Greetings,

Well, a few things happened today. Last night around 0930 I took half a milligram of Xanax, and I have to say it damn nearly killed me. Within 25 minutes, I felt like I was drunk, I couldn�t really move my arms, severely disorientated as I didn�t know where the hell I was, and I was dizzy as fuck. Fortunately, I was on webcam with Michele and she was able to contact my parents. Otherwise�I�d like to think that I�d be fine but I can�t say for sure. It was tough for me to stay awake. Mom contacted the ER and would have taken me there but there was a 3-hour wait as they were swamped. When Michele called again, this time on my cell, she talked with mom again, and they assured her that they�d check in on me but just try to let me sleep it off.

Obviously because of all of that I didn�t go to work today, and I won�t be going tomorrow just to let my system recover, and I also woke up because I�m typing this. However, when I did wake up I wasn�t doing much better, but at least I wasn�t dizzy anymore. Mom attempted to contact the doctor�s office, but no advial, all she could do was leave a message. When we didn�t get a call back 2 � hours later, she just took me back in. When I was finally called back, I vaguely remember the doc trying to talk to me as I was being hauled back into an exam room. The doc checked me out, made sure that I could at least lift my arms and legs, made sure there were no other symptoms, then gave me a shot of Benadryl and sent me home to sleep it off. The shot was to make sure that it wasn�t an allergic reaction, but he thought that it was more of a deal where I�m just really sensitive to drugs that affect neuro-transmitters like that.

When I woke up, I had two things about Nicki waiting for me. I had a letter from Nicki there, and an email from her mother. The letter from Nicki was a pretty vanilla one, a letter that was chatty for the most part. She was also telling me about how she had a hard time on Sunday, because she had a nightmare in which me and my brother Matt were killed. It bothered her so much that she was crying the whole time that she was getting dressed and making her bed. The email from her mom was three short sentences, and told me nothing except that she took some money out of our checking account and that she was still having nightmares. I dear hope to God that her mother had the good graces not to tell Nicki about my suicidal tendencies, assuming that she�s read my journal. That didn�t bother me as much as the fact that she called her mom instead of trying to call me. I figure she thought that I was at work or something, but still. I�ve told her to at least try because I would find a way to make the time to take her call. I�ve also asked her to try to leave me a message because I want to hear her voice too, but I know that she doesn�t get very many minutes to talk anyways, so�I�m hoping that she tries to call me on Friday after she finds out what they�re going to do with her, since I would normally have the day off. Full details of the update that I sent out to my Nicki BMT distribution list can be found in the Nicki BMT Updates section.

I�ve decided that I can�t just sit here and just write letters of support for her. It doesn�t feel like I�m doing enough. I�m working on a webpage that will let people post messages of support. I�m also going to access Nicki�s journal and post the details there. What I�m hoping to do is find a way to make contact with all of Nicki�s readers and online friends and have them post messages of support, so that I can print them off and send them to her. I want her to never, ever forget that there�s more than just her family rooting for her, and that everyone wants to see her succeed in this, no matter how long it takes. I�ll write the details when I have them.

Michele and I talked again tonight, and I educated her on the values of having a firewall on her computer since she�s using DSL. I told her that an anti-virus program only kicks in after her computer has been attacked, it doesn�t try to prevent the attack, and that a firewall actually protects the computer against an outside attack, before the virus or Trojan gets on the computer. I only told her a few tidbits about hackers, and she�s going to pick up a software firewall this weekend. I didn�t get a chance to tell her how I know a couple of hackers that have written programs that will shut down your computer�s fans, and in turn, cause those components to overheat and melt. Or cause the hard drive platters to keep spinning and spinning so fast that they literally break. Believe me, hackers can do some scary stuff.

I was also watching this program called �The Screen Savers� on TechTV tonight. It�s a program that talks about technology issues, previews and reviews the newest in computer hardware and softwate, and even provides useful tips and tricks to do for computers, cell phones, PDAs, etc. Anyways, on this episode one of the hosts and one of the tech guys on the show did a round of what�s called wardriving and warspying out in Hollywood. For background info, some home networks and businesses use wireless internet access, and because of the nature of how that works, hackers or wardrivers can go around, find your wireless network, and unless you secure and encrypt it, they can tap into your network and do whatever they want and the attacks would be traced back to the hapless sucker who didn�t secure the network. Wardriving means going around and finding unsecured wireless networks, and warspying means going around and finding unsecured wireless cameras, basically a camera that broadcasts its feed like a radio station, not through a cable. Anyways, the two guys were picking on Hollywood stars, and the only one that they could find that didn�t have a secured network was Tom Arnold.

They also revealed the top five Darkest Days in Tech History:

• 5. 5 March 1994 � Spam is born when the law firm of Canter and Siegel advertised it�s green card lottery services on Usenet newsgroups. They were roundly denounced for doing so, but they began the crazed that filled up your email account with 300 new messages when I set your computer back up.

• 4. Feburary 1995 � Hacker Kevin Mitnick was the first person who was jailed for hacking. He was held without trial for four years, 11 months, and six days because he was considered a risk to national security.

• 3. 28 October 1998 � The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was signed by none other than Bill Clinton into law. Among things most hated about this is the fact that it created a loophole that prevents people from having archival backups of their own music and movies.

• 2. June 1999 � The launch of the music sharing service Napster. It was a huge hit by fans, until it was hit huge by a shitload of lawsuits by the RIAA and Metallica.

• 1. 14 September 2000 � Microsoft released, are you ready for this? Microsoft ME! Yes, the darkest day in tech history is the release of noneother than Windows Millennium Edition. Tech TV said that it sucked because it didn�t offer any real improvements over 98, but as you and I both know it just sucks ass and it�s buggy as hell.

Anyways, I�ve got to get to bed. Out.

Personal Exercise Log

No exercises conducted due to medical condition.