the diary of antoine roquentin

I got accepted to the school that I wanted to go to, William Paterson University.

So the next part of it is getting funding and all of that stuff. I think I’m in a pretty good position for that, since I only made $15,000 last year.

I finally got to show Kevin the site that I made for him, and he really liked it. I have to say, after not looking at it for a few weeks and seeing it fresh, I fell in love with it all over again.

That makes me feel like I really need to redesign my portfolio site. I don’t know what it is… designing things for other people I can get feedback on what they think works and what doesn’t… for my sites, I just get caught up in this feeling that what I make isn’t going to be avant-garde enough.

I’m very excited about going to see the show next week. This show is perfectly timed because I’m at my height of liking the band.

I’m also loving the start page I made… I ended up adding a whole bunch more websites to it, so I don’t forget to go to awesome websites like the onion that are only updated every week.

I’ve also been rediscovering podcasts. When I went through this phase about six months ago, I found to my dismay that most of my favorite podcasts weren’t being produced anymore or had been taken over in some way… like the guy and girl that used to do Rocketboom, the guy forced her out and then hired this bimbo that looked just like her to be sort of an imposter. I just couldn’t watch it after that. If he had gotten someone else I could have dealt with it… but there is no way that you can replace Amanda Congdon. I wonder if she’s doing any new video related projects.

She has some kind of weekly web thing, and apparently is developing a show for HBO. anyway, I’ve been watching This Week In Tech and Cranky Geeks with John C. Dvorak. also, I’ve been using Miro, the open source media center application, to keep up on Democracy Now and Bill Moyers Journal.

In a moment of supreme nostalgia, I even watched DiggNation for a minute. Oh my god, Kevin Rose has gotten old. I feel like Kevin Rose has squandered his indie cred by making asstons of money and not actually following through with all of his philosophizing about Digg being a way for users to decide what stories get on the front page.

There’s all this talk around the world about filtered Internet. I always thought that the Internet was going to free people from censorship and Big Media, but it turns out that we just keep repeating the same script in new communication mediums.

I’m very low on cash, and as I look at my hundred dollar neural impulse actuator, I’m feeling a little bit of gadget guilt, but the point was to buy this before Diablo III actually comes out, so I can play it immediately.

My goal for the afternoon: finish the book jacket for 2008, make a convincing sketch for the redesign of my portfolio site.

So apparently I’m getting like $800 back on my taxes. I’m not sure what the heck to get. I really want some kind of mobile computing device. I mean, I have my laptop which is kind of portable but not really because it’s too heavy for me to carry with my back problems and I have no car so it has to be on my back all day long.

I’ve been considering a few different options…I think I’m going to make a matrix to compare them.

Matrix completed…I want a Vaio P, but only if Ubuntu ran flawlessly on it, which requires some drivers that don’t exist yet.

I know that I had some goals for today… but I accomplished none of them. I was home alone today, so I took the opportunity to play really loud music and have my own Soulwax dance party. This song is kind of my anthem these days. Everything in my life revolves around my New York excuse.

Is it time to somehow make peace with everyone in Sacramento that I’ve had rocky friendships with? Let’s recap:

Terry says I’m not allowed to talk about him, so uh, if you’re smart, you’ll know how to find out. Basically, if bullshit were music, he’d be a big brass band.

Mike: Drama queen extraordinaire, who (imho) needs to grow up and stop mooching off of people. An emotional vampire, he is completely unaware of the boundaries that normal human relationships are circumscribed with. I have never known someone to commit such embarrassing and damning faux pas with alarming regularity.

Brian: I lost all my respect for Brian as the result of a collection of circumstances which arose from his dating that Johnny kid. 1) he had refused every attempt to get him to actually ride the bus for a year until the Johnny thing happened 2) He put his health at risk due to that douchefag Johnny 3) He started tons of shit with me last year when I insisted that he needs to either go to school or work more than 10 hours a week 4) He has no self-sufficiency skills because he’s never lived outside of his mom’s house, he’s like a child that has to be babysat in terms of life skills.

Mario: Seriously, does this even need justification? Mario is completely unable to have a normal human relationship with anyone. You can’t introduce him to anyone, because immediately he will desperately throw himself at them and try to get them to have sex with him. I can literally produce a flowchart of his interactions with people. He needs to be in a sadomasochistic relationship where a man completely controls his life, I don’t think he can ever really be happy without that. But he just keeps up this indomitable parade of guys he meets online who stop talking to him after a week after they realize that everything he told them was a lie.

I’m not really sure how to explain this, but you know in normal relationships you build up a kind of trust— some kind of social currency where you know people will be there for you through thick and thin relative to how strong your friendship is and how long you’ve known each other. Like if Christen showed up at my house at 3 a.m. and said “We’re going to Boston. Now.” My first words wouldn’t be “Why,” they’d be “Let me get my coat.”

When you are friends with Mario, he will only help you or be there for you when it’s in his best interests.

He will only give you things in exchange for you telling him how great and how generous he is for giving them.

He endlessly expresses dissatisfaction with his life but is completely unwilling to do anything to change it.

AS A FUCKING BONUS: He will talk shit about you at your fucking birthday party and brag about how he got your present for five bucks at the thrift store.

The straw that broke the camel’s back, so speak, was when I noticed (I know this sounds incredibly petty, but it hit a nerve) that Hector, who he had met about two months ago, was at the very top of his top 16 and I was way at the bottom. I asked him why, and he ended up giving me this misty-eyed speech about how Hector was just such an amazing person and how he liked him so much. Which brings us to,

Hector: This dude I just don’t get. he’s on tons of drugs all the time, he’s like 45 pounds and 4′ 8.” He didn’t do his research and thought Sac State was actually a good college. I just don’t think I have enough money to really get him… half of his MySpace pictures are in Florence and Paris. So, I was a bit perturbed at that speech having to be the person that he would complain about his life to for like six months, and then some douche in Armani Exchange comes along and Mario is swept off his feet.

It is impossible for Mario to have a normal human relationship because he is obsessed with being abused. That’s why he gets along so well (or rather, how he doesn’t but keeps coming back for more) with that Erika girl. I just can’t sign on his lifestyle anymore… it’s incredibly depressing being him and the scent of despair and desperation rubs off on you if you’re around him.

You know, it’s been years since I’ve done this. It feels so much better to just get it out on paper.