yotogi.net

on other less substantial notes, it is amazing to me how time that has past and to some degree distance are nothing, almost completely irrelevant, when compared with the time that is the moment and the distance which applies to it. you can spend years and hundreds of miles away from someone and see them and none of it matters. but then, upon realizing that you want to see that person, the moment lasts forever and the miles seem such an obstacle. surfice to say that my weekend, or today rather was one that brought back many wonderful memories, like a the amazing beauty of a smile, and feeling that comes with an amazing syncronicity despite explanation for it.

i will sleep well tonight.

so much more beauty is contained in an honest look, held in a moment in the air surrounding eyes and lips turned up in a knowing smile. and i remember the times that i have seen that beauty and i cannot help but to smile as well...

perhaps i should sleep more, but i find in funny how my brain has a tendancy to misfire when it is seperated from sleep. change is in the air, and change like this is always for the better...

there is a roundabout near my apartment. i think my life is like that in so many ways. i travel sometimes going this way or that. and sometimes while i am passing around the middle i find that people that i have once passed are on it too. around and around and around i go...

i never really had an answer for my own question, but i think that i do now.

i spend my time trying to reach a state where my natural creativity drives concrete output, where my brain examines and solves problems without any direction on my part. i concieve of systems of varying complexities and give them expression. i also speak numerous incomprehesible languages in attemps to solve problems mathematically and logically with artistic principles.

yeah, or something like that -=grin=-

the PS2 is going the way of the Xbox and including a boot setting for the screen format. this is the root of my headaches for this evening. for some reason that i cannot fathom, the PS2 is shipping with the default screen format being a 4:3 letterbox format instead of a 4:3 fullscreen. this introduces a ton of headaches in my life, but oh well. i will work through it all.

a shave and a brush of the teeth and off to bed i go. congrats to mr. bill on some nature of coding job and to jenn on a decision to spend another summer in the much more pleasant climes of alaska. and a note to myself as a reminder that i should be a little more careful what i say without explanation yet i offend without at all meaning to.

we got a new intern at work this week. an attractive art one at that. funny thing is that it has done nothing but confirm my ealier rant about the gravity of pretty girls. the little ripples of interest and forces of attraction are evident about the art department. it is quite hilarious. i have laughed a great deal about all of this. more on this later when i have had a little bit of sleep.

that having been said i am currently wondering which i dislike more. the boring 8 hours of work that i am doing these days with weekends off, or the crazy 16 hours no days off stuff that i was doing just a week ago. i like to keep busy, i get lazy when i get bored. catch myself zoning off into space or something like that, but i like my work to chalenge me, not bore me to tears.

on a personal note, i will reiterate a point that i have made at some point. if you have the nerve to get someones phone number, please at least return the call to tell them that you giving them the number was a mistake. that or have the decency to reject them on the spot. of course, i don't really know why i say these kinds of things here, most of the people that bother to read this are decent human beings... -=grin=-

boy, i am feeling really chatty today. perhaps i need to get out some more, but what to do on a tuesday night? hmmm... any ideas people?

but isn't that really the root of learning? time goes on, we experience more and more and we hopefully make less mistakes? at least that is how i look at it these days. one of these days it is bound to pay off. that, and i sure am loving this crazy life.

hey, if you have a journal or a weblog, i would love to know where it is. i mean, for some of my friends it is the only way that i really have to keep up with them.

damnit, i will have to edit this in the morning (afternoon) for clearity.

the funny thing is, the stuff that i was going to write about instead of rewriting the rant from yesterday, is in a way about the same stuff. in college, my suitemate was a self proclamed polygamorist. in fact, he was a very proclaiming polygamorist. this was my first real exposure to this lifestyle and left a really bad taste in my mouth. as much as i wanted to believe that it could work in the real world and no one would end up hurt, that is not how it seemed to work.

what i did end up seeing was a guy who had a girl he could have sex with at school and another he could have sex with back home. it seemed to be about the control that he felt he had over these women, not about the love that they were supposed to be sharing. i could be wrong about it, but i was around the people involved afterwards and everyone ended up hurt.

surfice to say that i recently have seen it working and i feel much beter about people in general for it. of course, thinking about it some more, i did have several poly friends while in school, and there was another one the seemed to be doing ok by it. but then again, i remember him wanting so much more out of his relationships than he was getting. i have seen happy people who share a trust and love that is amazing. i am sure i will have more on this, so until then, or some time like it.

EDIT 26.june.02: polyamorist not polygamist... -=smacks head=- thanks chuck!

sometimes you end up hoping that you can get to a situation where you can do that, before you are forced to quit on account that the hand that ended up dealt to you would break the bank.

all i need is a word of assurance to throw all this away, but i doubt that will come in time to encourage a peaceful nights sleep.

lo5an post over at his site a a link to an article about dealing with intense people. thread here.

the weekend was an interesting one. friday was booty shakage at a.k.a. lounge to some decent to good house, saturday was more than a few red bull and vodka at cory's party where i met some cool new people, sunday was just a touch of the going downtown.

last night actually would have been an amazing letdown if i had anticipated anything at all. the crowds were out in full force fucking shit up. the a/c at the last place we were at barely could keep the place not warm. i headed home early, read some and got a wonderful nights sleep.

today was an adventure in making order out of the chaos that has been my office since i moved here over 18 months ago. for the first time this room is really nice and clean. i am reinstalling my desktop machine right now, and imagine that if i wanted to, i could entertain a group of about 10 people comfortably. cory's party really makes me want to do this, it was a really good time.

during cleaning i came across all of the pictures that i have from over the years. there were several in there of me and brandi, which kind of melted the heart a bit. then there were all of the pictures of me and the old norman crew. i think i know why i don't like to have my picture taken.

pictures are much more present than our memories. a couple of years away from people and they have almost completely faded from your mind. they are still there, but they are much less accessible. a picture brings all of that back into focus. all of the sudden you remember everything that was good and bad about the people you once knew. a picture is a means by which we remember, and in remembering sometimes visit emotions that we may not want to feel anymore.

i never want a picture of me to make people sad. better to be forgotten than to be a small sadness over the years.

coffee and conversation last night to catch up on old times, to explore the ideas of law as common morality, to be frustrated by the tone and inflection of slam poetry, and to generally feel understood. good things all around me.

unhappy with my social interactions as of late, i am trying to meet new people and encourage conversations outside of the context of small talk. last night was good for that as i moved a relationship with an aquaintance towards something more of a friendship. tonight will hopefully prove to be a little more of the same.

in addition, i was complemented last night by two friends in a wonderful way. there is nothing like flattery from someone who's presence you find flattering to begin with.

tonight more of the same while looking to make it something different. sometimes you have to take what you have and make it into what you want.

tonight i stayed up a bit too late, but it was for one of those reasons. responsibility (and to some degree caution) brought me back home with a feeling that tonight was indeed one of those wonderful nights where i wonder what work would be like if i didn't sleep at all tonight. i am however now, off to bed after a bit of reading.

-=smitten=-

ciole links to this article about a 100% successful HPV vaccine. this is a really good thing.

seattle has passed resolutions to extend the existing monorail "system" into a functional transportation system to supplement the already wonderful bus system in the city. i love the option of not having to drive. this is another good thing.

my trip this week has left me with a lot to think about. for a long time i have been comfortable with my own mortalitly and with the idea that i may die young (not wishing for death, just being comfortable with death). my grandfather was diagnosed with parkenson's desease this week, which has given me cause to think about aging and mortality again. this time i cannot really do so from the comforts of youth. it is one thing to contemplate mortality in the comforts of youth, quite another to face them in someone who is doing his best not to loose anything from the quality of his life, despite his body's best efforts to fall apart.

tiburon has an office in austin. it is up in the hill country just a few minutes from the city of austin proper. i noticed on this trip to austin how much the hill country reminds me of seattle. in fact the pace of austin is incredibly reminicent of seattle in general. the people, the air, the hills and the winter. i could just as easily live there as i could in the pacific northwest.

the smokers lounge is an interesting place. so much more effective than the truth ads if you are trying to convince your impressionable child that smoking is not a glamorous or desireable practice. atlanta has a room with a wall of windows looking out onto the main walkway of the terminal. the glass of those windows looks to be the only thing that they clean, so as to make sure that anyone who wants to make a point to their children can point out the people. they can expain that those people's insides look just like the yellowed walls and ceiling visible through the perfectly clean glass.

and there is something about time off that brings about the clearity of mind to focus on work. i am looking forward to work after my time away. so much good stuff to do, so many things to learn. my brain itches to grow after just a bit of downtime. i wish that i was better about starting and following through on my personal projects since they would provide me an outlet for this kind of focus no matter what i am currently doing. i guess that for now, until i get started on a project, i will have to be content with my books and my music.

i watch MSNBC more than the others. i cannot stomach Fox News, a little too much sensationalism in its coverage. i like the evening shows on MSNBC. countdown is amusing, and i find it interesting to get my daily recommended allowance of the conservative agenda from joe scarborough. and it has been a busy week for news with the capture of sadam and the media circus what is the michael jackson thing.

and the coverage of sadam has led me to wonder about my support of the death penalty. as it is, i am not sure that i would give my normal support to the death penalty for this case. not that i don't think that he deserves nothing more than death for his actions, but that i am not sure if that will allow for a clean break and new start for the region. of course, this doesn't even begin to cover my opinions over if we should or should not have been over there in the first place, as that is another matter altogether.

then i went on a ramage hitting up friend's sites and "catching up". crosslinked to another old friend's site who i don't keep up with. read a couple of his posts and thought about what my website used to be like. somewhere with the work and the house and the day-to-day i stopped posting what i would consider intersting things. when i go back and take a bite out of the archives, i don't enjoy the "i did this" variety of posts. instead, i like the interesting things, the real observations. somewhere along the last couple of years i stopped doing that. people still seem to visit the site, but i am not happy with the content that i am delivering them, i also don't find it theraputic like i once did.

time to start this over again.

i just completed a puzzle game that encourages you to make sense of hints and tips and requires a good deal of lateral thinking. most of the time you are forced to make observations of things that are well placed in the environment. you spend time thinking about how things work and how to make them do things that you need them to.

while out doing daily stuff today, i realized that this activity of figuring things out is something that i do more often than i realize, but something that i do not do as much as i used to. at some point over the last couple of years, i stopped pushing my brain like i did when i was in school. this bothers me to no end.

some people make new years resolutions to loose weight, some to spend more time with the people that they love. i resolve to pay more attention to my mind, and find new ways to encourage people to do the same.

what is currently floating around in my brain will require me to spend a lot of time in the downtown orlando area and do a whole lot more research into the history and geography of the area. geocaching has provided me a bit of a framework for placing something of an urban puzzle, one that will require more than just following your gps to a place and finding a box, one that will make you contemplate the world and how things work.

all that, and i want to learn how to build furniture.

today was the first day in 5 weeks that i was back at work. it felt really good to be back. so much of myself is fulfilled by what i do for a living that not being there so long left me feeling quite a bit out of sorts by the end of it all. in addition, i realized that most of my friend-type contact happens at the office, and not being there so long is kind of like not seeing your friends for that time.

but it is not work that found me saying things that hurt feelings. it is funny how connected you can be with someone such that when they are upset, there is nothing on your mind but why they feel that way and if there is anything you can do to help. sometimes what you say can start out as a joke, and end up being something that you wish you had never started to say in the first place. i do believe that honesty and open communication is the key to understanding the people that you care about and in keeping the relationship you share healthy. sometimes though, i wish that i was a bit better about tempering my words and not necessarily speaking my mind.

horay for run-ons.

after CSI on spike TV tonight was WWF wrestling. i was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner and the channel was still on. the first "match" was between Muhammad Hassan, who i assume is supposed to be of middle-eastern decent. disliked for his "anti-American rhetoric" i can only assume that he is supposed to be helping race relations in this country.

some days, i am just really sad.

Death to the Games Industry: Long Live Games by Greg Costikyan.
DttGI:LLG Part 2 by Greg Costikyan.
old piece on indy development published in the december 1999 issue of Game Developer Magazine.

well, it would appear that Greg has stepped up to bat. it is stuff like this that really makes me want to work in an indy environmnent, working on a product that i want to play.

monday night i suffered from insomnia for the first time in over a year. this didn't make me happy in the least, but is really not much of an interesting point. it does, however, mean that i was tired yesterday, and when i am tired, my brain works slightly differently than when i am rested.

case in point, although not the first time that i noticed it, i found an interesting slice of time yesterday. if you have a nightlight that automatically turns on and off in a room that you commonly turn the overhead light on, the bathroom for example, you may have found yourself passing through the moment that i am about to describe.

there is a time between when you turn off the overhead light and when the nightlight comes on. visually, it is a strange transition. the bright light goes away instantly but the little nightlight takes a moment to get going. this leaves you in the dark for just an instant and to me is a strange visual transition. probably not all that interesting to most people, but i have always liked the way that it worked.