What else happened? I got another Myst collectable coming to me from the UK. It's an interesting story really. Wanna hear it? Of course you do. You have no choice. Well, you could just close this window but you wouldn't becuase you're such a nice person and little do you know that if you close this window before reading this story, a virus that you have already unknowingly downloaded will spring into action and eat your harddrive.......okay so there is no virus and I'm just trying to scare you. Just read on okay?

My friend and fellow Myst collector lonelyto25 pointed me towards an eBay auction that caught his eye. The title of the auction was something along the lines of "*RARE* RIVEN! *RARE*" and in the description it described Riven as a cult game and that it included the "often-missing" instruction manual. Well, I emailed the seller of the supposedly "rare" Riven and basically told him that Riven is not rare at all, it's not a cult game and that the instruction manual always comes with the game. Through more emails back and forth he said that Riven is hard to find in the UK and that on eBay, the manual isn't always sold with the game (I usually see it with the game...) and that he really thinks that it's a cult game. We compromised and I he agreed to take out the "cult" description but keep the other two aspects and I agreed. Then the subject subtly changed into collecting and I showed him my collection picture online. He brought up the fact that he knew of an item in the UK that I didn't and eventually, he ended up offering to send it to me for free! How nice is that?! So he's sending it to me and just mailed it today. I look forward to getting it. I can't wait to see exactly what it is. It's something to do with Myst III: Exile (not telling exactly what it is for various reasons). It seems like the UK and that whole half of the world gets all the press for Myst III: Exile with all the promotional items and we get jack over here. Nada. Zip. Hardly anything. Why?! Ugh...*grumble*

Tuesday, December 25^th 2001 — 07:50pm Central Time
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! What you expected a normal rambling today? Yeah right! Since it's my site and I love the fact that I can do whatever I want, I'm going to let you know what I got for Christmas. ^_^

Well, first off and possibly (positively) the coolest gift I got was a framed version of a scene from Myst III: Exile blown up a bit from Presto Studios. You know, the people I visited earlier this year? Well, they sent me a printed out version shortly after I left as a gift but when it arrived, the *BLEEP-ing* postal service bent it in half and ruined it. Well, shortly after, my dad emailed Presto and they sent him another perfect bigger version that the postal service luckily didn't bend and my dad framed it. Isn't he just like the greatest guy?!?!

So, what else did I get? Well...I got a VERY nice new sterio with a remote! Totally unexpected!!! I mentioned that I might like a new one early on in the year but plum forgot about it and here I get a new one. ^_^ It seriously kicks ass. I also got a very nice new CD rack to replace my two aging leaning ones that were full. Now I can fit many more CDs on the new one. Very handy. My stocking was overflowing. There were three presents even on the floor underneath it becuase it was so full! I got all sorts of doo-dads in it including a small stuffed vibrating green Mike from the movie Monster's Inc, a Hot Wheels car, a mini paddle ball, a frog standing up that collapses when you press the bottom of the stand he's standing on (remember those?), some colorful paperclips (don't ask why ^_^), a silver-plated @ sign paperweight, some Magic Rocks (the kind that grow up in water), two small Lego sets (it's been so long since I got Lego sets!), a word search book, a bouncy balloon, and more.

Now for what was under the tree. ^_^ I told you I got the CD rack and the stereo but I also got three ties and five shirts (I had one of each and it was getting really old), a map and dashboard compass and 4-in-1 tool for my car which will come in very handy, two cute ornaments, a small snowglob (ornaments and snowglobes are traditions around here), Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, a book full of Jay Leno's famous "Healines," a cute cat book about stories from a cat shrink, a Linkin Park CD, Linkin Park DVD, two Nickelback CDs, the Simpsons Season One DVD set, and more that I'll talk about tomorrow or later.

I had a GREAT Christmas and my parents got wonderful things too. We went out to lunch and had a great day. Now I'm off to play a great and challenging game of Scrabble with my dad. I love this! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Sunday, December 23^rd 2001 — 11:00am Central Time
As I sit here watching the beautiful snow fall, I can't help but be very content. If I look 3 feet in front of me, it doesn't look like a bad snow storm. But if I look up in the sky, I see layer upon layer of snow flakes miles up into the sky and it soothes me. Makes me glad I have a warm home to live in. ^_^

Last night, with one of my closest friends (if not the closest), I went to see the Lord of the Rings movie. If you haven't seen it GO SEE IT!! RIGHT NOW!!! WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE READING THIS?! GO SEE IT!!!! Yeah, so can you tell that I liked it? It was phenomenal! Definitely the best movie I have ever seen in my entire life by far. I recommend it to everyone. A tad scary in parts but it only ads to the realism. ^_^ If this movie does not win an Oscar or 20 I'll be seriously miffed. The graphics were simply AMAZING!! It looked so real! It makes me wonder that if the graphics are like this now-a-days, what will they be like ten years from now? How could they get any better?! This movie TOTALLY surpasses the graphics in Star Wars by miles. I can't wait for the other two movies to come out!

We have WAAAAAY too much chocolate in this house. We normally have a little chocolate jar that we keep chocolate in periodically around Christmas. My dad's a teacher and has mentioned to his students that he likes M&Ms so of course at the Christmas party he had in his classroom, all his students gave him huge bags of M&Ms and one of his fellow teachers gave him this package of four boxes each full of more chocolate! We now have TONS of chocolate in this house. And I'm not nearly as big a fan of chocolate as I used to be so it's going to be here a while. Anyone want some chocolate???

Well, yesterday, I finished typing the first Myst book entitled Book of Atrus (BoA) which is the second book I've typed. See, there are three Myst books: Book of Atrus (BoA), Book of Ti'ana (BoT), and Book of D'ni (BoD). That's the order in which they were published but I'm typing them in chronological order: BoT, BoA, BoD. I've typed BoT and now BoA. I've just started on BoD now. Why am I typing them? It's a good refrenece tool in case someone from the Myst Community I belong to needs a quote from any of the books to answer a question they had, they don't need to go searching through each book to find it. I just open up the document, hit CTRL F and search for some keywords and I have the quote in a matter of seconds. Then I give it to the person and the question is answered. I've had a need to do this several times already. ^_^ Plus, I like typing and I essentially have no life. ^_~

Thursday, December 20^th 2001 — 11:23pm Central Time
Remember how I crashed the car? Of course you do. It's not something you forget. ^_^ Or at least I won't forget it. Well, I got permission to post pictures of it online. It ain't pretty. I'm also showing you some pictures of the moon I took this night and last night. It was tricky because my telescope doesn't have a camera hooked up to it so I had to put the camera up to the eyepiece and take the pictures. But I had to be careful because the slightest touch jiggled the telescope and the human body shakes as a natural function so it's hard but I got off some good shots. Shown here are the four best. Enjoy!

A great close up of the moon.	Dark, but good picture of how much it filles the eyepice. Crystal clear in real life!	A little off-center but still great.
Look! An elephant sat on it!	Another great close up of the moon.	This just looks painful.

Anyway, remember when I said that I was going to make a new section in the Extras section for this fun little solitaire card game? I finally did it. It's been in the back of my mind for the past few days and I wasn't able to get it out so I finally made it. Funny how things nag you, isn't it? Well, you can access it via the Extras section of this site or you can use this direct link to it. It's called Match the Draw. At least that's what I call it. I really don't know the real name for it because I learned it so long ago and I can't find it on the internet anywhere. If anyone knows the real name of this game, please email me and let me know so I can change what it says on my site. So that's it for now. Go there and learn the game. Have fun!!!

Wednesday, December 19^th 2001 — 12:54pm Central Time
I'M ON VACATION!!! Boy, it feels good to be on vacation. A nice month vacation. ^_^ I don't have any obligations that are related to studying or homework. That feels REALLY good!

I was planning on making a page describing how to play this solitaire card game that I learned years and years and years ago but I'm lazy and I don't feel like doing it right now. I might do it some time in the future though. If I do it will be in the Extras section of this site.

Tomorrow, we get to pick up my car from the shop because it's all fixed and it looks like new they say. Now THAT's impressive if they can make it look like new. I wouldn't know where to begin if I wanted to fix it. It was pretty bad. I'm glad we're getting it back. My parents are too. I'm glad the damage wasn't worth more than the car becuase if it was, we'd have to get a new car. The insurance company would give us the money that the car was worth and we would put that towards a new car. The insurance company would take the old car away forever. Luckily, that's not happening so everything's cool!

Well, it snowed for the first time this season last night and this morning!...and then the sun came out and now it's melting everything. Darnit. BUT, the forcast says that it's going to be nice and clear out tonight for stargazing (yes, they said that!) so I'm going to get out my telescope and look at Jupiter and Saturn and other stuff again. ^_^ The moon isn't up at night here at this time so I still haven't looked at it through the telescope and I REALLY want to! It would be SOOOOO cool! Well, I'll be able to sometime in the future. Hopefully the near future.

I took my calculus final and my astronomy final yesterday. I was pretty surprised at the lack of word problems on the calc final. I was pleased too. I think I did fairly well. I KNOW I did well on my astronomy final though! He graded it right in front of me and I got an A in the class. YEAH!! I wouldn't have felt right if I got a B or something else. An A feels good. ^_^

Saturday, December 15^th 2001 — 03:16pm Central Time
I'M DONE WITH NETPREP!!!!!! Yeah!! (NetPrep's this class about networking that's poorly taught and that I abhor with every fiber in my body.) It's my Saturday class that is at 8:00am (insane). I went in, took the final and left in 30 minutes. In and out. Simple as that. Though the final was pretty hard. I'll probably get a C on it knowing my luck in that class or I'll just fail it. Whoopee. I only have one more semester of that God-forsaken class which I've explained below in the rambling for December 14^th

Right now, though I'M SO BORED!!!! I've got nothing to do! I can't go downstairs because my mom's wrapping my Christmas presents (she's been doing this for several hours now...gonna be a good Christmas!) so I have to stay in my room. Now, I normally do this anyway, but still! I'm so bored!! *snore*

Friday, December 14^th 2001 — 08:21pm Central Time
Well, those of you who read this (I wonder how many people actually DO read this...fill out the suggestion box and let me know okay?) will be happy to know to that I finally discovered FTP. Yes, I know, I'm lame for taking so long to use it but I finally learned. I downloaded Smart FTP thanks to the advice of a very intelligent friend and it's REALLY nice! Why on earth did I use that lame web shell that Angelfire provides? 10 files at a time? Blah. I can do more now! Hee hee.

On another note, Angelfire now no longer allows off-site image linking which means I cannot type in the address of an image on the bulletin board I go to and have it show up. They used to allow only gifs but now not even those are allowed. If I want to show someone a picture, they need to highlight a link, open up a new window, insert the link into the address bar, then hit enter to see it. That's insane but I have no control over that (unless I switch web hosts...which I might do soon maybe). Oh well. I'm looking around. Who knows what I'll pick.

I took my english final yesterday. It wasn't any major thing. Just choose a topic from a list and write a paper in the time of the class. Not too hard. I wrote about how I'm obsessed with the internet. ^_^ I am! Tomorrow, I have my NetPrep final and then that horrid class is finally over!!!! YES!!!....at least until March when the next class starts up. But after that class ends, I'm done with NetPrep FOREVER!!! Thank GOD! I SO loathe that class. On Tuesday, my brain is going to be fried. I have my calculus final in the morning and my astronomy final in the evening. Blech! BUT, that's my only day of classes next week, for next week is the dreaded finals week. So once I have finished those finals, then I'm on the awesome, long-awaited, winter break! Yeah! Life is good. ^_^

Because of my little (it was hardly little) traffic incident on the 12^th, we might have to get a whole new car. See, if the damage of my current car exceeds the actual worth of the car (1995 Saturn S1), then the insurance company takes the car and gives us the amount that it's worth minus the amount of the deductable. My dad says he was planning on getting rid of it this summer anyway, but I still feel horrible about the whole thing. And to boot, today it snowed for the first time this year. It was wet and slippery (it didn't stick to the ground though) and I was thinking that I might crash again due to slippery roads. Thankfully, I didn't due to my careful driving. ^_^ Why was I out in such bad weather? I had to do a little Christmas shopping for my friends and family. I'm not gonna say what I got them for obvious reasons...they might read this!! If they are reading this, they should know that they are NOT supposed to buy ANYTHING for themselves before Christmas! ^_^ You never know what I might have bought...

Wednesday, December 12^th 2001 — 05:26pm Central Time
I knew today wasn't going to be good from the second I woke up. I usually wake up around 7am and leave for class at 10:15am on Mondays and Wednedays but I accidentally slept in until 9:15. Not fun. Then, I left for class 5 minutes late and realized that I needed gass so that took another 5 minutes. I got to class on time though. I was fortunate.

Then on my way home, I decided to do some Christmas shopping before I got home so I went out past the local mall and then it happened. It was crowded and busy where I was. I was driving along and the light turns yellow ahead of me and the guy in front of me seems like he was going to go through and beat the red light. Well, I guess he changed his mind because he didn't go through and I had to slam on the breaks. Well, it was drizzly out and the roads were wet and slick. Can you guess what happened? That's right. BAM! After I slammed on the breaks, I skidded with no traction and plowed right into him. So the front end of my car is smushed. Luckily, he was not hurt and neither was I. He was good-natured about the whole thing (thankfully!) and his car was hardly damaged. Just a few scratches on his already elderly car. My car wasn't so fortunate. The hood buckled, the whole front top end is like exposing the foam underneath it, I lost both headlights, and part of the actual car itself (the green stuff) around the wheel towards the front chipped off. People were running over it and I could hear it clatter on the road after we had pulled off and were talking to the cop that came when I called 911. So, the cop took our information, issued me a ticket ($75), and I drove home. The car was still drive-able but I got some really strange looks from people while driving home.

My dad came home from work early to take care of everything for me. Thankfully, both my parents reacted nicely. Neither of them were really mad which made me feel a lot better since I was beating myself up for this more than they would have (I still am). So, he called people and places and we took my car in and now everything's worked out. The car will be fixed in a week and a half and we got a rental car (also covered by insurance). My mom will drive the rental, my dad will keep driving his, and I will drive my mom's car to school until my car is fixed.

I feel horrible. Stupid weather. Couldn't be a sunny day could it?

Tuesday, December 11^th 2001 — 11:18pm Central Time
Today was certainly a workout day for my brain. I had a nasy calc test (I'm not looking forward to the resulting grade), a presentation in english (I loathe public speaking), a practice test in english for the final on Thursday (we're supposed to write an entire paper off the cuff in class on some lame subject), and I had a nasty astronomy test (also not looking forward to the resulting grade). Sheesh!...wow...that was one long sentence. Not all that wonderfully grammatically correct, I know, but its the way I speak and honestly, who's going to force me to use proper grammar on my own webpage?!...okay my mother might if she reads this considering she's been a professional editor for more than I've been on this big blue dot we call earth.

My mother received tickets to Six Flags Great America back in October because every year her company buys out the park for a day in appreciation for their workers' hard work. We couldn't go this year due to school and work and such so she put the tickets in a raffle. The company has this small raffle for people who can't use the tickets. The prize is a $5 pack of McDonald's gift dollars for each ticket...whoo-ee...We won the raffle last year and we won it again this year...I think the only reason we win it is because we're the only ones who enter! Everyone else probably uses their tickets and enjoys the park with no lines for rides for a day. Oh well. ^_^

Okay, what I'm going to talk about next might seem a little odd to some people but I'm odd to begin with so bear with me here. Last night I happened to be searching around on a live webcam site (no not for anything perverted or anything like that). Sometimes I get bored. So I find this one webcam of this 20-year-old girl named Samantha. It was a great stream too. Very fluid. Almost like real life. I'm not kidding! It's not often you find a webcam so smooth. She was just chatting online and on the phone with friends. Nothing exciting. I read her bio and she's pretty cool. She also has this online diary type thing which isn't really a diary. Just a place for her to ramble on about stuff...kinda like this site here. You know what's odd? She's incredibly like me. She likes the same type of shows I do, same movies, she writes the same way I do, she likes graphics like I do, her sense of humor is almost exactly like mine, and more! Kinda cool, huh? And she's cute to boot! Sadly enough, she's with someone right now. *snaps fingers* Darnit. Interestingly enough, she met her current boyfriend over the internet and they've been together for two years now. Pretty cool, huh? I didn't expect anything to happen of course in the future but I just thought it was cool how we were so much alike. It really makes me wonder how we'd get along if we met in real life.
I can just see it. I'd happen to see her on the street and say, "Sam?"
"Yeah? Do I know you?"
"No, but I've been watching you on your webcam."
"Freak! Pervert!" *SMACK*
And that would be the end of that. Heh heh. She's just cool. It's fun to watch someone when they don't really know who's watching them so they act normal. No facade or anything. They act like their true selves and it gives me a deeper look into what they're really like. Quite fun.

No, I'm not some sicko who's going around looking for weirdos on the internet to cyber with. I'm just a normal guy. I mean no harm physically or psychologically. :)

Sunday, December 09^th 2001 — 01:29pm Central Time
Boy, was I busy on Friday. Not only was I modifying every friggin' page on this site but I was doing other complicated homework which included a paper I had been putting off for a week. I'm glad I finally got it written. I also had to do an astronomy lab for extra credit and I still don't quite understand it but I did the main part. It's worth 90 points when it's done...whew! 90 points is a lot of extra credit points! I'm getting an A anyway in the class. ^_^

Speaking of astronomy....I FINALLY GOT TO GO TO THE OBSERVATORY ON THURSDAY NIGHT!!!! I actually got to see Jupiter and the different colors of its atmosphere! It was SOOO cool! I also saw Satrun and its rings, Jupiters moons, Saturn's moons, Capella, The Great Orion Nebula, and the Persieds. I have been wanting to see such things like that through a REAL telescope all my life. I've been into astronomy for most of my life too. It's kinda like this hidden passion. Not quite so hidden any more though. ^_^ I just get so excited when it comes to astronomy.

TOMORROW'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!! But we celebrated it today because birthdays on weekdays aren't all that fun and convenient. ^_^ What did I get for my early birthday? A TELESCOPE!! A KICK ASS ONE TOO! They gave it to me last night because it was very clear out and it's not often clear. I saw Jupiter and stuff again! It was so cool!!! I love my telescope. It's so awesome. VERY cool! I also got another Myst item for my collection called Myst Masterpiece Editoin, a dictionary (I desperately needed one that was not falling apart), a REALLY nice set of binoculars (for looking at the stars as well), a new glasses holder to put my glass in when I go to bed, some nice gloves for winter when it gets really cold (whenever that's going to be...the weather's so goofy here), and a nice laser pointer to amuse my cat with. ^_^ I love everything I got!!! Okay, I'm very excited. That's enough for now. ^_^

Friday, December 07^th 2001 — 01:26pm Central Time
Just a quick ramble here because I'm busy. But because of AT&T taking over our cable, my email has changed from the @home.com extension to @attbi.com so my new email is: Gandalf1210@attbi.com. I've changed it on the bottom of all the pages on this site and I'll fix it on my other two sites later. Also, you may notice that the Guestbook is gone. Well, Guestcities.com has gone away and therefore the guestbook has too. I used them for the guestbook on this site and my Practical Fractals site. My Practical Fractals site now has a new Bravenet guestbook but I lost all the entries from the old one...GRRR...oh well. For this site, I just decided to get rid of the guestbook altogether because it really served no purpose. I'll do a real rambling later today maybe.

Thursday, December 06^th 2001 — 09:37am Central Time
Well, the cable is BACK! AT&T doesn't quite have home networking down and working yet so only one person can be online at a time in my house but that's okay. We're used to that from our days of using AOL. Boy...going without internet is HORRIBLE! I went through serious withdrawl. But I'm back now and happy.

Today, in english class I have to do a lame presentation. See, our class was split up into four groups and we each had to pick one essay in our text book and then present it to the class. But on Tuesday, we all took a quiz on all the essays because we had to read them all anyway. Now, what's the point of presenting essays to a class when everyone in the class has already read all of them and taken a quiz on them? WHAT'S THE POINT!?!? I HATE presenting in front of people. I have horrible stage fright so I hate getting up in front of a group of people in every situation. I HATE IT. I do not want to get over it. I don't want to do it more often to get over it. I just don't want to ever have to do it but for some reason, my teacher feels the need to make us to this IN A COLLEGE CLASS!! This thing is like for junior high students! Not college students! I hate this. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow or so maybe.

Saturday, December 01^st 2001 — 11:14pm Central Time
Happy December, everyone! (The ramblings for the month of November have been moved to the Archives section.) Though by the time you are reading this, it will probably be a week or more into december. Nevertheless, I will continue writing. Why wasn't this online sooner? Well, I'm sure you know by now that Excite@home has gone bankrupt and all users of AT&T@home broadband are experiencing down time. SERIOUS down time. Like millions of users all across the country! I hope everything's back up online soon. (I'm a user of AT&T.) I'm going through internet withdrawl and It's only been less than a day! I don't know how I can make it through the proposed week of downtime!!! At least my computer's still functional and if need be, we can always get AOL going but that won't be necessary. I'll try to cope. *cringes*

So, on a lighter and more upbeat note, we decorated our house today for Christmas! Yeah, we're 24 days early but we always do it this early. ^_^ It's quite fun. I have this huge window in my room and I outlined it with some purdy white lights which provide a wonderful ambience at night without any other lights on. I also got a mini fiber optic tree a couple years ago which I put up in my room every year. The colors rotate and look all nice and spiffy. I like it. ^_^ Oh yeah, we decorated the entire house too. Hee hee! We really go all out every year on the inside. On the outside it looks just like any other house with lights hanging up and a wreath but on the inside, my mother decorates like crazy. She loves it though and so does my dad and I. My main job is to put together the fake tree (I'm allergic to real pine), string the lights on it, and help put on all the hundreds of ornaments that my mother has made over the years (seriously!). The sad part about it though, is the pile of hooks for the ornaments we have to pick from to hang them...it's not pretty...as you'll see below! Scary... (Yes, I took a picture of it.) I took pictures of several things.

Below, you'll see pictures of the dreaded hooks, some REALLY cool reflective images of Christmas metal balls, and the finished tree itself. We used plain white lights this year instead of colorful ones. For some reason, white lights really bring out the red in all of our ornaments on the tree. Not sure why, but it looks REALLY beautiful! (Clicking on each image will open up a new window with a larger version of the image.) Enjoy!

Very festive picture. Definitely my favorite of the Christmas balls.	Close up, but not as nice as the last one.	It's the red tunnel of doom!...Okay maybe not. ^_^
Look! There's blue in there!...and many reflections of my camera! Ahhh!!	Anyone who's played Riven will understand this...look, Gehn's been here!!!	*Shudder*...The evil hook ball. YOU try undoing all of those!
Isn't it just so beautiful? I think we did a wonderful job. ^_^