EDIT: dead link removed.
Norman caught on fire last night. I haven't taken the time to get the pictures and video we took up but perhaps I will soon. If the mood strikes me. Probably not.
"All my friend have flowers in their eyes / but I got none this season"
So I tells him that there is a lack of context because if I were to give a context then I would have to involve other people who might not want me talking about those situations that involve them. It is by virtue of the vaugeness that I can post anything at all.
Hopefully, I will be able to give more context in the future, if the situations that I am in become less complicated that is.
In more complicated matters, I am not sure what is going on. Not that that should suprise me or anyone else who knows me. Something was said about my ego catching up with me and getting pissed off at being situational. I think that this might be happening. Oh well, what can one do.
Finished up Tales of Pirx the Pilot by Stanislaw Lem yesterday (more info). Am almost through Ubik by Philip K. Dick right now (author stuff). When I read, I guess I really get up in it.
My ego has caught up with me, refusing to be situational. That is nice. I missed my ego.
Had a blast at the Dave Mathews Band show. Interesting tidbit. All over the arean (Starplex in Dallas) there were signs that read "Recording of the Dave Mathews Band is permitted in all areas". PERMITTED?!? What is up with that? Cool and all I know, but man.
Been reading GPF. I like the story and the idea that the characters actually change over the course of the comic.
"If you work with numbers, he'll want to work you." Aminda Warburton
Was walking to get some coffee and get some of that pesky homework done. On the side of the road there was this beer bottle. This should strike me as no suprise, except that instead of a Budwiser bottle or something, it is an empty of Asahi, a fine Japanese beer. Kinda makes you wonder.
Of all of the things that I have control over in my life (read very small amound), I have to say that I am 90% happy with the way things are going right now. All of the rest of that stuff is what is making me to be a nice shade of gray.
Learning DirectX so that I can get to work on a nice little video game. Several really interesting bits of technology. I have to say that I am really happy with the API as a whole.
Bought a new controller for my RC car today. Not that this is a very interesting tidbit or anything.
Right now I am really wondering what is up...
All I can really say is that school is all well and good until you start interviewing and looking into work after graduation. Then the thought enters your head like, "Well, all of these companies are interested in me, what is it that is so important that I am going to learn in a year that makes me that much better than I am right now? Then it is all downhill. "Senioritis" sets in and apathy becomes you best friend.
And a post would not be a post without saying that my "little" sister (she is 20 now... yikes!!) rocks the preverbal Kasbah. Yeah on the calculator and the camera. You rock, Jacque.
Good luck pops on the job hunt. Peace...
No sleep last night.... a little punchy....
Sill in the holding pattern for Microsoft. I know the letters are being sent but I have not received mine. Funny thing, you would think that to be a good thing, right? Normally the letters that come out are the letters that say that you do not have the job, but the one that I know that has arrived is saying that they want another interview. Shitsticks. Not that I can afford to be all worried with what is up next...
So I sent my resume to Electronic Arts on a whim. Funny thing is they actually replied to me with this little exam. After completing the 4 questions in the requisite 72 hours and sent it to them. So I get the call saying that they recieved my mail and that they are forwarding it on. Monday afternoon I get a call to scedule a phone interview for that Thursday. 40 minutes on the phone and I am waiting for a callback to see if they want to fly me out for a second interview. 24 hours later I am on the phone telling them that flying out the Tuesday before Thanksgiving would be great. Now I contemplate if I should cut my orange hair out. It is imprtant enough to cosider it for sure. Think that I am going to call one of the devs and figure it out.
Work is good, school is trying to kill me. Major project, group project due next week. No sleep for Aaron this week if he can absolutly help it. Must be nice and sleep deprived for the trip to Florida.
Hair stays in. Yeah!!
Sleep is for the weak as I have said before. I am trying to keep up on mine but really to no avail for the most part. It is kind of interesting though. The database project is coming along and I am hoping to have it done by the end of the week. That will give me a couple of days to get nice and rested before my interview with EA.
Found out also that I can complete my degree even if I end up in Florida in the spring. Cool. It is good to have options.
Hair stays in. Yeah!!
Sleep is for the weak as I have said before. I am trying to keep up on mine but really to no avail for the most part. It is kind of interesting though. The database project is coming along and I am hoping to have it done by the end of the week. That will give me a couple of days to get nice and rested before my interview with EA.
Found out also that I can complete my degree even if I end up in Florida in the spring. Cool. It is good to have options.
It is really too bad that I am more than likely going to turn them down. It is really a fine package even if I would like to get some more dollars out to it.
Oh, good gravy check out this link to the Final Fantasy Movie Trainer. It made me make a mess of myself. Remember that you can right-click on the link and save that bad boy so that you can view it in all of the fullscreen glory it deserves.
Slept really well last night thanks to the hard work of my great friend Christy. Her skilled hands and endurance at working the knots out of my back allowed for one of the most wonderful nights sleep I have had in a really long time. Nearing completion on the Database project. There may be some weekend in store for me yet.
Now for the disturbing part (as if that wasn't enough). The following is quoted from the Oklahoma Daily and appeared in this article:
Members of Pi Beta Phi and Pi Kappa Phi have been working almost as long, Barrett Keith, international business freshman, said. Keith plays an out of place Waldo in their act.
"Out theme is Barbie and Ken," said University College freshman Meredith Jones, who plays Barbie. "But, Waldo shows up at our party as an outcast, and it is our job to change him into like the Kens that are there. "
"... into like the Kens...". Man that is too much. I thought that I was perhaps wrong about the greek system at my school being about the conformity, the cloning if you would. I figured that there was something else in addition to all of the trends of fashion and behavior. Guess I was proved wrong. Man...
EA offered. I bit. Florida mid-January.
This year, as every year, I have a whole metric ass-load to be thankful for. My health is good, my mind and spirit are healthy. Some of my dreams have been realized and others are closer to that day. What I can only hope is that your spirit is well and your hopes are high. Keep up all of your hard work, I believe in you.
OK, enough of that. Funny thing that I saw on my way back from Orlando. The no-smoking/fasten seatbelt sign that was over one of the seats in the plane was upside down. Do you have any idea how funny smoke looks falling instead of raising?
On the tram at the airport there was a sign that said "No food, drink, or smoking" what has happened here when we have rules saying that we cannot have drinks on a 30 second terminal tram ride. In the home of the free the only thing that we can hope is that we don't continue to remove those freedoms.
There are no images or sounds or movies up in the media space yet. I will get to that over the next couple of weeks. Yeah, just what the internet needs, pictures of my ugly mug
Went to really great place tonight called the Baltic Room to listen to some drum and bass and have a couple of pints to finish off the vacation. Really classy place with a great (make that fucking great) atmosphere. Managed to get an ashtray so that I can remember the place for years to come.
Head home tomorrow. It has been a great vacation and I am really ready to get into all of the things that the next year will bring me. New Year's Resolutions? Not really. But maybe one that will count as one is to get better at being myself. There are so many times that we all act like someone we are not. Whether that be to impress or to court or to make ourselves feel better, I think that to do that is to perform a most grave injustice against one's self. Changes can be made without forcing them to come by faking it for all those years.
Charles: So in my next life I want to come back as a pretty girl...
Everything is so much better taken out of context. Here is to more of that in the new year!! Cheers...
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is adding a third runway to accomidate for bad weather. In doing so they are going to reclaim about 13 acres of wetlands and 23 acres of non-wetlands. During the expansion they will be cleaning up a great deal of damage already done to the ecosystem surounding the airport. Damage that existed before the airport was there. Nice to see that sometimes development can indeed go hand-in-hand with environmental concerns.
While walking through the airport I came across a guy trying to raise money for what I believe to be a segment of the democratic party backed by Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. In exchange for $10 I recieved a book and several small publications outlining the tenents of the group. The gentleman doing the recrouting wished for me to give more money, but I held fast with my offer of $10 for more information. Some of what he said had realistic grounds. Some of it was a bit over the top. I intend to read the book and post more when I have more infomation.
Observations on the Economy (stirred by the LaRouche guy in Sea-Tac)
No doubt are there concerns about the economy as we move to a new president. The media are calling it a downturn in the stock market. I am calling in a recentering. The overvaluation of stocks (especially tech stocks and dot-coms) led to a completely unrealistic market.
As I discussed with several of my friends, with the information we have about the changes to the technology market we ought to be able to predict general trends without any difficulty. However, with all of the speculation money in the market, companies that should have showed increases in stock prices due to normal raises in earning and introductions of new technologies showed little movement.
My completely naive advise is to relax, don't panic, and remember that those dollars are not really worth anything when you think about it.
Recent Quote:
Diana: You go ahead and be right, I'll be satisfied.
Florida is great. I cannot even begin to tell you about the weather here. Found a place today. I will have pics and such when I get hooked up.
Shouldn't stay on here too long the Radio Shackians might get all upity.
Loving the new job. Have myself a nice little cube and that is fine by me. I cannot help but be impressed by the resources that are here in terms of both staff and hardware. The people that I have met seem really nice, or at least nice enough. It is certainly true what they say about coders in general though. There are more game addicts here than you can shake a larger-than-life stick at.
Today's Quote:
Jason on EQ: You just can't play two nights a week...
Yikes...
Been playing a load of FF9. What a great game. Since I was not all that impressed with FF8 it is really good to see that they have gotten back to the basics of good story and simple interface for this edition. Still on disk 1, many more hours to go.
Once again cannot hessitate to plug Blogger since it is by their technology alone that I am able to do what I do here. Figured that it was a good idea since there are several new readers who might be interested in such a thing.
I will be playing a whole lot of Madden with my job so I am off to it...
Problems with close friends preoccupy my free cycles.
Since it is in a web page and that sucks, I recomend that you open the url in QuickTime Player.
Made progress on FF9 last night despite my intention not to play it at all since I worked so damn late. Disk 2 is where I am whoo hoo... Made my first touchdown in Madden today. That is really exciting. Soon enough I will be able to hold my own against 4 year olds.
Am intending to make plans and get out this weekend. Now it is just a matter of figuring out where to go.
Noticed something on the roof of my car when I was at the post office today. Turned out to be sap. grrr... it is the little things that get you when you weren't paying attention.
Contact info is now up to date and rocking. I will do my best to get the pictures that I have of the apartment and my adventure with Flat Stanley scanned and up on the site really soon. On a not about getting things, I am still waiting for Ikea to ship me the necessary parts of my desk so that I can actually have a full setup and get things working again. Soon, soon...
Heading into work today. I actually started writing code yesterday. It feels really good to be getting real work done. I have to say that Madden 2002 is gonna rock. I normally do not go in for Football or sports games at all, but this one is really something to behold.
peace...
I came to realize last night while talking to someone on NM, that I have been asking several people this question:
"So what are you playing?"
and I find that really amusing.
Missed most of the Super Bowl comercials tonight. Guess I will scoot over to Adcritic to check them out this week. Did catch the VW one for the GTI with the car stuck up in the tree. That was clever, but I am bias in that regard. Although it is the second car in tree commecial running right now. Wonder if it is a trend. hmmm...
X-ie has been filling my inbox with fine, high-quality mail. In the next couple of days I will be bringing my brain (rested) to bear on the topics presented there. I will be sure to post anything of any interest or revelation here.
Speaking (typing) of things piling up in my inbox, Dianna sent me an organ which arived fresh today. This and other images availible in the media area of this site.
Milestone passed, now the real work begins.
edited 04.22.01 7:46pm: removed image links as they are now gone.
Interesting things that I saw last night:
And perhaps the best thing:
A guy tying his girlfriend's shoe, provoking the though, "That is indeed love..."
Interesting things that I heard last night:
And that is just what I was able to write down on napkins and my arm. I was glad to be carrying a pen. I am going to have to get a digital camera. Some of this stuff only makes sense unless you can see it or were there, and you are probably neither.
Insomnia can kiss my white ass. I do indeed have blue hairs although with the blue of my monitors it is not like you care.
So I asked Jen out for coffee today and gave her my number. I am determined to explore and break through the bounds that I have held myself to for all of these years. I am tired of being in a place where I have walls around me. It is almost there. I can feel it coming and I don't think that I can stop it even if I want to.
So I get this in my e-mail about the Final Fantasy Movie.
Not that much to it but I guess that I will post it anyway just in case anyone is tracking this kind of thing like I am. Also linked in the Media section.
Work was work today. I am not sure that I got all that much done, but I am certain that I am set up to get a whole lot done.
Jen was at the Bagel store this morning, but not working. She caught me outside to tell me that she really couldn't go out with me on account of her having a boyfriend and all. She said that the reason that she hadn't said anything the day before was that she was so flattered. I am somehow not really upset by all of this. It was really enough that she said OK in the first place. I told her that it was quite alright, that I was glad that she told me as opposed to not calling, and that if she was going to go out and do something in a group to let me know. I am really looking for friends right now. People to hang out with and all.
There are a whole lot of things that I have come to think about as a result of my mailings with a friend back home. One is that I am not intemidated by anyone. I think this is because I know that there are people out there better at something than me. It is in that acknoledgement that I loose the intimidation. I think this is necessary since I don't believe that anything other than fear can come from such feelings.
The traffic on my site has been going up and I cannot be sure who is actually reading this. I know some of the people who do, but for the most part, feel free to rip me a mail and let me know what you do or do not think.
So another thing that pops to mind is how close I am to reaching a major breakthrough in my life. For a really, REALLY long time I have been keeping myself and, more so, my emotions in check. This has led to I believe several things. One, I know that when I need to I can exert control on my emotional state in order to get things done. Two, performing the activities of limiting one's self leads to unspent creative energy. Three, I have been doing this holding back for way too long. So, I have been letting it run a little loose these last couple of weeks. I can feel a huge back-pressure of things just waiting to come pouring out. I hope that no one else gets caught up in it. No wait, that is not right. I hope that everyone I know can get caught up in it and use that energy to its fullest.
Something perhaps tells me that those of you who read this have noticed the change. If you haven't been keeping up, just take a look at the length of the posts and how much more they say out in the open. Check out the bit of creativity that leaked out on 02.02.2001. Oh it has been a long time coming and it is going to be so good.
Going out with Daniel to grab a beer and check out some music tonight. Take care all, and Chuck, I will call.
Things that I heard last night:
Not all that bad of an evening. There is talk about a mind blowing experience on Thursday, however.
No real profound thoughts today, just feeling tired and wonderful after a day well spent.
Words once released into the world no longer are owned by those who said them. They gain in a sense an imortality that is all their own. Something very different then how they were intended. But then again it is not that I wish for these ideas to become immortal that I post them here. What I really want is for people to laugh and think and enjoy life. If what I have to say can even encourage the slightest bit any of those feeling then it is good that I do so.
I have been taking some time to myself, not really thinking about all of the things that I normally do. Several days of intense introspection have taken their toll on my psyche. Probably by Sunday I will be in on it again and have something more to talk about in that reguard.
I wake up in the morning. I have a long list of shit that has to get done. That, and an even longer list of things to think about. I take a shower and hit the road. But there is peace in my life. I am not talking about the peace that comes from religion, or the peace that comes from not knowing just how bad things can get. I am talking about the peace that comes with the resignation that life is just that, life.
I have been amazingly fortunate as things go. I had a good family that cared about me a great deal. Not that my childhood was all bicycles and ice cream cones, just that they were there if I needed them. They bailed me out on more than one occasion. There are people who are not so lucky. There are people whose parents treat them like shit and take out all of their crap on them. I talked to one of those people tonight.
But it is not them who I have to thank the most for opening my eyes. It is myself. I chose to be. At any point during any of this I could have chosen not to. Even right now, I can choose to stop. I don't. I don't because I love all this stuff too much. There are too many people to talk to and too many things to see. Coffee is good. I like coffee. My advice, do something or get out. Stop bitching. Stop wasting the air that the trees see so fit to provide. Better life through the entropy of others.
What this has led me to realize is that there is a breakpoint in your evolution as an individual, a point where you make your decision. Are you going to continue to let life treat you like a pawn (which in fact you are in some sense), or are you going to realize yourself into better things. It really all comes down to a frame of reference. If you think that you are never happy because you believe happiness to be something greater than it actually is, then you will never see it. Standing in the midst of life you can sometimes miss that which is right before you.
So every day I stop and rest my mind. I let my position inside match up with my position outside. I can effect very little change in the world around me. I can effect large amounts of change in the way that I look at things. Happiness is not a state of mind, for that entails the wrong idea that a mind is something that can exist in multiple states. Happiness is an observation that life is what it is, something to be lived. Less obtusely, life exists without your observation of it and if you take the time to stop trying to be something, you will discover what you are.
So onward depressed and downtrodden individuals! I hope that some day you open your eyes, stop blaming life for you messed up state, and realize that you make the decision to be what you are. Just stay out of my way, I have as much living to do as time sees fit to grant me.
Begin ICQ Session
narf: (3:37 AM) do you know where to find full movies online to download????
takeru: (3:38 AM) you will probably want me to tell you where you can get 0dayz warez too?
narf: (3:39 AM) only if you want to!
narf: (3:39 AM) do you play playstation?
takeru: (3:40 AM) man i write video games for a living, it is lame ass people like you who take money out of my pocket. get a life, a job, and then throw away 10% of every dollar you make so some punk can play your dream... no thanks man
narf: (3:42 AM) hey fuck you smart ass you need to get a life , and a job. quit crying, if your gonna complain about what you do then change it dumbfuck!!!
takeru: (3:42 AM) is that all you have?
takeru: (3:42 AM) cmon you can do better than that...
takeru: (3:43 AM) i do indeed have a life... i do indeed have a job... i am not crying... of course i am also not randoming people looking to download movies
takeru: (3:43 AM) in terms of changing it? i will just have to write new ways to make games more difficult to copy. that and encourage people like you to support what you enjoy.
narf: (3:44 AM) got more where that came from but i dont have time for stupid ass people like you.............it was a ? fuckhead you dont have to be a dick
takeru: (3:44 AM) I was not being a dick. Remember, you are the one who decided to waste my time with your question.
narf: (3:46 AM) i can copy anything out on the market you couldnt be smart enough to stop me!!! you shouldnt have answered it dumbass!!!haha
takeru: (3:48 AM) Wow... I totally underestimated you skills. I am so sorry. However, Mr. Pirate Man, if you have such awsome powers, why did you message me wondering where to get files. I mean with your skills you should have connections in the cracker and warez communities.
takeru: (3:48 AM) Oh wait... that's right... that is because you are a liar...
takeru: (3:48 AM) You probably wouldn't know recognize the names of the majority of tools, much less how to operate them...
narf: (3:50 AM) ok you re wasting my time ......electronic arts huh? havnt found one i couldnt rip yet .....sucker!
takeru: (3:51 AM) Really? That is astounding... I take it that you are ready to roll with copying those PS2 disks then? Moded PS2 already? Oh wait a man like you has a Test or a Tool by now. It has been interesting. Glad that I wasted some of your time with this.
takeru: (3:51 AM) Needed some amuzement for this evening.
narf: (3:52 AM) goodbye
End ICQ
Man I need some sleep.
Goodnight all...
On Solitude:
I know a whole lot of people who love their solitude. They look everywhere for it. This I don't understand. In a crowd I always am able to find solitude in my thoughts. I can turn the world off. But for me the thoughts that exist there are less real than the thoughts that I share with others. For example, these musings would be nothing if I didn't share them in some way. It is in our interactions with others that we become human. Otherwise, why would we be here?
Chuck writes me saying: Too much code is written with little or no feeling. Feeling is a strange thing to speak of when discussing a thing as logical as coding, but I think it is fair to say that good code is written by people who are really _feeling_ it. Its that magical moment when your internal vision of the program matches its external representation in the computer; the moment when you and the code are in sync. That moment, if you have the peace of mind to reach it, is the pinnacle of the art of programming.
I totally agree with this. The way I look at it is the zen state. I code because I can get to places when I am working on code that I just cannot reach when I am doing other things. For me, it is art. For me, it is an extension of my consiousness.
Ok, so here is an idea. If you are interested in participating in a blog (this here is a blog in case you didn't know) linked from this site, send me a mail. I'll set it up and link it in. Then there will be a forum for feedback and the like.
On Work -or- How the Hours Pass When You Are Away:
So twice in the last week I have achieved the zen state. I have gotten to that point in my work where I have essentially been elsewhere. I wish that I could post up here what I am working on but unfortunatly I cannot. All I can say is that it is good work, and that most people will not even notice what I have done. That is completely OK with me though. The important bit is what I feel when I am working. If you know what it feels like to be so completely in the zone that you are not even there then you know what I am saying. It is the syncronization that Charles mentioned. Almost like loosing yourself in the work so completely that you are able to make real anything in the realm of you imagination.
And that is why I write code.
Enough Murphy's. Bed time...
Interesting things for this evening:
So here is what made my night really cool. I met several people who were very interesting. I honestly can say that they really made my night. Now I know that they might be reading this page for the first time and they might get the wrong idea from this post. But, hey there, read more and you will see that this is quite normal. Interesting conversation with beautiful people always puts me in great spirits. What we had were two poli-sci students and a creative writing grad student. Lines of conversation included Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maitenance, paintball, meeting intersting people, the zen state as it relates to creativity, and many more. All I can really say is "Wow", and hope that these people don't consider me too wierd by this site and get in touch with me.
For Kate:
Goodnight house, goodnight mouse...
Met some more really cool people. Most notable is a 9th and 10th grade English teacher from Daytona. This is where the acosting comment above comes from. It is nice to meet people who enjoy engaging in such wordplay.
Busy day ahead. I actually went out and bought groceries this morning. I am going to cook this week. I think that it will be great.
I am hoping that I figure out something to do at the end of this week. I promised myself, "No more late nights when I have to get up in the morning." This has effectivly put off all evening fun during the week. Perhaps that is not the best way to put it. What I am hoping for is a good reason to break my promise to myself. Anyone out there up the the chalenge?
The nose is healing up rather nicely and my head didn't hurt today like yesterday. It never ceases to amaze me how much abuse we can put ourselves through on a daily basis and not be in all that bad of shape all around.
For the sis:
Hang in there girl. No matter what happens you are loved from this side of the map.
For everyone else:
Stop taking the time to fight the natural flow of that which is inevitable. This is a silly waste of energy and distracts from all of the pretty things to see while you are being pulled relentlessly into the future.
Farscape DVD's are coming out.
So this brings me to think about the quick nature of information on the internet. You assemble enough people with slight slivers of time in one place, focus them on one topic and away they go. Something like distributed computing except with greater humor (I don't know, my computer is not that witty). If anyone can point me to similar phenomenon, I would welcome it. In fact "All your base" has begun to slip into my workplace in frightening amounts and degrees. Any new distractions like this would be great.
Interesting things said within earshot:
Now to catch my 4 hours of sleep
Last night went to see a really cool band called Weszt. An interesting thing happened while the drummer took a bathroom break. A song with a line in the chorus saying, "Maybe I'll Go", was dedicated to the drummer. It took me a while to get it, but I was amused. So anyone in the Orlando are feel free to come and check them out on March 16th at Dante's.
I have decided to start working on a video project. I don't know exactly what I am going to do or how long it is going to take, but I will keep everyone in the loop on it.
Just kickin' it today. Gonna go hand out tonight for a bit.
I have decided that no more late nights for me when I have to get up the next day. It just cannot be. I have too much going on in the next week and a half to let myself get too tired like I did this week. Not that I am bitching at all. I have had a wonderful last couple of weeks and could not imagine having done anything else. Just that I have things that I need to and want to do and need my beauty sleep to do it well.
That and my head was molested while I was dancing. That and I liked it.
Entering crunch time this week. Blah, long days. It is good that I love what I do and can zone into it. I can work for 10-12 hours and not be that wasted at the end of it all. Although those kinds of hours will probably be nothing compared to some that I will pull this week.
Looking forward to being past this milestone. Looking forward to some downtime.
Other than that I am rolling around in the back of my head several projects including a cartoon strip and a video project. Not sure where any of this will end up but things are beginnning to coelesce.
Sleep well all, I will join you soon.
Here is a teaser:
inｷterｷface n.
What I want to talk about is the first and the second, not the third.
Just a little more teaser. Wednesday things should become more clear.
So when I get home last night there is a box on my doorstep. Seems that my friend Janke had sent me a bottle of his Chu Chu Muscat (wine). It is nice to receive gifts from friend, especially when they are funny and alcoholic.
Actually bought an N64 to play Conker's Bad Fur Day. This game is a total laugh riot. I cannot believe how crude, crass, and full of profanity this game is. It is kinda like real life, except with more poo.
So I said that I would have more up on interface today, but that was kinda a lie. Maybe tonight. Maybe in the form of something other than a post real soon. We shall see.
My body did not let me get out of bed today. I slept pretty late. I feel great now though and that is what I need for tomorrow. The interface conversation I was to have today has been moved to next week and the talk I was suposed to have with an artist tomorrow might just get moved back as well. Maybe I will talk with him this weekend. I really need to get started on this as it is growing uncomfortably in my head.
These are my words, typed by my hands and preceived by my eyes on this virtual surface. These are an embodiment of my thoughts given form from the ether. What I choose to put here is an act of my own will and an intent to convey a though which I have. When was the last time you though not about what you are saying, not what about how you are saying it, but instead about the idea of conveying that thought?
So I was talking with my mother just the other day (last weekend like) and we started discussing her current reading list which includes several books on herbs and natural treatments. BTW, my mom is a big bad ass. One day I think she is going to become a zen master, then you all will really have to watch out.
If you know what this is ":-(", then you must read this. Just goes to show that people will believe that they are going to win a prize for forwarding an e-mail also cannot tell what irony and satire are. You people out there suck, and stop sending me stupid forwards and virus alerts (Soapbox Off).
Watched Blue Velvet last night. Good flick. David Lynch is a bad ass. Well, peace out, code calls.
Occationally life gets complicated and you find yourself in a no-win situation. Thoughts imediatly jump to mind where I wonder if cutting my losses is not the best option. Then I realize that there is a whole lot to loose. Grrr... Funny, it has been a really long time since I have posted an obscure reference like this one. Maybe I am getting back to my old ways. Nah (just a scare for X-ie
Peas....
There have been people that I have met in my life that I have had an amazing sync with right off the bat. It is occationally frightening the intensity of relationship that accompanies my meeting those people. I used to let it make really bad decisions, ones that were better in the short rather than the long term. I don't think that I am going to let that happen again.
Went to see Weszt tonight. Good show. Far too short. Going to try and grab a beer with the guitarist next weekend. They remind me of everything that I loved about Live way back in the day.
Kate arived late but safe. Should be a wonderful weekend.
I believe in something greater than all of us. Call it what you will it really doesn't matter. Some people are more tuned to it, or perhaps more plugged into it. This gives these people more intuition when it comes to dealing with other people. Sometimes I feel like I am swimming in it.
What I have to say:
For me, I am still tied to the functionality of the thing. Art, language, Dew Cans, they are all aspects of a larger thing. My ideas, are still fundementally unfulfilling until they are shared with someone, through some medium. That is my art. It is infused in every action I take and everything that I do. I am powerless to change what you might think about my art, but all the same it must be made.
The idea for this actually sprang forth from some animation that I once watched. The idea that there is a me inside my very own head and that me is the "real" me. There also is a me inside your head. When I say things, do things, write things, the me inside your head is the me that you precieve doing those things. There is absolutly nothing that I can do to make you understand those things the exact way that I intend them. There is nothing that I can do to directly change the me that is inside your head.
So, although I believe that I can do nothing to MAKE you to understand what I want to convey, my art is grounded in the idea that you MUST understand what I mean. The effectivness of art is the ability to make manifest the reaction that is intended by the artist. The medium and style is paramount to the message and substance. For me personally, the balance is the most important thing. Neither is more important.
That being said, I think that a work of art is not something that cannot be expressed in any other medium. Rather, the effectiveness of a work is very dependent on the medium. I for example apreciate particular presentations more than others. I like shiny things. If you want me to understand you better, then I recomend something that I will be more likely to want to experience.
Maybe it is more a view of art as a rhetoric. Style does not create content, although style can in itself BE content.
Some people are content with creating for themselves. For me humanity is defined by the interaction with other humans. I am very human and that is why I believe that without a communication the debate over weither something is or is not art is immaterial. It can be art all it likes it really doesn't matter to me if it exists in a box.
And a debate about absolutes is rediculous.
A friend of mine said recently that, "Everything is a beautiful, interconected blur." I tend to agree and so the scope of things has grown a bit in my mind. Now I am not only looking at interface, but at interconectedness. Causality (or at least causality as we understand it) is a very important aspect of my world-view. Instrumentality is another. So now the idea is three-fold.
Interface, Instrumentality and Interconectedness. Here we go again.
Instrumentality
Instrumental
And so by instrumentality I mean how we interact and how that makes us more complete and more human. More to come...
Although I fear failure, I wish to disagree. The assumption required to do this is that the self that I recognize as my own (its own) is experienced. This is to say that the self is able to observe the self. Here I fall into a potential pitfall. For such an observation is inherantly self referential. Hoffsteader would call this a strange loop.
The distinction that varies for me from person to person is that the self which is experienced is different. I experince my self (not myself), not your self or his self over there.
Can this awareness be encouraged if it is not already realized? I would say yes. The method that I use is a trial by fire method. The possibility for awareness is already present in each person. All that is needed is the catalyst, a certain amount of energy that will push the system beyond its state of equilibrium.
Everything is on hold, just like I thought it would be.
On a side note. My machine behaved itself completely last night. There was this patch from Microsoft which may have fixed my problems. I was able to play for about 5 hours last night without any hangs. We shall see if this fixes the problem. Then it is on to other things like getting the rest of my hardware up and running, including my second monitor.
So now we are up to several patches to make my machine stable and if that was not enough to really ruin my day, this morning was kinda shitty. While I was backing out of my parking spot, I lightly bumped this motercycle which was parked badly in the lot. I hit it perfect and bumped out the kickstand. The bike (a week old) went down. Fortunatly for me the owner was really cool, especially when I went to find him and give him my information so that I can pay him for the damage. Just a little paint scuf on the front fender and some scratches on the plastic on one of the turn signals.
But the day went well otherwise. Especially since I know that a friend of mine is not pissed off at me. Ah, friends.
Thanks to Krink for the Calvin and Hobbes and others. You rock.
I am currently listening to the posts at psychoexgirlfriend and it is really scary. The timestamps on these voicemails are correct and I really don't blame this guy for not calling this girl back. She is completly off her rocker. So what I would like is for people who would be interested in some conversation about this kind of behavior to mail me and I will post the relevent stuff here. C'mon people. I do not get but a couple of replies to my posts per month. I know that you out there (all of a couple of 10 or so) do read this. Reply to something damn it. The one question that comes to mind is if the guy called her back at all to tell her to stop calling? I certainly know that I would have called her up and said, "Listen, you are nuts. If you don't stop calling me I am going to call the police and tell them that you are absolutly off your rocker." But that is just the heartless me. I have learned that you cannot save the world. I can barely save myself.
I really feel bad about ditching out on my friends the last couple of weeks. I am beginning to feel better though. It is interesting, I was talking to my dad Sunday and he asked me if I were feeling alright. Aparently, he could tell that I was going through a funk. About two years ago I am certainly sure that he would not have been able to tell. It was really nice to have the parentals able to tell you that they are concerned about you without having to tell them that they have any reason to.
Boy this has turned into a really long post.
Came home to my machine still running the demos that I set in motion this morning. That is over 12 hours of 3-D game simming. Sounds like I have a solution. I am going to throw in my old board and give it a whirl tonight. If all goes well it is back to the shop with the new one.
To all my friends who have mailed me, I will mail you all soon.
Here is a link for all of you out there. It is funny, at least to me. Anyway, just gonna kick back tonight and relax. Take care out there in the real world.
I will get out more. I promise. Don't pester me. I am where I thoght I would be when I got here. I am complete.
Was listening to the wonderful musical stylings of Underworld tonight and thinking that it all sounded rather flat. Look over at the speaker which takes care of the lower range of the audio spectrum (some people call this a subwoofer, I call it my big black box of bass) and what do I see? A plug out of its socket in the wall. A thing without a proper home. How did this happen and why is it signifigant you might ask. Well, they installed a motion sensor light out in front of my apartment and had to do some wiring to do it. It looks like they came into my apartment and unplugged all of the stuff that was not on a surge protector. How nice of them. The sub is not on the surge protector because it has a nice little fuse all its own. Go technology. Now my music sounds nice and extra bassy. I am so glad no one lives below or beside me.
Makes me want to get off of my ass and get in gear with all of the projects that I have laying around. Perhaps if only I had something to run away from. This necessitates a story. When a long time girlfiend and I were being dumb and not coming to the realization that our relationship was over, there was a period of about 6 months where we were living together but not as together as we had been. This is to say that I encouraged her to get out and have fun without me, and I did everything in my power to be as busy as possible. It was during this time that I did my best work in school. I was out of the house so much that it was all I could do not to do well. Sad state of affairs in retrospect. Should have called it off or fixed the problem when I realized that things were going poorly, but alas, I was a dumbass.
Edited 04.18.01 2:25am: Also interesting to note that not long after this post, I get a mail from Brandi. Odd how the world works.
It is really funny making these posts at 12:00 or later. They show up on the next days posts. So I am talking about my Saturday, and it will look like I am talking about my Sunday. But do not be decieved by what the web page says. I am indeed talking about my Saturday, and I blame the Internet for all of the lies. Perhaps tonight sleep will come early. I am not about to get involved in any video games or anything that will make me to stay up late. Although that never stopped me before.
When I was getting ready to move out here. I called her to tell her all about the changes that were going on in my life. At this point she was living out in Californa getting on with her life. During the conversation, I picked up on something which really bothered me. I sensed a drastic change in the amount of caring that existed in our relationship. I am not saying that this is a bad thing. We had grown apart and all for the better. In fact, besides a moment of pathetic pleaing on my part, I believed the situation to be for the best. I assumed that I would not hear from her again. I knew for certain that I would not be the one to contact her. It hurt to have the realization that I did. It hurt and it was wonderful. I was completely free, and completely alone. Interesting the balance there.
Perhaps the funniest thing about my respose to her short mail was how much I wrote and then rewrote. Like I was very careful with what I had to say. I realized this stopped doing it. I told her all about the thoughts that I had rolling around curently, and what I thought about my move to Florida. We will see if she responds to what I wrote. I hope that she does, and I hope that life it treating her as well as it can. She is something very special and deserves everything.
All that aside, today was a good day. Tribes 2 is working and work is working too. I was busy all day with my own stuff and showing the new guy around. I am working on things that make the game shiney. I like shiney. I hear that Peter's laptop like things which are shiney. Mo always liked shiney things. Anyway... life is good. Take care all.
I have wondered on occation why I post things here. I think that I do it to keep from going crazy. Even before my move out here there were not many people that I could confide in. Not that I could not confide in them really, just that I couldn't stomach the idea of burdening anyone with my problems and complaints. So this thing here provided me everything that I needed. A place to write my thoughts completely out there in the open where people can read and (although occationally) respond to them. But I don't burdon anyone. You are reading this because you want to, or care. And that brings me comfort. I actually fear the day that I find someone who takes all of this out of me. Because then there will be my observations and no pressing need to put them here. Maybe that will make it only better.
Despite the nature of my reply to Brandi's e-mail I recieved a response to it today. What she has allowed me is the oportunity to revisit some ideas and revise them. Some highlights include this number:
"There is no dichotomy between that which is good and that which is bad. You may feel sad or angry or happy or anything. All of these feelings are just energy. Energy has no properties which make it any more applicable to one use or another. You can feed off of those emotions and do whatever you want to with them. You can let yourself close up because of pain, or you an take your sadness or your tiredness and use that energy to do great things. The choice is up to you."
And this take on myself and the limits of my ability:
"I have realized that I cannot save the world. Hell, I cannot even save another person. You told me this in your own way. You told me this when you said, "Just shut up. No advice. Just the moment." I have realized this and come to understand what you meant by it. I am dense some days and it takes me longer than it should."
And in response to her saying that I love my work:
"Loving is not the right word. Maybe it is though. The feeling is weird. I get up and go to the office. Sit in my cube, talk to my coworkers and when I sit down to write code, I am not even there. I am so immersed in what I am doing that I am somewhere else. Maybe this is euphoria at its fullest, except that I don't look back on it and thank some substance or anything like that. It is a pure experience. This is why I love to drive. This is why I love all of the things that I do. The love for it comes from an apreciation of another feeling that I get. One of not being there. An escapism maybe, but perhaps I am just closer to realizing that I am not really here at all. I guess that is what I am looking for anyway. I want the most pure experience that I can find."
And in a sense I am always listening. Sometimes to myself, more often to the person who doesn't realize that I am.
Do you ever have those moments where it all makes sense and you want to tell everyone about it. I am having one of those, but I don't think that I am going to put it up here. If I do that then I fear that I will not have anything new to say for a while. I would much rather forget about it, and rediscover it piece by piece. I will say that I understand that I am not here at all. That makes no sense but trust me when I say that it will when I am done exploring it completely. If you cannot wait send me an e-mail and we can talk about it.
And so I begin work on the Project.
Have you ever had one of those moments where amazing ideas come to you with such force and conviction that you cannot begin to understand them? Have you experienced the feeling of fear that accompanies such revelations, the fear that you might well loose the moment if you try to understand even the slightest aspect of them? That is what I woke up to today. Not woke up and drug my ass out of bed, but woke up in a much deeper sense. Let me try and relate this all to you, as it has started out so poorly.
I look at my hands. The certainly appear to be my own. I touch things, people. They react. The energy that I apply to the world comes back in some other way. Classical Mechanics will tell you all about this in mathematical equations. I want to tell you about it in an even more true way.
I look out of my own eyes. I experience the momentary and fleeting impressions of things that occurred so little time ago. Optics will explain such phenomenon: reflection, refraction, and absorption. There is much truth to these ideas, but the idea that I wand to share is more true than any of these.
I listen to motors, mumblings, music, a mosaic of sound, an amazing din of confusion. Something inside of me makes sense of these waves. I find things pleasing. Cognition will allow you to understand how my brain might do these things. There is much truth there, but so little.
The interface that I interact with tells me silently, subtly, all about what I am doing and all of the things that are being done to me. I can look closely and see an infinite quantity of interactions. I can look closer and see infinitely more. I can squint my eyes, trying to see the bottom and fail to do so. It is a vast sea that I float upon. Calm waters if I choose to look at them like that.
The universe is so interconnected that the idea that we are singular is ridiculous. The self is a lack of understanding of these connections. Cut someone off in traffic and their mood could cause them to get angry with a coworker. Say something nice to the person in the drive-thru and they might sleep better that night.
When you look at us and human animals we are complete singularly. When you look at us as human beings we are fundamentally incomplete. What makes us human is our ability to interact with other people in ways seemingly unique to the creatures that we know. This makes us, as humans, instrumental in making others human. And it is this instrumentality that an understanding of the interface allows us to seek.
But that is just it. How conscious I am of the interface determines its ability to influence me. As I sink deeper and deeper into it, my feet becoming wet, my toes wiggling in the waters, the more I understand the universe. In doing so, I stop being aware of any division between myself and that which surrounds me. My ego bleeds out into the currents making impressions of me as it goes. How long until there is none of this me left?
I draw comfort in the idea that although there is a finite amount of me to spread out in the waters, that which has left me is still part of me. The distance between one fragment and another does nothing to disturb the continuity of the whole. The density of the self is not a function like most. It is not concerned with the variables of space, but rather those of acceptance. It is through the sinking, the letting go, that you gain everything.
The interface is what draws me in. I live inside of its comforts and pains. Without it, all of these thoughts have no life, they exist in a vacuum of my understanding. The interface that we share allows me to tell you what it is that I am. It allows me the opportunity to give immortality to these words, to share a moment.
As daily I sink deeper into this idea, I get ever closer to living in the moment. The first time that I really looked back on living in the moment, I saw that during the time spent there, I was not really there at all.
The moment has no duration, the present no time. There is past and there is future. The moment exists in the lack of space between the two. In order to be in the moment you have to abandon yourself.
Everyone who has ever loved has existed in the moment. Think about what you truly love to do. Are you there when you are doing it, or perhaps are you somewhere else? I love to drive. I love to write code. When I am doing these things I am not really doing them at all.
My love for them is an appreciation for the feeling, the impression that they leave me with. This impression is not love. This feeling has no description, as it has no duration. And as time approaches the moment, the space that you exist in becomes nothing and your ability to stir the waters, infinite.
One disagrees with what I have to say. Amy tells Krink, "I know when I'm doing something that I absolutely love, that's when I'm feeling the most alive. My body is energized and so is my mind -- there is nothing about me "watching from the outside" or whatever." Funny thing is that we are always seeing what we have done from the outside. At least that is one way to look at it. When we look at what we have done, that is look at our actions in the past, we are looking at them from the outside. I think that we are, for the most part, always just a step ahead of what we have thought and are therefore always looking in from the outside.
Clay counters my little piece by saying that it "reads like a bad combination of bad taoism and mediocre cyberpunk." Yikes!! In addition, for him the piece struck him as "I had an epiphany, see how deep I am now..." He claims that I "wasn't really explaining anything", and I thank him for all of his criticism. I never mean for what I write to come across poorly, especially to someone who can notice the Taoist roots of my world-view. So now it is back to the drawing board. I am going to write Mr. Clay and hopefully open a dialog. Anyone who wants to help is more than welcome to.
Of course in my own defense, the reason that I posted something so incomplete is to get it out there and encourage me to fix the damn thing. I am hoping to turn this idea into something a little more concrete and my Peter-san is considering a little colaboration to give this idea another medium. Thanks for the feedback people.
Edited 04.22.01 7:34pm: removed link as site is now up.
Edited 04.22.01 7:33pm: link to page removed as the site is up.
but all that aside it was a wonderful weekend of no work and web work. i guess this might be the last real weekend off that i have before all of the crunch begins. alpha is coming up and i really cannot wait. although it will be more work than ever, we will be feature complete going in. that means nothing but bugs (or as dr. page always said, defects) to take care of. some of the stuff that i am working on will be shown at E3 and that makes me really excited and nervous. those features not only have to be solid, they have to be polished into a shiny state. oh well that is for work and all.
so next week i will be revisiting my work in progress project. i am really excited about this despite the mixed and non-response that I have received on it. well... time to sign off. goodnight all.
i just realized how far all of my friends are from me and from each other. i wish i owned an island. that would rule. sleepy time.
what i can say with a clean consence is that i am lucky. the fates appear to like me since i am pretty damn lucky. as isamu once said, "luck is one of my many skills." so i tend to think about how lucky i have been to be where i am. thank you to all of you who have inspired, set the bar higher, and drug me down. i don't expect any of you to do these things, but i wouldn't feel right if i let them go without comment. without you i certainly would not love all of this living nearly as much as i do...
feedback land...
when i ask for feedback it certainly comes pouring in. i think that the format of what i am writing here will slowly change. i like talking about things that i am thinking. people have said that i have gotten better at this whole weblog thing since i started. i like to think so. i don't disavow anything that exists in the archives and i have never once deleted a single post. so there is a new link going up on the linked lists called discussions this is where i am going to post all of the discussions that are started because of feedback from people who write to me. thanks guys, you have wonderful minds and souls.
on that note i am off to add the new page and get margaret's thread on islands started. after that a nice walk to the store for more smokes and some cartoons before bed. peter-san, i will get to your thoughts tomorrow and get some revisions in on work in progress. that i promise you.
after that the bed moved several times into and out of the dorms and several apartments. then i got my current bed, which is wonderful (sorry mom). the bed went to robert where it stayed for a time until he left norman. goldbug gets the bed next and she hangs onto it for a year or so. now i find out that margaret is getting the bed. funny how things like that travel between friends. totally forgot about that bed years ago and find out that it is still around.
linkland insomnia
check out the like to things better left unsaid it is an anti-journal that i am going to participate in.
discussion putters on at krink's site about work in progress. see the discussion for the post on 04.20.01.
update to work in progress as promised. made some improvements to it. think that the ideas are coming together. thanks to peter-san for the support and chuck for the critique.
ideas from peter-san
"you're talking about a conscious, deliberate abandonment of the Model as the ultimate goal of human civilization, the liberation of the conscious mind from the constraints of translating information while processing it."
yes, that is what i am talking about more or less. i think that the idea of a conscious and deliberate abandonment of a model which is defined by an understanding of the self, a paradox. the conscious abandoning of the couscousness is not the way i think. i would venture to say that it is just something that happens. a break from trying so damn hard and just letting go. but you are certainly dead on when you talk about freeing the mind from the translation duties and moving on to the understanding role that it was made for. comfort in the body and comfort in the mind.
online writing and the mistake that it might be bitching
the back and forth on krink's site has reached a point where i need to make a comment. i can understand how someone reading something like my page or any on-line journal might see this forum as bitching or whining or exhibitionist. clay claims (in the discussion of this post) how he feels that "trying to put your deepest emotional feelings online is rather base. Personally, I think it cheapens it, makes it into a display. It turns us all into voyeurs, and your feelings into a performance." i think that this is a completly understandable idea. i certainly don't agree with what he thinks, but i understand where he is coming from. if i would not go ahead and tell you the same things that i post here in person, then i would be hiding behind the medium. but even if i don't know you and you wanted to talk to me about these things i would tell you. there is nothing that i say here that i would not say anywhere else. and the real difference is that you choose to read this, just as you would choose to talk to me. if you feel like clay, feel free to never visit again, but at least try and understand where i am coming from.
thursday link madness
are you a pusher or a shover? maybe you have bread shoved down your throat. strangeness inside. pointed toward by pwd.
although in chinese, i got a little kick out of these antics. and no, you don't have to install the language plug-in. thanks schnugins.
how sometimes a little reasuring is the last thing you need
i went out on friday with some friends from work. just a little place not far from my apartment where there are pool tables and cheap beer. and lo and behold there is a very pretty waitress working at said bar which makes for some good distraction when the conversation is slow and the pool table is in use by some other players in the group. despite all my reservations about aproaching people in a bar setting (meat market and all) and especially people in their workplace, i set out to start a short conversation with the pretty beer goddess.
come to find out that she is a grad student in english and a really interesting conversationalist to boot, in as much as i could tell in the very short span of the snippets that we talked. i told her that i would give her my number so that we could go and grab coffee sometime to really talk. this seemed the best thing that i could do, i didn't want to come off as one of the many people who i am sure try to get her number in the course of an evening. suprising to me, and to her to some degree, she gave me her number as well.
so this little bit of reassurance in terms of my atractiveness (mental and physical) was wonderful. an amazing boost to my confidence, and at the same time something much less pleasant. it made me to realize just how alone i am most of the time. what i mean to talk about here is not some pity trip, but rather a brief bit on how you can avoid the things in your life that you are not happy with as long as you are not reminded of them. talking to this beautiful person made me to realize how few beautiful people i have in my life and how much i seek just that. i am a happy individual, but i want to be a happy human. my solution to the current situation: eyes, ears open and patence.
how about you people? ever had the realization that something is lacking in your life because of a wonderful experience? a double-edged understanding maybe? spill it.
the mysterious providence of a phrase -or- sometime it is the smallest unintentional thing that matters most
a good friend kristen writes to me to tell me what she thinks about a trend in what i am writing and, in general, where my like is going. The analogy she spins goes like this: "It is kind of like making a list of bills to pay and a corresponding budget for the upcoming months so you can feel more confident about being able to pay them off. In the end, you are where you were when you began writing your budget. You may feel a sense of accomplishment, but you haven't really taken steps to appease your situation, have you?" You know what? she is absolutly right. thank you for your kind words and your encouragement. i really have not been balenced as of late. i am quick to retreat into the comfort of my ideas. i need more experience and i need to stop being so damn wimpy about it.
has someone ever come to you and said the exact right thing even if they didn't intend it? maybe a passing word or phrase that changed your outlook or just your day for the better?
what do you think about the providence of life and its strange cycles. people come and go and end up together again. multiple passes to get things right.
day 4 of crunch was good. i will make it. all it will take is a little more work.
day 6 of crunch. work is coming along nicely. i am feeling a bit of pressure as milestone gets closer. especially since some of the stuff that i am working on will be on display at E3. life is good though. back into perspective.
i have decided upon a name for the cat who lives with me. i think that i will call her rei. i would say that it is her name, but i do not think that you really can name cats. they have a personality all their own and you just choose a name so that you don't feel like an idiot when you talk about them. rei is learning how to be indoor outdoor now. there are several other friendly cats in the area so i think that she will like it just fine. i was going to let her out this morning, but she didn't seem all that interested. she is out now, and i will try to get her back in before bed. maybe she will learn to poop on the outside, then i wouldn't have to clean the litterbox and that would just rock.
an analogy of my state of being -or- internal combustion for anyone
i like the team "running hot" for what i have been doing lately. it kinda goes like this. in an internal combustion engine, like the one in any automobile or lawnmower, rotational energy if created by converting a linear motion of the pistons. this linear motion is created by generating a controlled explosion that drives the pistons in the engine down away from the cylinder head. in order to get more energy from this explosion, you can adjust the fuel to air mixture. in an ideal mixture, the burn is complete, and a very powerful explosion can be generated. The concequence of a more complete burn is more heat. this heat can lead to the deterioration of the oil in the engine and the components as well. When an engine is running like this it is said to be "running hot".
when i am crunching like i am now, i am running very hot. i can do this for some time (sometimes months) but it is a very costly way of operating. for the last three days i have really been pushing myself to my limits. it feels really good to get so much stuff done, but it is taking its toll on me in many ways. i will survive, but i felt the need to explain how my brain feels right now.
a quick grip on intention -or- don't tell me you will call and then not...
i was talking to a guy last night about the state of my interactions with a girl. how she gave me her number without me asking for it and how flattering that was. about how we talked on the phone and it seemed like everything was pretty cool. about how she said that she would call on several occations and alas has not. we talked about the game and how people don't like to reject others. instead they let them get their hopes up that there might be something there when in fact there is not. so we take a quick survey of the one girl standing near us. we ask her if she would do something like this and she says that she already, that night had given someone a fake number. talk about chance. be honest people, save others the wasted thought if you are not interested.
what about you? ever given someone the fake number? ever led someone along believing that you would call them? spill it.
now i lay me down to sleep,
i pray the fates my luck to keep,
and if luck leave before i wake
i pray the fates a cake to make.
unfortunatly with the overall drain on my psyche, i am at a loss for anything signifigant to put here. it will come again, just give me a little while. and to all of you who have outstanding mail with me, just wait, i am on it.
so today i did something really silly and fulfilled a small dream. i am going to hold out until i can give a more complete presentation but surfice to say that 4 circles are involved as is much sun and wind and then there is that thing with the the number 225 and a double letter toward the end of the alphabet.
time for a reflective personal moment. i slept like shit last week. i have been feeling really guilty about making the purchase of my new car. it is a whole lot. i have gotten comments ranging from "you know that you are going to yuppie hell..." to "you rich kids make me sick." while these comments were made in good fun and were not intended as insult, they still reflected my own thoughts about what i had done. everyone i know tells me that i am being a bit silly about my feelings. they keep telling me that it is one of the only times in my life when i will be able to do something like this. i know that this is the case, but i still feel like i have perhaps done something silly...
and an obligitory veiled comment: "of course we can all just dance, but don't expect me to be completely happy with an outcome as a result of a situation that i have not encouraged or agree with..."
gave my dad a little talking to today. you see, he failed to call me back on a couple of occations over the last few days. it is always interesting when you can participate in a little role reversal for the hell of it. of course all of the grief that i gave him was in jest, but it was thought provoking all the same. what if we all, at least once a week or so, did something like this. for example, a police officer pulls you over and when you he asks "Do you know how fast you were going?", you reply with "Do you know how fast YOU were going?" of course if this lands your ass in jail, pass the blame to someone else.
some people are really beautiful. not just beautiful as in "hot in the pants" beautiful, but something more. i am beginning to realize why i am drawn to some people over others. i have been fortunate over the years to have met people who really embody a certain energy and carefree-ness (have to love made up words) that i seem to feed upon. being a poor self starter does not help at all. these kinds of people are my muse. they encourage and inspire. i can only be thankful for those that i have found, and can only hope that i find many more.
i still believe that it takes about 24 hours of communication with someone before you can reach a common language. it is always amusing to me how fun those 24 hours of confusion are.
made it throught the mountain of mail. been trying to get out and hang with people in the evening instead of coming home straight away. of course that means that i pile up the mail until i sit down and get rid of it all. work is rockin'.
i really like being laid back and not have any expectations.
alpha, alpha rah, rah, rah...
full on crunch time. 15 days to beta. 11+ hour days maditory.
12 days and counting til beta. in 3 weeks i will be better.
saw 3 cop cars tearing out of a Dunkin' Dognuts parking lot tonight on the way home. funny, funny.
my best wishes go out to those families and friends effected by the events of today. be well.
todays laundry list (excluding laundry):
the weather was absolutly nearly perfect yesterday. i spent this evening reading and drinking coffee, wonderful stressfree evening. still looking for a good dive to drink coffee and read in. perferably a place with a patio and cushy chairs, although i think that i will deal as long as i can smoke. good coffee is also strictly optional but good company perfered. i am beginning to feel my stride returning. i probably will begin to write again soon.
the weekend was full of adventure, but i don't think that 3 nights out in a row is good on the body. this is shaping up to be a good week.
this looks to be an interesting week. thursday is my 24th and i am taking that day and friday off of work. not sure what strange variety of trouble i intend to get into, but hopefully it will be fun. i may just cut out of town and hit up the beach for a couple of days, read a good book and catch some sun. that would be really nice. maybe i will just go out and allow my friends to lay the hurt on me. it could go either way.
talked to my dad today about the effects of the September 11th incidents. i am still not sure how i have reacted to them. they are very much real to me and feel sadness over the extreme loss of life and innocence both then and coming soon. at the same time i hope that the recent resurgance of patriotism lasts long past the eventual military rebuttal to the attacks. everyone has been effected. everyone will remember.
oh, yeah. got to see the tenacious d on thursday. they say it and i tend to agree that they are in fact "the greatest band in the world". never before have i been rocked so hard by 2 slightly overweight guys with accoustic guitars. more on the show in my next post.
so yeah, the tenacious d concert. these guys are really good. seen the movie high fidelity? remember the angry clerk in the record store? that is Jack Black. he has one hell of a set of pipes on him for real. his partner in rockin' is Kyle Gass. they are incredibly irreverent and are funny as hell. when i got to the show i was not sure why the house of blues was so packed. why were all of these screeming fans there? what was up with the messed up demographic that they represented? why where there so many people at my work completly pumped about the show? it didn't take me long to understand. after watching the episodes of the hbo show i finally understood how these guys could claim to be the greatest band in the world. check them out if you get the chance.
so i am off to do some dieing now.
one of these days really soon, i am going to have a profound thought. and when i do, damnit, you guys are going to be the first to get a taste of it. perhaps i will get to work on that piece that i started so long ago. yeah, right... i will probably just curl up with a book and some laundry and watch tv and drink more water.
so i don't know. it is kinda hard for some of my friends and most of my family to understand why i don't really celebrate my birthday or any other holidays. i mean i visit my family during the holiday season and i make sure and call and all of that. i think at the root of this lack of endorcement lies the same justification that i use to explain my lack of belief in the institution of marrage. why do we feel the need to enshroud something good and profound in a larger thing to make it more significant? why do we need to take a relationship founded on the love of two people and have some ceremony and contract to make it something more? why do we need to take a day that has no real importance to me and try and add ritual and tradition that has been corrupted over the generations? there are too many holidays, and certainly too many hallmark holidays. maybe if we only had one then i wouldn't be so tired of it all. my advice, pick a day at random and make it your own personal holiday. call or visit your family, give gifts, throw a party. make it important for your own reasons.
and violet, i am reading your site as i type this...
national guardsmen will be in the airports for a while. fully armed and able to use their weapons. let's hope it doesn't come to that.
| this is my favorite color. |
i had a great weekend doing a whole lot of nothing. as i said friday was strange, but yesterday and today were outstanding. the weather was pretty rainy yesterday but today was one of those days. maybe you know what i mean. those days that are perfect? i turned off the AC, dropped the top and watched as my mood went up.
i think that i have finished with recovering from crunch. my head feels less crispy and so i should be good to go next week. planned a little trip to austin to the the d with my sis in a few weeks and all is well.
the art of relationships
so it is perhaps funny that i make some kind of analogy between relationships and an art. but this really makes sense to me despite the fact that the artists that i have known through the years have had the worst luck in relationships. i think this is normally due to the overwelming drive they have had to persue their art which seems to stifle their ability to express things in their relationships with others. i think that there is truly an art to relationships and that the same rules and aestetics apply to both traditional art and relationship art.
for some reason last night I fell asleep around 10:00 and didn't get up until 9:00 this morning. i have absolutly no idea what that was all about but it hopefully helps to make more sense of my post last night. it is something that i will be revisiting although not tonight, because i am again really sleepy. i guess i have been puting in full days at work and that could have something to do with it. maybe my body is still recovering, i really don't know.
today has been a bit of a needy day. i was hoping for some contact outside of the context of work. that need has not really been filled, but there is a chance that someone will step up.
if i get a clear head a little later i will try and restate something on the art of relationships, if not, tomorrow.
and my neighbors really pulled through for me being around and entertaining with good conversation and the like.
i am going to put off talking about the art of relationships instead i am going to talk about a problem that has been bothering me a little bit in the last few days. i realize that i have been engaging in conversations with new people over the last couple of weeks. i have also begun to realize how odd my spoken language can get at times. it takes time for me to explain how i mean things and so i am certain that i come across kinda funny at times. the problem extends to my e-mails as well and that is concerning. an example from an e-mail i sent a un-met acquaintance today:
It is nice to hear that there are people out there taking in culture, which is something that I probably should take up. That being finding people who do those things and following them at a good distance to the event and then sneaking around so that I don't make anyone too uncomfortable. And it is things like that which bring me to the following...
now if you know me, you know what i mean by the odd part about following people. but to someone who really doesn't know me all that well, i can see how this would be really strange, even creepy. so i ask the people that have to deal with my broken language. be as patent as you can, trust me when i say i am safely odd.
so it would take me forever to explain what code is. in addition if i could explain that to your satisfaction, it would take me another forever to explain what obfuscated code is. having done that would leave me with one task which makes the others look easy by comparison. that being the task of explaining just what it is that makes this obfuscated code so damn cool. however, if you are a C coder who like to hurt their brain check it. my brain hurts enough to go to sleep now.
maybe the problem has something to do with the fact that i am completely without a personal project. one of the cool new neighbors has a little motorcycle that could use some work. she knows quite a bit more about it than i do, but maybe i can convince her to teach me while we fix it up? maybe i should take up cooking, baking or knitting. i hear that in some social circles those are necessary trade skills. but since i am not going to be amish anytime soon, i could prolly pass on the knitting. i still have really been meaning to do a site redesign so maybe i will start on that. i dunno it is just that my energy level is good, but my listless level is peaked. grrr....
Tonight's Topic: validation -or- three the things other than air, water and food that you need to survive
Curt link o' the day: Brad, The Game
i hereby name this weekend the weekend of doors. and if that is not an odd name, i certainly dare you to come up with one more strange out of context. door number 1: john and i decided to go and watch the F1 race at sazuka japan next year. why not? door number 2: new friends, new feelings. door number 3: new friends, new distractions. so my brain is full and once again, the little things in my life have gained full-focus. oh well, nothing that a good conversation or three wouldn't help to clear up.
our world has become one of instant gratification. we can purchase and do and consume on a moment's notice. when things don't end up working out that way, we get antsy and wonder what in the world could be going on. we begin to question all kinds of things looking for a potential explanation as to why this situation did not provide that which we have come to expect. don't get me wrong. situations that cause this are not necessarily ones where some kind of instant gratification is possible much less desirable. it is just with this overbearing sense of speed that we place on our lives that we get used to it, even if we don't really want it.
why are women's clothing sizes in numbers instead of some actual measurement. i mean everytime i buy a pair of pants, i get to find out just how big my waist is.
shots in the dark and nothing really accomplished this weekend. chalk it up to time spent, if not spent as well as it could have been. oh, but at least i updated the archives.
i have this really good idea that i got ditched tonight in favor of the company of sleep. not that i blame her, i mean she has a busy life and i completely understand... krink was online tonight for a good chat so that of course really is nice.
thursday takes me to austin which is really exciting. it will be good to get out and relax and read and do nothing. i will get to see my little brother play a baseball game as well as take in a concert. it should help me get ready for the design process where i will be getting back into work mode. not crunch mode thank goodness.
inspired by a wonderful and beautiful new friend, i think that i am going to start writing an introduction to c programming. something kind of short and just as much for instruction as for explanation as to what i do. maybe i can capture a bit of what i see as the beauty and art of programming. maybe not. of course work in progress should really get some working on too. maybe i will print that bitch and take it with me on my little jaunt.
and on that note, i close...
when i heard that violet was not going to get to go to her concert on her b-day i got really sad. so i decided that next friday was as good of a day as any to take off work and go to miami. i mean why not right? it is the least i can do for a new friend.
nothing else exciting tonight...
one of the reasons that i find this funny is last week saw the launch of a new MMPORPG (or Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game) called Dark Ages of Camelot. several of the guys at the office are already loosing much sleep to explore this new game, and i am not one of them. the reason for this is simple, i played a MMPORPG right as we were finaling called Anarchy Online. The game was great and sickeningly addictive. fortunatly for me, i got bored with the game as it really didn't have all that much depth. it helped me to understand a whole lot the nature of the addiction to these games. i kinda describe it like this:
most people consider marajuana a gateway drug. it leads you to bigger and more hardcore drug usage. imagine that your experiences with your gateway drug were really great at first. they left you thinking, "wow, i don't need a real life any more, i have this virtual one. and it is fun!!" but then you kinda just got bored. so you quit. but the strange thing is, having been addicted to something that you were able to throw away, you got a really good idea into the nature of addiction, and just decided that it wasn't really worth it.
that's what AO was for me, a glimpse at how addictive a game could be. thank god it sucked, otherwise i doubt that i would be posting right now, as i would probably still be in bed, trying to get some sleep after having been up until all hours.
last night i had a long conversation with a new friend and i had the privilage of getting in that strange zone where i am just talking but not really thinking about what i am saying. i really don't know if i can explain what this feels like. i mean i am aware that i am talking, but it is kinda like coding. it is almost as if there is something external to my conscious mind working my mouth or my hands. maybe it is kinda like i am channeling something, or maybe it is just the real me that my brain gets in the way of. no matter what the case is, it is always really cool to get into that zone, even if i don't really remember anything that i said. i think that i offended a little bit, but that was probably because we haven't reached the magic 24 hour communication line yet.
I AM 30% GEEK.
I probably work in computers, or a history deptartment at a college. I never really fit in with the "normal" crowd. But I have friends, and this is a good thing.
so it is certainly no Jana's, but Thai House on Colonial is a fine thai eatery. they also raised an eyebrow when i ordered it "thai hot" which was about 75% of the hurt that jana used to put on me when i went in there. i recomend it as an alternative to visiting oklahoma if you happen to be in the orlando area.
so i thought about getting up again at 7:30 this morning, but instead got up at 9:00. i think that my body is now letting me go to sleep around 1:30 in the morning which is pretty cool by me. i mean i get to watch toonami midnight run, so there is always that. tomorrow takes me to ft. laude to see reel big fish and goldfinger with my friend who i have seen 9 times (i think that is right), violet who is celebrating her big 22nd birthday. should be fun, drive and all.
i need a hair cut and the car will need an oil change when i get back from the trip. i have about a million docs that i need to write for work. and all i really want to do is zone.
note to bill in case you are reading this. get in touch with me you bitch. i would hate to have to call your mom to track your ass down.
i spent all day today writing just 1 doc for work. it is a monsterous thing, but done hopefully. friday is a day off, yeah. and on a side note, i really love the old loony toon travelogues. they are just too much.
friday was 400'ish miles to and from ft. laudersdale. a nice little jaunt for a concert and a b-day celebration for violet. met an interesting cat named tim before the show and was probably enlightened a little more than necessary by his apartment than i should have been. it is pretty interesting what you can learn about people just by sitting in the middle of and looking around their room.
i should have know that something was up when we got to the show. there were not all that many cars in the lot and then i noticed a strange phenomenon that i hadn't seen in quite some time, people being dropped off by their parents. things were looking interesting for this show. until the music picked up it was really strange to be surrounded by so many younger people. kind of like feeling very out of place. but i had a really good time.
satuday i had the chance to hang out with my friend ben in the afternoon before finding myself at another party where i felt completely out of place. we were late for that one and probably a good thing too. after having a rather intoxicated girl removed from my car, it was off to downtown where i took part in the wonderful fall extra hour of drinking to celebrate the start of daylights savings time. the rest of the evening had an interesting and odd feeling to it. i was going to post last night at 5:00am when i finally rolled in. the post was to read, "grrr... but i bring it on myself." i think that i am going to leave it at that. i really need to focus on friends right now and not let anything get in the way of that.
today was chill. hung out with bill and watched the killer. so i guess quite a bit of the weekend was spent in a state of disjoint perception. funny thing about that is how much i feel at home in that state. now it is time to get off to bed.
so as i have said this weekend was disjoint. i spent most of it feeling about 3 seconds behind, or 3 feet removed from myself and the situations i was in. this was to a large degree the result of things that were cranking in my own mind. but last night found me in a carbon copy of last saturday. downtown, everyone (but me) in costume. same people, crazy like. but instead of making something more of the situation i focused on the two things that i needed to, relaxing to observe the situations around me, and trying to be a good friend. i am certain that i relaxed and observed a whole lot of strange shit, and i think that i may have been a good friend. here is to hoping.
and i think that it is important to tell people what you think and what you feel, but sometimes there is nothing to be gained by doing that and so it is wise to keep your mouth shut and your ideas to yourself. sometimes there is nothing to be gained by being so forward, and you only end up hurting the people that you are trying to get your ideas across to. and so tight-lipped i sit.
and tricky plays in my headphones to drown out the anoying banter of coworkers and a doc awaits, so i split.
my technology has begun to stop its revolt. my phone is managing to hold signal and get and make calls for now. my car has returned from the shop, my drier how does its drying thing. my computer... well... it runs for an hour without crashing. oh well, not like i do that much on it anyway.
i will post on my weekend encounters after i get some work done.
Weekend
friday turned out to be an unscheduled tiburon outing to see Monsters Inc. what a very funny movie that turned out to be. all i have to really say is that you should go out and see it post-haste, and holy procedural fur batman. then a jaunt downtown offered stronger drinks than i was ready for. oh, well, i slept well.
saturday, gym, car out of shop, game, downtown. meeting new people is always fun, especially when you actually get up the nerve to give one of them your number. rory and i came to an understaning that cleared up a whole lot of the misunderstandings between us. henry and meir and their respective and ex others were out as well, although they were down the street at a meet market like place. dropped in, felt uncomfortable and bailed back to my usual dive.
sunday, house cleaning, laundry, roast of hugh hefner. much laughs cowboy bebop, sleep.
and that is all i have to say about that for now. of course i haven't said anything about monday antics...
chana is coming to visit next week. there is a conference here and i nabbed some sick cheap tickets to get her to come. it should rock and i cannot wait. of course we haven't seen each other in something like 5 years. and that ended disasterously. hopefully this one will go much better.
my machine is about 1/2 fixed and i was thinking about working on it and my webpage this weekend, but instead it looks like it is going to be a working weekend. docs abound that need to be completed and so there we are mini-crunchin'. and of course i still have been lazy and not gone out to get my goggles.
it is a working weekend, so i think that i am going to get up a little early tomorrow, wash the car, hit the gym and try and make it in around 2:00'ish. i should be able to wrap up everything that i need to and still have time to get home and make an interesting evening out of cleaning and doing laundy. at least here is to all kinds of planning.
on a tech note, my phone is more or less behaving itself and the fixes that i applied to my computer appear to have made my problems to stay at bay.
and all the rest being left up to chance as an intersting week aproaches.
chana gets here wednesday, and a week from today marks the beginning of milestone 1 at work. SSX Tricky has been played many hours from my couch and Return to Castle Wolfenstein has a place in my heart with its tugs to the games of old. nothing better then killing cartoon nazis.
and i am beat and i am going to watch TV and go to bed.
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so it has been a week since chana was here. it was really strange to have someone staying with me for 5 days. it had been a really long time since i was in a situation where i spent so much time around the same person. i find it kind of interesting though, chana talks about falling into her social life again in stride after spending 2 years with someone, and i am having to deal with spending 5 days with someone and how that effects my life. surfice to say, as much as i love chana, and how cool, attractive, and wonderful that she is, i have no desire at this point to live with someone. i really, REALLY like my space. the long weekend and the downtime was really nice.
got a mail from the mysterious and distant brandi knox. looks like things are up in the air again. i wonder if syncronicity is biting me in the ass again.
and kudos to violet for making a decision to be true to herself. i know all about the depths of co-dependancy and how tough those decisions can be sometimes. it is good to see people not doing the same things that i myself have done.
long rambling post continues...
this weekend found me out 3 days in a row (wednesday, thursday, and friday). and come saturday, i really wanted nothing to do with downtown and all of that. i was tired. my body was fed up with beer, and i just needed some time to myself. so i rewired my stereo, and watched some TV. then i settled down and listened to some philip glass after doing that whole christmas list thing. i had almost forgotten how much i love that crazy glass guy, and how much it reminds me of a certain kind of peace that i have yet to find someone to share with. in addition, i ran into amber, my alleged go partner. she popped up, but we crossed phone paths all weekend so oh, well.
fin...
today was perhaps the most unproductive day i have had in a long time. it all started this morning with a wait on the delivery of my TV, which rocks. and then kind of just sitting around my desk trying to make sense of the lighting and the temperature and the chair after having not been there for 4 days. i have to wonder if my body and mind intentionally do that to me as some sort of coping mechanism to deal with the hours that i have been known to put in. sometimes it is better not to think about it.
so i have found that a number of my friends are keeping online journals and have taken the time to catch up on their lives by them. and then a mysterious and syncronous call from reify inspired by an ikea catalog. good to hear that he is doing well depite his ability to kill my game at a range of about 1200 miles. oh well, if i were as sexy as that man right there, life would indeed be too good to be true.
i have been invited over for dinner at katori/violet's place tomorrow night. something about cooked onions i have been led to believe and now i get the opertunity to see if all of the boasting about her cooking indeed can be backed up by a demonstration of kitchen prowess. not that i have any reason to doubt her, just that i was absoluty spoiled by wonderful cooking by parentals (pops included).
speaking of cooking, some words of advice for you would-be thanksgiving dinner perparers of fine cuisine out there: always thaw that bird before you get you oven on. and my mom's mashed potatoe recipie will kill you quick with a corinary, but makes you wish that you could die right there on the spot. even if prepared by me, watch out mom, your beef stroganoff is next!!
to all of you out there who are intersted in another anime series worth owning check out cowboy bebop which is currently running in cartoon network's adult swim on sunday and thursday night. if for anything else, check it out for the really top notch soundtrack which has some great jazz influenced tracks. i recently aquired the boxed set for the whole series which includes a soundtrack cd that will probably find itself in some serious rotation in my car and home.
and i just realized that this has turned into yet another long as hell post. oh well, guess i do have to make up for all the time that i wasn't posting anything over the last week or 3.
this evening did provide me with some entertainment. it is entertaining to no end to have inside information and be the recipient of some telling looks and be able to read more into a situation than is probably safe. in addition, katori did turn out to be a fine cook. yummy food for my tummy.
and fuck cartoon network restarting DBZ without finishing the current story arc.
in the meantime, play an hour of sudoku for free then buy the game for less than 13 bucks.
speaking of sudoku, if you don't own a DS, you should buy one. then you should be absolutely certain that you buy Brain Age (because it is cool and new) and New Super Mario Brothers (for the distilled side-scrolling old-school fun of it). i say this as a gamer not as an employee of Nintendo.
--smirk--
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