Thursday, February 26, 2004 :: 1:53:00 AM

::: Classic Blog Post from the Past :::
Originally posted on Friday, May 02, 2003 :: 2:55:31 AM

Song of choice: Everybody Hurts - REM... - Yes, I know I've already chosen this song.. but it's soooooooo good, I had to post it again...

This post might offend some people, but I assure you that this isn't intended to point fingers at someone. There are probably a dozen of you out there who, after reading this post, will say "he was talking about me!!! I'm so gonna kick his ass!". But do you want to know something? You're only going to think that because everyone is guilty of what I am about to talk about. You, me, everyone. You've either done this to someone, or had someone do this to you. So just sit back, grab a coke, and read on.

Think of the people you know. How many of them are involved in some sort of romantic relationship?
How many of them are feeling TRUE LOVE?
How many of them have EVER felt true love?

I am reminded of something I read many years ago. "True love is about giving". It really isn't about what you get from the other person, but about what you are willing to give - and more importantly, what you are READY to give - to the other individual involved.

And as a slight disclaimer, no I'm not an expert in true love. I am not someone who knows a little but pretends to know all there is to know. I am merely sharing my thoughts, opinions, observations, and experiences through an over-generalized, omni-directional (stupid tech terminology), blog entry.

Whenever asked, I would say that love is a feeling that cant be explained. Why? Because love is completely subjective. It is based on personal feelings that no other person can completely understand. Sure, people can relate to aspects of another's love, but one can never completely understand another's love. Love is UNCONDITIONAL.

But even through all of this, there is one tiny thing that I cant bring myself to understand - and I, myself, am guilty of this as well. How can someone care so much, feel so much, do so much, for someone who has, time and time again, treated them poorly, cold-heartedly, and unfairly?

I often think to myself that some things just weren't meant to be, and want to beg the other person to just "let it go. suck it up. move on". even though I have never once told someone to "let it go." or to "suck it up." why? because a) this would be mean and rather narrow-minded, and I dont want to judge others in this way cuz i dont know how they really feel. And b) I have wanted to make the same plea to myself on more than one occasion. But my question.. my 'puzzlement'.. is WHY cant we do this? Why is it so human to love what we want to see instead of what we actually see???

Say person A feels unappreciated, angry, and upset at person Z. A tries to get over Z... time goes by.. and no matter what A tries, they JUST CANT DO IT. There is something inside A that cant stop caring.. something that wont allow them to say 'no' to person Z.
Why is it that one single phonecall or instant message from Z to A, even after all the pain has been inflicted, bring a smile to A's face? "A" would still jump at the chance to hear their voice, see their face, or contact them from a distance by means of which isn't exactly direct.. ALL to just get something from this other person. A reaction. Anything.
I've done it before. You have too. Email surveys, and answers to the infamous "have you ever fallen in love" question are a gold mine to find this sort of behaviour.

But what is this feeling that controls our poor souls? What did we ever do to the cosmos to deserve this? I can see the Ying, but where is my Yang? (ok, please dont quote that line directly out of context.. even though I'm sure half of you will).

I'm sure all of you see my point.. We are (generally) good people. People are generally good souls.

Is it our search for the application of the pleasure principle? Is it because we think that relationships are needed to live a good life, and we think that if we can falsely conjure up something that is close to reality, then that's just "good enough for now" ?

Someone please answer this for me...

Until next time.........
*fade to black*

:: Eldorado ::

Monday, February 23, 2004 ::

Song of choice: Remember When: Alan Jackson

On this day, February 23rd, 1974 at 2:30pm, we would like to announce the coming together of Mr. Brian Eyers and Miss. Catharine Counsel into marriage.

30 years.

Thirty.

Thirty years ago today my parents tied the knot, and I couldn't be happier for them. They've gone through really tough times. Through money troubles where my father was earning less than 18,000/yr to him being moved all over the country for business for weeks at a time, they've stood next to eachother and never faced the world with anything but a fighting attitude, and a friendly smile.

This last Saturday my brother, sister, and myself held a party at the house for my parents. We invited all who we thought were important to the two of them and had a turn out of about 35 people. Our original list had well over 80, but we just couldn't fit that into the house. All that aside, it was a fantastic night of laughter, tears, and warm-heartedness.

The afternoon started off with my parents coming through the door from my mom's store. They were immediately told to go put some nice clothes on while we poured them a glass of wine. They were puzzled, but there was wine involved, so they weren't reluctant. As the people started pouring in, the smiles on their faces grew to great sizes, much larger than the last.

We had amazing food. My brother and sister did a marvelous job at cooking. I couldn't really help with that, seeing as how I am away at school and all.. Anyway, we got through dinner and that's when it got really good. The three of us (my brother, sister, and myself) thought it would be a neat idea to re-marry them.... only with realistic vows. We had my brother stand on the bottom step into the family room with my mom and dad in front of him and the cerimony began.

Marriage is about love, giving, and warmth - as in Dad loves it when mom gives him permission to increase the warmth in the house.
Marriage is also about hope and commitment - as in Mom hopes that she doesn't have to get my Dad committed.

You can see the direction this cerimony is going in...

Anyway, that's when we got to the vows. Everything from my father promising to finish a household rennovation job some of the time, and promise to get his haircut at least once without my mom asking him to first, to my mom promising to increase the heat in the house, decrease the heat in the pool, among a few others which I cannot remember at this point in time. It was priceless, suffice to say...

My brother concluded the cerimony with "I now pronounce you Ball, and Chain... You may kiss the bride."

Now all of you out there are probably going to kill me for writing this, but here goes..

That's when it was time for their first dance, which is where my Song of Choice comes into play for this entry. I cranked up the stereo and they had a nice dance, just the two of them, to Alan Jackson's Remember When. Please, I beg you, download this song and listen to it and picture your parents dancing to it. It makes my mom cry everytime she listens to it. It was perfect.

So very perfect. I was looking around the room at everyone. My parents (who I learned many years ago are surprisingly good dancers) swaying to the rhythm of the guitar as my sister's boyfriend had his arms around her up in one part of the kitchen dancing... My Aunt and Uncle doing the same... It was one of those moments that you could just feel the level of commitment in the room that everyone had for one another.. Watching my parents and everyone else, and listening to that song, made me seriously want to cry. My parents are pretty much (no comments please) the only two people in this world who can make me cry so easily. Knowing the history between the two of them, I know of nobody else who shares a greater love.

There was a giant piece of black card being passed around with various wedding pictures glued to it where people signed and left a little message... Doreen, my God Mother who lost her husband mid-January, left a message which I believe sums everything up better than I ever could: Love every day... That's what it comes down to. Knowing and understanding that you only have a limited number of days to show someone how much they mean to you.... use it.... because you never know when you're not going to have the chance. I've always tried to take the opportunity to tell people exactly how much they mean to me... I've always tried to take the opportunity to tell someone how much I love them... I dont want to learn what it feels like not to do that.. not the hard way. Tell those you love that you love them. Now, dont wait..

Congratulations, Mom and Dad, for making it to 30. I can only hope to be here to see you celebrate 50. =)


Until next time.......
*fade to black*

:: Eldorado ::

Friday, February 13, 2004 ::

Song of choice: Rasputin: Boney M

First and foremost, I suggest all of you who listen to music regularly go and download the new Winamp 5.0.... it's slick - it really is. For all of you who used the Winamp 2.x series forever because 3.x blew goats, you're going to be impressed by 5.0. Even Nullsoft, the parent company to winamp, knew that 3.x was horrible. So much so that they completely skipped over the 4.x generation of versions and debuted with 5.0 a few short months ago... Very nice interface, some nice changes (included web-tv!)... hey try it! if you dont like it, uninstall it...

One feature I liked in 3.x was that when you stopped a tune, or skipped ahead or the like, that it fadded in and out... it didn't do the hard cut like the 2.x series did... it's the little things i know. :)

~ warning: geekish post ahead ~

OK... onto the point of the post.

I've got the hacking bug. I admit it. No, I'm not talking about coughing so badly my voice goes raw - I'm talkin' hardcore hacking here.. computer hacking... hax0r stuff.. (haha.. I'm such a geek).

Since my last major entry (Jan 14th) I've been very uptight in the security department when it comes to my computer... I knew there was unauthorized traffic on my computer... I just felt it, you know? like... nothing told me, I just felt it... it's like if you've been driving the same car for a while. It's very apparent to you when something isn't *quite* right. So I decided to get myself a software firewall. Now, Windows XP comes with a pretty decent firewall already, but it doesn't actually let you keep tabs on not only the number of connection attempts but the IP addresses from where those connection attempts are coming from. (an IP address (Internet Protocol address) is like a phone number for your computer. It's unique, and oftentimes stays the same.. so if someone knows that, they can *potentially* find you.)

I wanted something that let me see my net traffic... I wanted to know just how many connections were open, so I downloaded Zone Alarm, a popular software firewall program that would do the job quite nicely. I like to think that my computer is now tighter than a nun.

In the first night alone, I blocked nearly 400 connection attempts. 400.

That's not to say that there are 400 people out there trying to get into my computer, that's not the case at all. Most of the traffic was most likely my Service Provider (Rogers, in this case) just checking to see if I was still online by pinging me (picture you as my computer, and me as rogers. To see if you're still there I'm going to throw a ball to you (the ping) and if you throw it back, I know you're still there.. if not, then I know you're not). But not only Rogers, there were actually a large number of legit people trying to connect too... But again, not anything high risk, just people scanning my computer to see if I had any ports open and such...

ANYWAY back on topic... 400 attempts, 9 of wich were high risk. I figured 'ok.. that's nice, I'm blocking them now, but what else can I do?'

I decided to try to connect to them right back...

I downloaded a program which I'm going to keep nameless for the sake of all of you.. Just as easily as it was for me to get their IP addresses, it would be just as simple for someone else to get your IP address and attack you with something much more malicious... so it's for your own safety! lol

Do you all remember NetBus? Patch.exe? Think back like 5 years ago... That silly program that was going around where if I gave you a disk or a file (patch.exe) and got you to double-click on it, then I could gain full control of your system.. remember that? Well this program does exactly the same thing, except I dont need you to install anything. All I need is your IP address and BOOM right there, I'm in complete control.. Scary, huh?

Anyway I tried that, but out of futility because if they're computer geeks who know how to port scan, they're probably computer geeks who know how to use a firewall to prevent me from doing such things.

So I thought... what else can I learn how to do?

We're actually learning in one of my classes how to hack... now, the teacher isn't calling it that. What he's basically doing is saying that if we're ever network administrators and need to know everything that is going on on a network, we'll have the knowledge to do so... But what is Rogers? just one giant network, no? What is Reznet? A smaller, yet still a network right? *evil grin*

So I am now researching and learning just how to find out what someone in say.. Room R231.. likes to surf for... Or maybe even read emails to and from someone in S375...

Scary that someone is able to do stuff like this, isn't it? All you've got to do is want to know how...

I'm up to 1770 blocked connection attempts into my computer....

Until next time.......
*fade to black*

:: Eldorado ::

I've got a headache in my tummy.. :(

:: Eldorado ::

Tuesday, February 10, 2004 ::

:: Eldorado ::