[2004.05.31 2358h] [music] michael woods \\ solex (close to the edge) [dogzilla vs. michael woods mix] i think my motherboard died. when booting up my computer, the ominous sounding error "bios rom checksum error" appeared on my monitor. i've already spent a significant amount of time troubleshooting, including removing unnecessary hardware and replacing the motherboard's battery, but nothing seems to work. sniff. i've been trying out some new eating habits in the past couple of weeks. basically, this consists of me trying to eat a lunch and a dinner every day at around the time most people seem to do so. this is rather unusual for me, as since i usually simply eat a meal whenever i'm hungry, and i end up averaging about a meal and a half per day. i've had meal plans of ten meals a week before and have never found myself needing any more. sadly, some of the effects i've been feeling as a result of this change in meal scheduling include fatigue, loss of motivation, and hunger pangs, even though, ironically, i believe i'm actually eating more than i usually do. i've been told that i'm usually spirited and full of energy. if how i'm feeling now is how normal people tend to feel, then i can see why. i also started drinking cow's milk again. i haven't touched the stuff for almost four years. for some reason, drinking a cup or two of cow's milk used to give me a massive headache. i'm not sure why, but i'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with lactose intolerance, as since i don't think i've ever had trouble with lactose before, and i don't think headaches usually originate from the digestive system. apparently, my headaches can also be caused by other dairy products, as i learned when, one year, the chef in my house would often make vegetarian dishes by replacing the meat in the meat dishes with cheese. my mom theorized that my headaches might have been caused by various chemicals that can be found in cow's milk nowadays, so she gave me a bottle of organic cow's milk to try. the bottle states that the company uses no hormones, antibiotics, or pesticides, and i'm happy to state that, after drinking this milk, i did not get the massive headaches i used to get after drinking cow's milk. i am pleased to say that the six years i spent studying french has finally paid off academically. while doing math research, i found myself staring at a few pages in an old french math journal, which i'm proud to say i was able to read without the help of a dictionary. i must admit that i can't say that i completely understood the article, but i got more than enough out of it for the purposes of my research. i don't know why, but it seems as if whenever i try to plan something out ahead of time, often something bizarre goes wrong, and when i don't plan something out ahead of time, often everything happens to fall into place. i am usually pretty surprised at how incredibly unusual the unfortunate events are in the former case, and am often very amazed at how incredibly lucky i can be in the latter case. strangely, having this kind of luck seems to motivate one to not plan anything at all.