week or two, and when they go to get a potato, they won't find the store they were hoping for. And worse, thousands of freshman will be deprived of the spud brothers part of the Berkeley Experience.

I really dislike my apartment's stove. It's the primary thing I don't like about my apartment, actually.

What's to dislike about my stove? First of all, it's just old. It's so old, that the pans under the burners are completely corroded -- there are actually holes through them, and it's impossible to clean them because there's no "surface" to get to anymore -- I could just keep scraping away the corrosion until I scraped right through the pan. I think it's older than I am.

Second of all, two of the burners stopped working last month, leaving me with only the two that have always heated up slowly. Which is irritating, but not a show-stopper (nor a shower-stopper, which is a typo I just made. And in this context I thought it was an amusing enough typo to share).

And finally, the oven is completely unreliable. The dial doesn't turn proportionately to the numbers printed on it, meaning that 325 isn't 325 -- and it's hard to tell what 325 might actually be. Worse, once you get it on and where you think you want it to be, it doesn't want to turn off. You have to jiggle the dial until it shuts off, which usually ends up with the indicator on the dial not pointing at off. Right now, for example, "off" is 300 degrees. And finally, there's the irritating point that the oven doesn't shut tight, and one of the hinges is practically completely broken.

But not even all of that gave me enough impetus to call my apartment manager. Sure, I couldn't bake stuff, and slow heating burners were kind of irritating -- but I had two burners, and that's the most that I ever use at a time. So I could make due.

But against my ardent recommendations, my roommate Michael decided he wanted to cook a pizza on Tuesday night. And cook it he did. It cooked a lot, thanks to the part where what the dial indicated had nothing to do with how hot the oven actually thought it was supposed to be. And apparently the oven thought it was much hotter than the dial suggested it should be.

And the smell of burnt pizza, which left my eyes watering for hours -- that's what got me to call my apartment manager on Wednesday morning, and I made an appointment and had him come look at the stove this morning.

But amusingly (and scarily), on Wednesday night, my stove went even more insane. I was putting around my apartment, and I passed the stove, and hey, that things hot! What the? The oven and the burners, and even the burners which hadn't worked in months were all pretty warm (to a degree that wouldn't have been sustained if there wasn't current actively passing through them), despite the fact that all the dials were "off". And my roommate had cooked his dinner hours ago, and only used one of the burners.

This concerned me. So I immediately began plotting how I could stay up late, keeping an eye on the stove, and then right before I went to bed flip off the circuit to the kitchen, and then get up early and turn it back on to keep my refrigerator from defrosting too much... But luckily, I was saved from such nasty scenarios by noticing that the "range" was on an entirely separate circuit than everything else in my apartment.

So I flipped the switch and went to bed.

But this kind of leaves me wondering: Was it all a very strange coincidence that the stove went so crazy the night before I was to have it looked at? Or tired of it's long life, was it trying to add fuel to my argument for getting a replacement, in search of a release from it's mortal coil? I hope I never know.

I don't care why it happened, all I care about is that I'm getting a replacement stove! Which means I'll finally have a working oven, which will double my range of cooking options, which makes me happy because I like cooking. And there was much rejoicing!

And a moment of silence, for a tired old stove going on to a better place. At the service, the apartment manager said of the stove "They sure got their money's worth out of this thing."

At this point, the story of Kaycee Nichole has been covered everywhere from CNN to the New York Times. I haven't seen anything this talked about on the web since November 7th, 2000. For those who don't have any clue what I'm talking about, I'll just link to this msnbc article, because I haven't been paying attention to this topic at all, so I actually have any useful links. I've just read what Kevin and Eve had to say about the situation. (Here are three more links about Kaycee that Eve sent me, if you want to dig deeper.) And today, with still more news on the subject being created, I finally spent a few minutes thinking about it, and this is what occured to me.

First, I'll describe how I understand the situation, because it'll help you understand where I'm coming from if I'm way off base. Girl with a terminal illness has an online journal, chronicling her fight. People read Girl's journal, feel happy when Girl gets better, feel sad when she gets worse. People are affected by Girl. Girl was an incredible optimist, who helped others see a little beauty around them. Girl dies. People around the net are very sad, but other people around the net are suspicious, and snoop around, and ask too many questions, and uncover that Girl did not exist, and as such, never died.

People believed in Kaycee as much as they believe in George W. Bush, though they'd never met her, and all they had to go on were some pictures and phone calls and a lot of meaningful words. Belief is an essential part of the world, as any avid Pratchett fan is well aware. People believed in Kaycee, and therefore, she existed, if not in reality then in the hearts and minds of readers around the world.

Kaycee existed, and Kaycee died, because people believed she did. I had never read her journal, but when I heard she died, I believed right along with everyone else. Apparently some people feel let down, having placed their belief in a fiction, and having cried for a fiction, and yet people willingly cry for books and movies all the daily.

And if you don't like that point of view, then look at it this way: People no longer believe in Kaycee, and without her belief, Kaycee is dead. Dead any way you look at it. And if she's dead any way you look at it, then being sad for her passing is a perfectly natural thing, even if the death was a metaphysical one.

The question, then, isn't one of whether or not she was real, but of the intentions of the deceiver. And as far as I can tell, everyone involved claims that no money or gifts were ever asked for. In this light, belief in Kaycee was an investment which didn't require anything other than the time to read her journal, and if her journal made the reader happy or sad, then it was time well spent. She didn't ask for any money to keep her "church" (web page) running, and she didn't ask for you to even believe in her. If you enjoyed reading what Kaycee had to say, and if she made you happy or sad, then your belief was well founded and the reward was free.

If people are this upset about the Kaycee situation, I'd love to see what'd happen if anyone ever proved The Bible to be fiction and showed a whole lot of people how ill-placed their belief was.

It seems to me that believing in Kaycee may have been an even better way to spend your belief than believing in some religious character.

I've driven the canyon a lot the past couple of weeks, and I've gotten fairly used to it... I've got some things I could comment on about canyon driving, but I'm not feeling up to it right now...

What I will mention is that the last time I went down the canyon, I followed a Casket truck almost the whole way. I found it funny, at least.

So apparently, on Sunday, my Grandmommy fell and injured herself, and has been in a wheelchair since. She has apparently refused to go to the doctor, though, so there's no knowing what's wrong with her. If something is broken, that'd be bad, but we'll see how that goes.

And my dad, who has been doing serious amounts of moving and lifting recently, is having operation on the 16th (at last check) because he has a triple hernia. That is, he has three hernia's. That can't be pleasant... He shouldn't have been doing all that lifting, but he didn't have much choice, as my brother wasn't able to be much of a help.

I'm sure they'll come through everything fine, though. I tend towards optimisim, under it all.

My Palm III is dead. Long live my Palm III.

During my EE42 midterm Wednesday, I had my Palm III in my pants pocket as usual, but as that grew uncomfortable I took it out and put it in my shirt pocket. And then, as the room grew warm from many bodies sweating over a test, I removed my flannel and placed it on the ground. When the test ended, I grabbed my things and made my way the aisle. And then my Palm III fell from the pocket of the flannel which I held in my hands and bounced down the stairs of 2 LeConte.

I grabbed it and stuffed it in my pocket, turned in my test, and wandered home. It wasn't until after I'd been home for about 30 minutes that I opened my Palm III to check on something that I discovered that the screen had been shattered. More than that, though, the whole thing was toasted, beyond hope of repair.

So I ordered a Palm V to replace it a few hours later. I found a place with a $100 discount, so it was cheaper even than the Visor. Also, I would have had to have waited almost 2 months to get a Visor, whereas my Palm V should be in RSN. This gives me plenty of time to break my Palm V before the supply of Visor's becomes better, though.

It's mildly amusing, though, that I expected my Palm III to have survived that fall. It's survived many other falls before, though, so I didn't give it much of a second thought at the time.

Probably the most ironic aspect of the whole incident was that, less then a week earlier, at Sachining, I had been discussing with Jedberg how well our Palm Pilots had held up over the years.

And then, of course, mine broke. Two days later, his just kinda died.