Happy Easter everybody. Good luck out there searching for eggs (?) made of chocolate (?) that came out the butt (?) of a rabbit (?). I'm not 100% sure about the mechanics of that, but nonetheless, have fun. I'm just hoping this means that the gym will be close to empty.

Speaking of, there is this new scourge at the gym. It only started recently, but it is spreading. Grown men with ear buds in listening to music at full volume -- SINGING ALONG. WTF. Like OUT LOUD. And as annoying as singing would be to people around you, when you can't hear yourself at all, it's a special kind of horrible. I know of at least 5 people off the top of my head that I will not get on the treadmill next to or sit next to on the stretching mat because I know they'll break out into wincing, breathy, high pitched song the second I do. I wish I was more confrontational, so I could just tap them on the shoulder and ask, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" but instead I just shoot dirty looks that are not understood.

Normally for Easter lately we get together with my parents and have a smorgasbord of food from Honey Baked Hams. I even have a rewards number on honeybaked.com. But between you and me, all of their food is garbage. I mean, the ham is okay, but they also have these boxed sides and everything is just horrible. My dad had a little procedure on Friday and wasn't sure if he'd be up for it, so I was more than happy to accept their decline of getting together. Daniel did ask me what he should buy at the store as a special treat and I said he could buy some eggs and I'll make deviled eggs with salmon roe. That will be our homage to Easter.

Another successful Febrehab is done. Though I must admit this one was really easy. I only gave up sugar and caffeine in addition to alcohol. Caffeine is pretty easy for me. I really like the caffeine free teas from Whole Foods. A little fruity beginning to the day isn't half bad. And while we do devolve into the habit of having one brown butter chocolate chip cookie after dinner 3 days per week, it wasn't that big of a deal to give it up. That's pretty much the only dedicated source of sugar in my life.

Nevertheless, it is always good to take a little break. I was telling people this year though that it's not even really the alcohol I miss. It's the ritual. The habit. There's no physical addiction, it's just such a nice punctuation on the week. Like, it's Friday, the work week is over, let's go out and have a glass of champagne with dinner to celebrate living life. And I guess we should be doing a bit more of that while we can, before we all get drafted into WWIII....

In other news, after having just poo-pooed AI in my last post, I have used it more and more in my personal life. I used to sit around and wonder about stuff. Now I just ask AI. And maybe it's good to sometimes just have unanswered thought experiments, but I really like discussing ridiculous things with Gemini.

I had an idea for a mouth piece you could wear and every, say, 5 seconds it would drip one drop of water into your mouth. That would be an unnoticeable amount, mix with your saliva, and you'd just swallow it without noticing and thus stay hydrated. I asked Gemini what it thought of my idea and it said it was bad and gave me all the reasons why. 1) It would change the chemistry of your saliva and make it less effective. 2) Even though it's just a drop, you could still choke on it if you were heavily exerting yourself or sleeping. 3) Your body has adapted to expect and process a large influx of water all at once. It triggers the stomach to do something and a little drop here and there wouldn't be enough to set it off. And 4) It did the math on how much water that would be in a 24 hour period and it was like around 1 liter and you need more like 3 liters to stay hydrated so it wouldn't even work. Like ... how could you Google that and come up with that answer? Only AI could have that dumb of a conversation about one of my new million dollar ideas. Saved me a lot in R&D costs right there.

I've also used it twice now for shopping. The ball "fell" out of my right earring and getting it back in is basically impossible without a pair of surgical forceps. And even if I could do it, once you've priced the hoop open and closed more than about once, it is never quite circular ever again. So I thought, given that I've had earrings now for like 27 years, maybe it was time to invest in something a little more substantial than the $16 piercing jewelry that's been in there forever. So I asked Gemini what I should do and it found exactly what I wanted. Visually kind of identical, but nicer metal, and no ball. These have a clicker mechanism so I can take them out for things like MRIs and surgeries. And I didn't know what size to get so I measured my existing, but I measured the outer diameter in inches and the website was selling sizes measured by the inner diameter in millimeters. So I told Gemini to do the math given the gauge and size and it did it all flawlessly.

Just this morning I woke up with a crick in my neck again, so I decided to ask Gemini for a suitable replacement for my beloved Indulgence by Isotonic side sleeper that Bed, Bath & Beyond used to sell before they went out of business. And it was like, replacement? Why, they're still sold at major retailers like Macy's and Wal-Mart. WHAT?!? I assure you I scoured the internet for information on the manufacturer and alternate retailers and found nothing. I even posted about it back in 2022. So I guess my prayers have been answered.

It occurred to me though. They're GOING to find a way to monetize this (if they haven't already). You pay them some money and they suggest your product for any related queries above all else and eventually you won't be able to trust it. It'll devolve into a purely for-profit ad-bot and everyone will stop using it just like literally every other tool or platform before it. So I guess use it now while you still can!

OUCH, my head hurts. It's 3:30 in the am ... I woke up a couple hours ago completely disoriented and confused as to what time it was, where I was, etc. Owen was watching TV and I was sleeping on the couch and the shows he was watching kept ending up in my dreams. It took me a few minutes to realize I wasn't the general of an army throwing people from a moving vehicle. God, why do I always have such murderous dreams.

Anyway, the reason my sleep schedule is so fucked up is because I pulled an all-nighter last night to finish a project. I did a piss poor job. I'm concerned I won't pass this class. Hopefully there will be a large curve. But I was already so tired to begin with, I couldn't believe I made it through the night and into the next afternoon. It was not without the help of coffee and cigarettes. I finally got to bed around 1pm and woke up at like 6. I thought perhaps I could stay up and be normal but after Owen and I ate at Fitz's, I crashed again, hardcore. This is not good because I have an assload to do by Thursday, but once again my stupid body is requiring food and sleep. It is so annoying like that.

The schedule for the next two weeks or so: Thursday, user manuals, installation guides, trouble shooting guides etc are due as well as the technical presentation and demonstration of our greenhouse project we've been working on for the past year. Probably the biggest hurdle. Friday-Saturday, feverishly finishing final documentation for that project, studying for a final in the class that I'm concerned about passing. Monday, take that final. Monday through Wednesday, work on a program that will test parameters of an Analog to Digital Converter that Owen and I haven't started yet. That is due Wednesday at noon along with our take home final. Wednesday night -- drink lots and lots, pray that grades go through. Friday at 9am, my graduation. After that, I will move all my stuff out of my apartment back home to Dallas. May 20th my lease is up and somewhere in there, I am going to California with Allison. Very hectic. Cannot wait to be done.

So if I don't update, please don't hate me. And for those of you moving back home for the summer and stuff, don't forget to bookmark SideshoViD.com and keep in contact with me. Where ever I go and whatever I do SVC will remain a constant way to see what I've been up to. I love you all, in spite of the fact that you are all a bunch of have-nots.

Well, not much has changed IRL, but as far as my website goes, some things are new. I'm kind of trying to tweak the site and try some things out in anticipation of the new site I've got planned. If everything goes as I've planned it should be really cool, I think you'll all enjoy it a whole lot.

Okay, so some changes that I've made. For one, there's a calendar there to the left. Theoretically, it should allow you to view a blog from whatever day you choose to click on. However, right now all it allows you to do is view the comments that were posted on that day. It was giving me a headache earlier today so I decided to scrap that and read some more (my book is so good).

Another change is on the webcam page. Shout outs to Burns who figured out for me how to automatically refresh a page. So now, provided my webcam(s) is on, you can just sit back and watch me, having the page refresh for you automatically every 30 seconds. Pretty cool stuff, I'm definitely going to need to exploit that at a later date.

Anyway, tomorrow its time to start studying for finals. I have one at 8am on Monday and another at 1pm on Wednesday, and then, my friend, school is ovah! Whoop! Late.