Word from the (very) west side
By WheeldleAugust 2nd, 2004
Yo, editor here once again. In case you are thick, Wheedle here is our senior semi-foreign correspondent shouting out from Hawaii. This sweet piece of mail arrived on the 23rd of July. I command you to dig it.
Things in hawaii couldnt be better right now! seriously. i have a regular schedule on one of the boats now - the ocean spirit. she is a great vessel and has all new snorkel gear and everything which is so nice! new paint jobs and even a new bow-line. some of this may mean nothing to you, but believe me - its exciting! i was even able to con my way into getting a new mask and snorkel from their new supply and it has been treating me pretty well so far. ocean spirit runs the same snorkel trips as most of the other boats out of the same harbor, but it is the overflow boat, so it is smaller. the max capacity is 100 and we always have less than that. today we had under 80, so its nice to have a smaller group.
oh! you wont believe it, the other day on the boat we had all the triangle schools represented! me from chapel hill, there was a guy who was a dukie from hillsborough and someone who worked at state! it was cool to have all that just coincidentally happen. even met a british couple now living in wilmington today. our first cruise on the ocean spirit was the Priscilla cruise, which is a gay pride private group. there was a lot of unlawful things happening on the boat - i sent the pictures out already. they were a lot of fun - drag queens, one guy offered me pot, i think i saw some guys having sex in the water. these are the gay people bush is trying to keep from getting married - but i think they were great fun! one of the guys kept calling me a diva and rubbed glitter all on me. he was a little drunk.
meanwhile, yesterday val and i and some of our other friends had the day off so we went to hana, which is a really nice part of maui on the east side. chris, shannon, and andrew also went with us, so it was a nice full car. there are waterfalls everywhere! and beautiful ocean views and mountain scenery. lots of mnt pools to go jumping and swimming in. i will be sending out those pictures shortly. we also went around the whole east side of the island instead of doubling back and that was an adventure. there were free roaming cows everywhere and for some reason we couldnt stop laughing and being excited about them! i mean, there ARE tons of cows in NC, so it was just strange.
otherwise, i am just trying to eek by on the expensive hawaiian living. i changed the oil in my car myself! instead of taking it in. i dont know how much i really saved, but it was quite an experience so i enjoyed doing it!
Things in hawaii couldnt be better right now! seriously. i have a regular schedule on one of the boats now - the ocean spirit. she is a great vessel and has all new snorkel gear and everything which is so nice! new paint jobs and even a new bow-line. some of this may mean nothing to you, but believe me - its exciting! i was even able to con my way into getting a new mask and snorkel from their new supply and it has been treating me pretty well so far. ocean spirit runs the same snorkel trips as most of the other boats out of the same harbor, but it is the overflow boat, so it is smaller. the max capacity is 100 and we always have less than that. today we had under 80, so its nice to have a smaller group.
oh! you wont believe it, the other day on the boat we had all the triangle schools represented! me from chapel hill, there was a guy who was a dukie from hillsborough and someone who worked at state! it was cool to have all that just coincidentally happen. even met a british couple now living in wilmington today. our first cruise on the ocean spirit was the Priscilla cruise, which is a gay pride private group. there was a lot of unlawful things happening on the boat - i sent the pictures out already. they were a lot of fun - drag queens, one guy offered me pot, i think i saw some guys having sex in the water. these are the gay people bush is trying to keep from getting married - but i think they were great fun! one of the guys kept calling me a diva and rubbed glitter all on me. he was a little drunk.
meanwhile, yesterday val and i and some of our other friends had the day off so we went to hana, which is a really nice part of maui on the east side. chris, shannon, and andrew also went with us, so it was a nice full car. there are waterfalls everywhere! and beautiful ocean views and mountain scenery. lots of mnt pools to go jumping and swimming in. i will be sending out those pictures shortly. we also went around the whole east side of the island instead of doubling back and that was an adventure. there were free roaming cows everywhere and for some reason we couldnt stop laughing and being excited about them! i mean, there ARE tons of cows in NC, so it was just strange.
otherwise, i am just trying to eek by on the expensive hawaiian living. i changed the oil in my car myself! instead of taking it in. i dont know how much i really saved, but it was quite an experience so i enjoyed doing it!
Comments
Well hello there
ByAugust 6th, 2004
Haven't heard from me in a while, have you? There are several
reasons. Number one: others have had more meaningful and
interesting posts, so I yield my updating throneage to those.
Number two: I have been on vacation this past week, so I didn't
even read the loads of message board posts by the n00b. Number
three: I have been busy busy busy on the new admin tool, which I am
using right now to type this update (I hope it works!).
My vacation was nice and relaxing. We survived Hurricane Alex, although it was not even considered a hurricane when it hit where we were, so it's nothing to brag about I guess. I basically sat around, grilled some good food, worked on my tan, etc. It was a much needed break from the daily grind at you-know-where.
This admin tool I speak of doesn't mean much to you yet, but the sooner I get it done, the sooner I can start working on the part you see. I'm hoping that all my errors and bad coding practices will be fixed for the most part by the time I get to that part. It's coming along nicely though. If anyone wants to figure out why transparent PNG's aren't quite so, how you say: 'transparent' (I've googled, read articles, tried scripts and filters, just so you know), get in touch with me. It's not on my priority list right now, but Willow whines about it from time to time.
I fixed the little problem with the rants section of Our Two Cents. You may or may not have noticed that it pretty much always said "We've been thoughtless lately" (and we have) but that's just my eye-pleasing error message for the public. Anyway, it's fixed now. That particular table got corrupted somehow. I think everything is in tact.
Willow instructed me to post a link to something, but I can't remember exactly what it was (I think it's in the galleries somewhere) and I don't feel like waiting on dial-up to look through a bunch of pictures. If you are at work and bored (paging Colin) feel free to snoop around yourselves.
My vacation was nice and relaxing. We survived Hurricane Alex, although it was not even considered a hurricane when it hit where we were, so it's nothing to brag about I guess. I basically sat around, grilled some good food, worked on my tan, etc. It was a much needed break from the daily grind at you-know-where.
This admin tool I speak of doesn't mean much to you yet, but the sooner I get it done, the sooner I can start working on the part you see. I'm hoping that all my errors and bad coding practices will be fixed for the most part by the time I get to that part. It's coming along nicely though. If anyone wants to figure out why transparent PNG's aren't quite so, how you say: 'transparent' (I've googled, read articles, tried scripts and filters, just so you know), get in touch with me. It's not on my priority list right now, but Willow whines about it from time to time.
I fixed the little problem with the rants section of Our Two Cents. You may or may not have noticed that it pretty much always said "We've been thoughtless lately" (and we have) but that's just my eye-pleasing error message for the public. Anyway, it's fixed now. That particular table got corrupted somehow. I think everything is in tact.
Willow instructed me to post a link to something, but I can't remember exactly what it was (I think it's in the galleries somewhere) and I don't feel like waiting on dial-up to look through a bunch of pictures. If you are at work and bored (paging Colin) feel free to snoop around yourselves.
Comments
This is the end. I'm going now, ... goodbye.
By WesleyAugust 9th, 2004
First, a note from the editor:
Hey, why don't we bitch at willow for not downloading, resizing, renaming, thumbnailing, and uploading every picture we send him the night he gets it? Sounds like fun to me too.
Anyway, I had to skip two of Wesley's updates because he wants this posted before he gets back from Japan. If you really care about what he did during the weeks he spent in Okazaki, you'll have to drop him a line. Without further ado:
well, i'm sorry to say that i don't have pictures of my bike for you today. and yes, i realize that i said i was goign to send them this past weekend, but i was busy drin... studying. i had a test this morning, and i think i did pretty good, certainly better than i did on the last one. anyway, tomorrow is the last day of class for me. after that i'm goignto head back to nagoya and stay with michi's wonderful and generous family again, and then on monday i:m off to tokyo! i'll be returning to the US next friday!!! yay!!!
now, although i do not have pics of my bike right now (i will later, they are on someone elses camera), i DO have some other pics. they aren't too big, but i'm only going to attach three. well... maybe 4. hehehe. so, the first one is a little something cultural for ya, a float at the nagoya port fireworks festival on "sea day". yes, a national holiday for the ocean. the next pic is me with this scary lookin buddha statue outside of a temple where there was a gigantic metal buddha. the pics of the big buddha didn't come out so well so i'm not sending those. the third pic is me with a bunch of cute girls (now perhaps you know why i like being here so much). and lastly is the house i'm going to move into when i move back to japan. it suits me, don't you think?
alright gang, this is probably the last mail i'm going to send from japan. i'll give you my full report upon my return to boring world land. er, america i mean. although i have a feeling i'm not going to have time to be bored this coming semester. i hope you are all wishing me luck for my graduation. and to all of you who have written to me (thank you!) and i haven't written you back (sorry!) you will just have to wait. i have 25 emails sitting in my inbox waiting to be replied to, and i don't have the time to do it right now. so please accept my apologies if you have been waiting to hear from me.
and thats all folks. feel free to send me questions or comments, but i probably won't be able to get to them for a while.
the drummer from def leopard only has one arm! come on party people, (hoo hoo) put your arms in the air (hoo hoo). peace out.
Alright, editor back. it seems that Wesley sent 12 pictures, but only referenced 3 in his letter. For the sole purpose of adding chaos and confusion, I added them to the 'wesley' gallery, which already had 15 pictures in it. This means that you all get to search through the gallery to find out what he is talking about. You will find the gallery in question beyond this link.
Hey, why don't we bitch at willow for not downloading, resizing, renaming, thumbnailing, and uploading every picture we send him the night he gets it? Sounds like fun to me too.
Anyway, I had to skip two of Wesley's updates because he wants this posted before he gets back from Japan. If you really care about what he did during the weeks he spent in Okazaki, you'll have to drop him a line. Without further ado:
well, i'm sorry to say that i don't have pictures of my bike for you today. and yes, i realize that i said i was goign to send them this past weekend, but i was busy drin... studying. i had a test this morning, and i think i did pretty good, certainly better than i did on the last one. anyway, tomorrow is the last day of class for me. after that i'm goignto head back to nagoya and stay with michi's wonderful and generous family again, and then on monday i:m off to tokyo! i'll be returning to the US next friday!!! yay!!!
now, although i do not have pics of my bike right now (i will later, they are on someone elses camera), i DO have some other pics. they aren't too big, but i'm only going to attach three. well... maybe 4. hehehe. so, the first one is a little something cultural for ya, a float at the nagoya port fireworks festival on "sea day". yes, a national holiday for the ocean. the next pic is me with this scary lookin buddha statue outside of a temple where there was a gigantic metal buddha. the pics of the big buddha didn't come out so well so i'm not sending those. the third pic is me with a bunch of cute girls (now perhaps you know why i like being here so much). and lastly is the house i'm going to move into when i move back to japan. it suits me, don't you think?
alright gang, this is probably the last mail i'm going to send from japan. i'll give you my full report upon my return to boring world land. er, america i mean. although i have a feeling i'm not going to have time to be bored this coming semester. i hope you are all wishing me luck for my graduation. and to all of you who have written to me (thank you!) and i haven't written you back (sorry!) you will just have to wait. i have 25 emails sitting in my inbox waiting to be replied to, and i don't have the time to do it right now. so please accept my apologies if you have been waiting to hear from me.
and thats all folks. feel free to send me questions or comments, but i probably won't be able to get to them for a while.
the drummer from def leopard only has one arm! come on party people, (hoo hoo) put your arms in the air (hoo hoo). peace out.
Alright, editor back. it seems that Wesley sent 12 pictures, but only referenced 3 in his letter. For the sole purpose of adding chaos and confusion, I added them to the 'wesley' gallery, which already had 15 pictures in it. This means that you all get to search through the gallery to find out what he is talking about. You will find the gallery in question beyond this link.
Comments
Tidbits of hawaiian wisdom
By WheeldleAugust 12th, 2004
Time for yet another update from our lovely senior semi-foreign correspondent Wheedle. Cool.
hello duelingmonkey fans. its time for another hawaiian update: life is good. work is stready, and the money is barely rolling in. ive gotten a few numbers from people and phone numbers from guys on the boats, cause - well ... they have their heads on strait! i've even managed to score a 20 dollar personal tip outside the group tip jar. people love the wheedle (must be all that damn good flirting). i even managed to peer pressure a friend into kissing me not 2.5 hours ago. yeah - its the hawaiian in me.
i have a few driving tips for everyone. ready? NEVER RIDE YOUR BRAKES DOWN A VOLCANO! you heard me. as i was coasting down Maui's dormant volcano, haleakela, and lost my brakes from riding them too much. oh yeah - and my emergency brake doesnt work on my wonderful Mercedes sport car ... wait, thats not me. Another driving tip: if you follow the good looking hawaiian's and tourists on the side of the road with your eyes, then your car will follow. My roommate has made it her job to constantly remind me of my poor driving skills here in Hawaii. Tip number 3: never hit park cars, UNLESS they are massive pickup trucks and your tiny little camry wont make a dent in their 5 ft diameter tires. Final tip: dont run over parking lot medians. Well there you have it - i guess i could use a little practice in the driving dept. I'll call the BMW driving school right away. I wonder if i need to bring my own beamer?
Concert last night: Jack Johnson. Very very good.
Night before that: Friend's 21st b-day. I was the DD. Take a few guesses what i ended up doing at the end of the night? Dropping my passengers off at the final bar of the evening and leaving them there to call me when they need me. You might think - that is aweful unresponsible to leave 2 VERY VERY drunk people to their own accord while you frollick on the beach. Well, i might respond, they were getting on my #$%*&% nerves. Backseat driving, poking, beer pounding, and touching too much. I later find out my roommate had to be escorted out of the bar and our other comrade was pushed to the curb by bouncers and had his hair yanked (i say yanked, because in reality this sounds like a girly fight "i got pushed on the ground and they pulled my hair" so i have to spice up his story just a little for you guys). Needless to say, i felt a little guilty for not being there. And now i have to pay for my mistakes and hear the story get told at least 5 times a day - to people who have already heard it - a lot - and a lot - and a lot.
In an attempt to be astronomical, we tried to watch the Perseid meteor shower tonight and only saw 3 meteors. I may wake up at 2am this morning to see if they get better.
Well, that's all for now folks. I guess its not really ALL. I mean, i DO live in Hawaii after all. There are constant adventures. Scuba, snorkel, manta rays, turtles, dolphins, etc. So is life here in paradise.
Aloooooohaaaaa!
hello duelingmonkey fans. its time for another hawaiian update: life is good. work is stready, and the money is barely rolling in. ive gotten a few numbers from people and phone numbers from guys on the boats, cause - well ... they have their heads on strait! i've even managed to score a 20 dollar personal tip outside the group tip jar. people love the wheedle (must be all that damn good flirting). i even managed to peer pressure a friend into kissing me not 2.5 hours ago. yeah - its the hawaiian in me.
i have a few driving tips for everyone. ready? NEVER RIDE YOUR BRAKES DOWN A VOLCANO! you heard me. as i was coasting down Maui's dormant volcano, haleakela, and lost my brakes from riding them too much. oh yeah - and my emergency brake doesnt work on my wonderful Mercedes sport car ... wait, thats not me. Another driving tip: if you follow the good looking hawaiian's and tourists on the side of the road with your eyes, then your car will follow. My roommate has made it her job to constantly remind me of my poor driving skills here in Hawaii. Tip number 3: never hit park cars, UNLESS they are massive pickup trucks and your tiny little camry wont make a dent in their 5 ft diameter tires. Final tip: dont run over parking lot medians. Well there you have it - i guess i could use a little practice in the driving dept. I'll call the BMW driving school right away. I wonder if i need to bring my own beamer?
Concert last night: Jack Johnson. Very very good.
Night before that: Friend's 21st b-day. I was the DD. Take a few guesses what i ended up doing at the end of the night? Dropping my passengers off at the final bar of the evening and leaving them there to call me when they need me. You might think - that is aweful unresponsible to leave 2 VERY VERY drunk people to their own accord while you frollick on the beach. Well, i might respond, they were getting on my #$%*&% nerves. Backseat driving, poking, beer pounding, and touching too much. I later find out my roommate had to be escorted out of the bar and our other comrade was pushed to the curb by bouncers and had his hair yanked (i say yanked, because in reality this sounds like a girly fight "i got pushed on the ground and they pulled my hair" so i have to spice up his story just a little for you guys). Needless to say, i felt a little guilty for not being there. And now i have to pay for my mistakes and hear the story get told at least 5 times a day - to people who have already heard it - a lot - and a lot - and a lot.
In an attempt to be astronomical, we tried to watch the Perseid meteor shower tonight and only saw 3 meteors. I may wake up at 2am this morning to see if they get better.
Well, that's all for now folks. I guess its not really ALL. I mean, i DO live in Hawaii after all. There are constant adventures. Scuba, snorkel, manta rays, turtles, dolphins, etc. So is life here in paradise.
Aloooooohaaaaa!
Comments
Listen up you sorry <insert clever insult>
By Mike DalyAugust 15th, 2004
So, here's a funny story for you this morning. Ok, it's not a really a story, in fact it's not even funny. I'm just going to tell you something that happened; it explains the picture I'm going to link. If you want to get any entertainment out of these words I write here, you are on your own. Pretend it's funny, and maybe you can fool yourself.
One day, I felt like singing. Fear not, however, I am far too wise to attempt this futile endeavour. (there have been secret experiments in the shower - all failed) I would not be so irresponsible to unleash my singing on the world. In fact, I should be paid not to. On the other hand, one so enlightened as me has other means of expressing my desires at my disposal. A sketch of cute little people singing a happy song was the result of this peculiar impulse.
Fortunately, this was not the end. An artistic rampage followed the sketch. The aftermath of the rampage revealed a standalone page of comic. It is this comic that has brought us together today; me to present, and you to consume.
Without further meaningless filler, I present Imaginary Friend, a comic by yours truly.
I have spoken, now piss off.
One day, I felt like singing. Fear not, however, I am far too wise to attempt this futile endeavour. (there have been secret experiments in the shower - all failed) I would not be so irresponsible to unleash my singing on the world. In fact, I should be paid not to. On the other hand, one so enlightened as me has other means of expressing my desires at my disposal. A sketch of cute little people singing a happy song was the result of this peculiar impulse.
Fortunately, this was not the end. An artistic rampage followed the sketch. The aftermath of the rampage revealed a standalone page of comic. It is this comic that has brought us together today; me to present, and you to consume.
Without further meaningless filler, I present Imaginary Friend, a comic by yours truly.
I have spoken, now piss off.
Comments
:(
ByAugust 24th, 2004
You see that face? Look at it. Look at it long and hard. OK stop
looking weirdo.
That's the face of dissapointment. School has started once again (for two of us at least) and this semester looks like it may be my most time consuming yet. I have 15 hours, which isn't bad until I'm told that at some point before December 3rd, I have to spend at least 30 hours observing in a high school classroom. This means, that after I struggle to get out of bed and make it to my early classes where I am a student, I have to spend half an hour getting to my car, another half hour getting to some school and then observe some punks. I really don't have time for this, especially since I'm not going to be a teacher, but I guess it will be a fun experience. Thats what I'm going to tell myself anyway.
On top of school, I still have work of course, and so far this week I've logged 9 hours in 2 days. I know to some of you 9-5ers thats half a days work each day, but I'm on the go from 8 am to 10:30 pm all day. Monday's and Wednesday's are awful.
This means, that my webpage developing goodness is going to once again be put on hold. I really wanted to have the new site working by our two year anniversary (and if Willow would start on the new design it would help) but I don't see that happening. Maybe instead we'll actually have some meaningful content in our news post.
Whenever I do get to finish, I promise it will be pretty. And you will have the option to register. It's not required to make news comments or message board posts, but if you do, you can do some cool stuff. Have your own icon(s) (you have to provide it, we'll just host it), edit posts, contribute to the cooking section and possibly a 'Guest Articles' section, and possibly more. A lot of the code required for this is already written. In fact, I'm using the News Post editor right now, instead of phpMyAdmin. Unfortunately, writing "Dueling Monkeys Gallery 2.0" will take some time (not much of it though, if strpos() will start working) and restructuring the message board will take longer. I may ask for some help/tips from some of you more experienced folks.
I hope I can still work on this stuff on the weekends, but the next two are already booked, and the semester is just getting started. So it doesn't look too good.
In other news, there is a thread in the Message Board about getting me an IPOD, but wait until I reply again before you register. I'm still waiting on a confirmation email and I want to make sure it actually works. Also in other news, don't see the new Exorcist movie. I wasn't expecting even a single thumb up, but this one was bad. It was only scary because it made you jump, it was gross, the plot sucked, the acting sucked, it was very random, there were characters in the movie that didn't need to be there, it was 2 hours long and only needed to be 90 minutes, and most of all, it was a waste of $12 (me and the girl matinee style).
More movie news: In case you haven't noticed, I wrote an article on Bulletproof Monk a week or so ago. I hope you like it (the article, not the movie).
There is also other news that is very good, but I'll let someone else talk about that. BYE!
That's the face of dissapointment. School has started once again (for two of us at least) and this semester looks like it may be my most time consuming yet. I have 15 hours, which isn't bad until I'm told that at some point before December 3rd, I have to spend at least 30 hours observing in a high school classroom. This means, that after I struggle to get out of bed and make it to my early classes where I am a student, I have to spend half an hour getting to my car, another half hour getting to some school and then observe some punks. I really don't have time for this, especially since I'm not going to be a teacher, but I guess it will be a fun experience. Thats what I'm going to tell myself anyway.
On top of school, I still have work of course, and so far this week I've logged 9 hours in 2 days. I know to some of you 9-5ers thats half a days work each day, but I'm on the go from 8 am to 10:30 pm all day. Monday's and Wednesday's are awful.
This means, that my webpage developing goodness is going to once again be put on hold. I really wanted to have the new site working by our two year anniversary (and if Willow would start on the new design it would help) but I don't see that happening. Maybe instead we'll actually have some meaningful content in our news post.
Whenever I do get to finish, I promise it will be pretty. And you will have the option to register. It's not required to make news comments or message board posts, but if you do, you can do some cool stuff. Have your own icon(s) (you have to provide it, we'll just host it), edit posts, contribute to the cooking section and possibly a 'Guest Articles' section, and possibly more. A lot of the code required for this is already written. In fact, I'm using the News Post editor right now, instead of phpMyAdmin. Unfortunately, writing "Dueling Monkeys Gallery 2.0" will take some time (not much of it though, if strpos() will start working) and restructuring the message board will take longer. I may ask for some help/tips from some of you more experienced folks.
I hope I can still work on this stuff on the weekends, but the next two are already booked, and the semester is just getting started. So it doesn't look too good.
In other news, there is a thread in the Message Board about getting me an IPOD, but wait until I reply again before you register. I'm still waiting on a confirmation email and I want to make sure it actually works. Also in other news, don't see the new Exorcist movie. I wasn't expecting even a single thumb up, but this one was bad. It was only scary because it made you jump, it was gross, the plot sucked, the acting sucked, it was very random, there were characters in the movie that didn't need to be there, it was 2 hours long and only needed to be 90 minutes, and most of all, it was a waste of $12 (me and the girl matinee style).
More movie news: In case you haven't noticed, I wrote an article on Bulletproof Monk a week or so ago. I hope you like it (the article, not the movie).
There is also other news that is very good, but I'll let someone else talk about that. BYE!
Comments