In French, "cul" means "bottom." The English phrase cul de sac comes from French meaning "bottom of the bag." It bears a curious similarity to their pronunciation of the letter q.
Maybe I went a little far with the graphic and all, or maybe I should have left comment room on the last one. Anyway, you can get another taste of the graphic if you go here. I've updated the journal to point correctly.
Its times like this that my mind breathes out. I've taken a lot in this week. I counted to five. Maybe I shall make it ten, although I shall not repeat the ritual. You have to keep people guessing if you're to remain mysterious. And as the world's greatest lover, mysterious is my middle name (bonus points if anyone can link "Jesse" to "mysterious" with a sensical sentence).
And what do I mean breathe out?
Even during relative downtime I take in a lot of information, and without a literal journal upon which to spill forth or a cadre of confidants at my call (but not beck, I didn't sign on for the beck) whether the restriction is self-imposed or not, I have to get it all down before I either go crazy or forget the important parts.
First and foremost, the whole Thursday = Game Night thing is simply a tradition, and as far as I know, is not a particularly open day for anyone as opposed to any other week day. I have a D&D game to run on Fridays, and people do just whatever on weekends, but any other day is really up for grabs. Game Night will remain on for the forseeable future (I remember when it stops but I'm not telling), and for now you all get to decide whether or not Thursday is the right night for the event. What I'm looking for is more along the lines of a firm "no" if you have one rather than neutral-to-favorable responses in the affirmative. I want to know who gets excluded by my timing.
The Mason Media Lab is moving into my office. The space they take up now leaves no room for our video editing equipment, which would be hilarious to use with them right there in the same room and their $100,000 worth of video toys. I have been handed the sacred and hilarious task of patriating (my word) the young men who form the talent force of the MML. Their one girl is not a member of their little goon swarm and does not need patriation; ironic, as see is the one from Sweden and the goons are all homegrown. The problem is that when three or more of the goons are in the lab together, they start in with the in-jokes and goofing off and they become incompatible with a business environment. Their boss' boss is worried that they won't be able to socialize well with the people they will be around all the time, and that later in life they will be at a disadvantage when the goon swarm is inevitably disbanded. So I'm supposed to be the one to break the ice with these guys and educate them in the human language. I think it a suspicious choice, but then again, I am able to turn my personal weirdness and counterculture off for the purposes of teaching these dopes how to tuck in their shirts. What would seal the funny part in is if I could take hours simply to make this my instructional time.
Think about it this way: I'm older than any of them, hold a degree, and work in the service of instructing creative people how to do specific tasks. Barring the fact that I'm a dedicated eccentric, I'm an excellent candidate for the task. I affirm this with no ego.
Work has with it another aspect that I am still forbidden to mention or take vengeance upon. If any of you would like to take vengeance upon me on a full-time basis, my schedule is open.
Also I've been watching a bit much of the Venture Bros. lately. The show has a lot of detail work done and has a lot of replay value. Also I never get tired of watching T-rex riding, flamethrowing cowboys charge abeam polar bears riding motorcycles with scuba-gear clad machine gunners in sidecar. That just never gets old. Maybe because it makes so much sense. He asks her if she's a pirate! Come on!
And for once in a long time, I can't feel anything spiritually crushing from way out there. Most of the time, I have at least some minor crisis I could be helping with. I have to wait to be asked. All I can do is toss it out there that I'm a witch doctor and can fix anything from minor headaches to future soul-shockers or spirit infestations. I cannot barge in. I must be invited.
But even when I know I'd like to barge in on other people's problems and am waiting for the invite, I at least can understand what I would be doing. That's vague sounding...
Most of the time, I can feel the situation arise and prepare a response if needed. Now I don't feel anything in particular, and I take it as a good sign.
After all, I exist to be self-obsolescent. I work so that I will not be needed. At least in the context of witch-doctoring. So its relaxing.
But weird.
Seriously, when did you all collectively stop freaking out about life?
Anyway, if will let me keep to my own problems, which tend to the mundane side of my personal scale. The air in the house is acting up and I'll have to ask about it later. There's a Magic event approaching that I can always be more prepared for. The rest is spoilers.
I have one sad duty to carry out Wednesday and that will wrap it up.
Also my holiday Monday is open. Weird.
Arcanthus Umdaeti 5 - Call of the Caller
The last is the call of the caller, closing the circle that began itself, forever beginning and ending in turn; the unorthodox and orthodox. The power I have summoned is in all your hearts. Your life is my strength, and no more my definition.
And I promised I would count to five, so now all bets are off. Besides, I settled the matter with the boss, so I've acomplished the productive part of vengeance already.
Arcanthus Umdaeti 4 - Call of the Passionate
Regale me.
The fourth is the call of the Passionate, all knowledge stripped from the willing or unwilling, and the guidance for the knowledge already gained. Passion is the tool to give an end to the power that is by itself only the means. With the power to know gathered in the memories of the faithful, the circle is near completion.
I have to to weird things if I am to summon power outside of my time.
Arcanthus Umdaeti 3 - Call of the Unliving
Rise and observe; rest and prepare.
The third is the call of the Unliving, all knowledge of the passive universe is open, all passed on creatures and ideas lost to oblivion are returned from its warm jaws. With the power to know and remember realized, next is to simply take all the power that comes without resistance.
I have to do weird things if I am to summon power outside of my time.
Arcanthus Umdaeti 2 - Call of the Memorial
Remember.
The second is the call of the Memorial, for my power is of knowledge, and knowledge only rests in the memories of the Faithful. There is no learning without the memory to hold it.
I have to do weird things if I am to summon power outside of my time.
Arcanthus Umdaeti 1 (21 May 4705) - Call of the Faithful
Return to me.
The first is the call of the Faithful, for my power is of knowledge, and without faith there is no knowledge. All that you know is know to belief. There is no proof without belief.
I have to do weird things if I am to summon power outside of my time.
17 May 4705 - Commandeering Wisdom
Most with an amie
Take away what is not me
I am what remains
I feel this past week as though I have taken much and given little.
I chose the all black outfit today. Black, low-top polished chucks. Black khaki slacks (tell me that's not fun to say). Black solid long sleeved tee; the one that almost fits me so it exposes a little of my forearms. Black belt with a simple silver buckle. Also I decided to not shave so I have a slight scruffy look while being clean and prime all over everywhere else.
There's a slight dusting of green to everything I'm wearing, too. That's because I dried it all last night with some of my blankets, and one of them becomes increasingly comically threadbare with each wash. I should dry it in the sun from now on...
The idea is, on the whole, to appear as an artist. I'm going to teach an intro to photoshoppe class later today, and thought it best to dress up, and while I'm dressing up, why not take the position that my older brother begrudgingly admits he will one day have to? If I had a funny hat that rested to one side, I would maybe wear that, too, but I'm not a fan of wearing hats around indoors anyway. Anything to put on a good show.
Anything to remain aloof, where I largely belong. Not above, just far and away.
Bonus points if you have any idea what's going on with my previous post today (at the wee hours).
17 May 4705 - Inscrutability Projects
One-half cubic foot for fifteen dollars.
Seventy-five by thirty-eight by seven inches.
That's eleven and one-half cubic feet.
So the conservative estimate for the cost of this project would be $345.
Somehow, this still doesn't sound like a bad idea. Of course...considering the end result.
In conclusion, I may not be able to reverse the process. Apologies for thinking aloud this late at night.
14 May 4705 - Sounds of Fidelity
The problem is in asking for something other than midi sound.
As it relates to the MegamanX Collection, midi sound is the awesome. Capcom did an excellent job of porting the two SNES MegamanX games, complete with the original soundtracks and everything.
But wait, two?
Yep. MMX3 also came out for the PS1, which Capcom saw as the superior choice for the port, because it would end up taking up a larger chunk of the PS2 dvd they were set to burn the collection on, mostly for the, you guessed it, redone sound.
This wouldn't be bad, except that it was.
They had the choice of the SNES or PS1 version, and they picked wrong. The SNES had midi sound, which is artificial and never degrades because it starts and ends life as compressed as it's ever going to be. If there's static from a midi file, either it's designed to have that or you have bad speakers. It is some of the most crisp sound available (although also the most artificial sounding).
The artificial sounding nature is what keeps people playing mp3s instead of tracking mods. Okay, also they can carry the fidelity of a human voice and yadayada. But what kind of music do we have in Megaman games since the start of them all? Techno.
Now, pardon me for liking my techno to be artificial, or even mechanical sounding. Next time I'll submit to the Boston pops or the London symphony orchestra to do a cover of Freezepop's Super Sprode. Come to think of it, that sounds awesome for different reasons...why was that again? Oh yeah, fidelity of sound.
So here's the depressing part. X3 on the PS1 sounds worlds away worse than it did on the SNES. I was shocked and injured that I could almost recognize the tracks, but something just felt wrong about the whole thing and gave me the sense that I was getting less than the best product, which is a hard feeling to shake when you know you've already had the best.
The PS1 version uses some kind of bizarre orchestral sound made into live audio capture files and compressed using whatever generic PS1 sound compression algorithm SONY uses for it (or Capcom, don't know whom to blame on this one). The result is that all the audio on my PS2 disk for X3 is true to the PS1 release: this washed-out sounding fake remix of the original, which is a crime because I liked that music more than any of the others.
The Blizzard Buffalo stage is some of the most aggressive techno I had ever heard, in an SNES game or anywhere else. The melody is in roughly double time of the beat, which is not you're standard techno beat to begin with. It has roots closer to bebop jazz (with the exception of the general tempo and the fact that it is not a song, but a loop) than to techno. It's wild. It's great.
When I heard the mix on my PS2, I could have died. The Blizzard Buffalo stage played up the beat as if it were the melody, and slowed the track down so it would sound less like a beat, and then obscured the loop's actual melody entirely. This represents a conscious effort to harm good music on the part of the developers, and is an act disgusting in the extreme.
I have to wash with some excellent techno music so I don't get compressed awful versions of my game loops stuck in my head.
Your suggestions will be appreciated.
12 May 4705 - Humane Trap
A contradiction in terms, I'm sure.
Little did any of you know, there was a mouse who lived in this house. I had seen her outside once, and then later running about inside. If you had seen her too, you would probably understand why I didn't mind her being around. She ate insects, lived alone, and stayed very quiet. She was about twenty centimeters long from snout to tail, and incredibly cute.
I knew it was not a good idea to harbor animals in the house, but it would break my heart to get a trap and kill her. I wanted to let her live around here a little longer, and then get a humane trap and release her back into the wild, where she probably could have eaten better, found a mate, gone country again and died naturally in a few months or however long she had.
Well TS, love. Nature had other plans.
I was cleaning the dishes this morning when I noticed a pickle or something floating in one of the basins I had left to soak. I admit, I could have cleaned up earlier, but between having everyone over Thursday and working all day Friday and then having D&D after, I hadn't really found effort to clean up (the time was there well enough).
I got my glasses on and took a closer look and discovered where the mouse had gone. In a sense, to mouse heaven. In another sense, I had a drowned animal in my dishes. That's why I can report her length and sex with accuracy, but you probably had your doubts when I began all this with "lived" in the past tense.
It was probably not a pleasant or quick death. She would have had to slip in, splash, float for awhile, swim looking for an exit, struggle and ultimately give in to the ocean she was in. Drowning is painful, and her eyes were open for the end, probably still writhing in pain.
Who knew? I certainly never thought twice about leaving my dishes around for two days. I never thought the act would have me murder a cute animal. I felt a great deal of remorse for the beast. Still wild and free, living at my side and under my feet. Small and quiet and efficient. Now simply small and silent.
What could I do? I hoisted the corpse out by the tail, gave a brief forensic study, and placed her in a sandwich bag and threw the bag in the trash. Having an open corpse in the trash invites all kinds of nasties, and I can only imagine what one of my mates would say when he discovered that funky smell coming from the trash is the corpse of a formerly cute beast.
I can't imagine this would happen with any regularity, but having a humane trap sitting about would probably not hurt my negative space. It is something a witch doctor should have.
Update: Usually I don't receive portents. In fact I never have. My only faculty for the scrying part of witch-doctory has been my own quirky memory. This event, however, bears a curious collection of coincidental similarities to something else I heard about. If that is the case, I may have already failed, and things are about to get much, much worse.
You may have seen buildings catch fire, but have you ever seen a family catch fire? I curse my imagination for seeing the connections. It will all be fine. I'm totally wrong on this one. I'll hear the sober-but-good news tomorrow, and then I can get back to half-remembering hazy experiences from other people's futures and meeting some of the house ghosts in my dreams.
Let me be wrong.
11 May 4705 - Knowlege is Power
So there's this poster I designed.
Well, okay, played fascist art director for. I would say art direction is an important part of design, and anyway I was on the team, so I designed it.
Also it is more important to phrase things in the first person when you're taking responsibility for something.
We were given the catchphrase "expand your web of knowledge" to include as a tag line in the poster somewhere, and we did, at the bottom. The rest of the layout was spot-on. Cool graphics, neat overall effect, great flow of information, all with five or six neat tricks to suture the whole thing together.
I posted them in the JC yesterday and today, but it wasn't until one of the senior staff (who generally has nothing to do with us but is actually concerned with other areas of our department) asks if I designed the poster as she was passing by.
I admitted it, expected to get the usual "this is a graphical triumph, a cool poster" accolade.
Instead she tells me that "knowledge" is spelled incorrectly on the poster, and it reflects poorly on the department.
D'oh.
In all the minutiae of editing and direction and oversight, I hadn't noticed the d. This new word has the power to make me panic for a split second, and then feel awful about not catching a typo. Knowlege is this power.
Its actually hard to notice, and I chalk that up to the excellent design of the poster. Even still, I'm going to see about getting some stickers and pasting the word "knowledge" over the "knowlege" that's there. Under most circumstances, putting a sticker over it would make it look tacky, but this particular job is immune to that for technical reasons. Essentially I get to cheat my way to victory, whereas ordinarily I would have to resign out of shame.
Okay, so the responsibility isn't all that weighty, but no one is going to get the joke in this sentence.
11 May 4705 - Speaking of Nippon
There are two phrases that everyone who is going to be living in Japan for a visit should know. Really there are three, and between these three you can get through any situation at all, but I'm a little hazy on the third, because it was the first that I learned, at it came from a sketchy source back when I was high-school age and so was she.
Also she called me that-which-I-am-never-to-be-named, so the creds of the source are low in this case.
The first two phrases are solid, and you should try them out in English.
Kimine wa konke naio.
It's none of your business.
Now here's a useful phrase. People are going to be nosing around quite a bit, and while you can't get vendors to offer you the correct juice by telling them your choice is none of their business, you can slide through a whole hell of a lot of other things, if you are the schlemiel in question. If you're the schlimazel, though, you'll need to be armed with the phrase that blames.
Dare wa sekkinin o torimaska (or toru ka if you're being extra rude).
Who will take responsibility for this?
Aside from openly blaming someone else for shit that's probably your fault anyway, this little wonder phrase has the added benefit of allusion to Japanese custom. When an American takes responsibility for something, he apologizes openly and then takes steps to fix the problem, or simply allows himself to be the subject of public blame and carries on as he has. When a Japanese takes responsibility for something, he resigns his post before he's fired, after fixing what it is he messed up. When you ask "who will take responsibility for this," what you're really saying is "who will resign because of this blunder?" Its the phrase that pays.
I'll give you the third because it fills the rather small gap that the other two leave (and I'm talking about conversational stuff, if you want to introduce yourself to people, describe tea price trends, or draft poetry, you do actually need other words). Its also the only one I want advice on fixing because my source is so sketchy. If you feel compelled to reply to the previous two with a "you should spell (or form) your romaji this way instead," you'll earn the angry dome, and no one wants to see that. You can correct me on the last one, though. That's allowed.
Souri wa baka bana chi (or shi, I kindof slur it somewhere in between whenever I say it).
That's crazy talk!
So one of my friends wanted to be able to say "that's crazy talk" in as many languages as possible. When I last knew of his records, he knew eight ways to say it. If the conversational event in question has nothing to do with something you're doing wrong (where you would tell people its none of their business), and nothing to do with something they're doing wrong (where you demand their resignation), you simply tell them that their jibber-jabber makes no sense at all, which should solve whatever it is you need.
And now you're armed with all the conversational Japanese you'll ever need. They want to practice their English on you, though, so you really shouldn't need any of it.
Oh, and if you can learn any, throw a couple of insults in there somewhere. Insults are like a secondary currency, and can get you treats.
Also, since this is mostly my memory anyway, I have to make a mashup of Chili Peppers "Snow" and this song I heard on the radio the other day.
From those that were there, if you can remember the song in question, that would help a lot, too.
10 May 4705 - Longsighted Paternal Chutzpah
It may sound like a mouthful, but that's the summary of all this text in three short words.
My Father came to visit this morning and drop off some of the clutter I had left at his house in Roanoke, intending to collect it all at a later time more suitable to the moving of personal effects beyond the necessary. He and I had the same idea on Tuesday about the fridge, though we were in different cities at the time, and ultimately dismissed the idea for different reasons. I suspect he will return with my fridge sometime in the summer, when I get sick of walking downstairs for a cold one (where "one" is a can of Big-K Cherry Cola, which is both cherry and cola to the max and my favorite can of anything that comes in twelve ounce cans on planet earth). On the whole I tasked him with bringing three things: my dish rack (Elisa took hers), a serial cradle for my palm pilot (being an engineer in the fifties meant pocket protector, in the 00s it means palm pilot. Who knows what pp we'll have next?), and of course, my aforementioned cola.
Okay, so the cola isn't clutter around his house. He made up for it by bringing a book I didn't want but Mom thought I should have, and the rest of the contents of a bag I had left there, and a tea kettle so I can finally fix my tea and coffee without using the microwave, which I always hated to do.
He didn't come to drop off my shit.
After he dropped off my shit, we went looking for a thrift store around the lower Springfield area based on a blush google search for thrifts, the ostensible reason being the table downstairs has a shelf life now and I should find a replacement Tokyo-time (everything goes faster there). The first shop was difficult to find, and turned out to be consignment fashions for old women, possessed of no tables, and we left. I directed us further along Backlick until there wasn't much of anything left, and, abeam the highway, we decided to give some of the other plazas a look. Dad saw a K-mart and had an idea for my backyard. I saw a Games Workshop and was impressed that we have one so close. The plaza also had an inova hospital thrift store, whose origins are unknown to me, but whose wears are eclectic, and so we stepped in and found a small table. It is a folding, card-table, and now supports my computer monitor. The price was right. They had nothing else for me.
We went to the K-mart, and Dad bought me tomato plants, with the suggestion that I grow tomatoes in the backyard this summer. I support this idea, and shall get to planting probably Saturday, with designs on a patch of yard whose grass I killed with a pile of leaves from the fall. Now I have the plants and the peat. I shall sharpen my mattock sometime and give it a go. The more I live, the more I become my Harvest Moon avatar self. Now where's that blue feather? Just one more thing I need to pick up from home, I guess.
From there, we went to the Bradlick Giant to get some things that go bad quickly, and that I consequently run out of more often. We then dropped off everything, and I chilled my Father down from helping me plant the tomatoes right away, as it was hot, and I didn't know then that I can go after that patch of lawn with my mattock (I checked; I can). And anyway, green thumb or no, I wasn't going to have my Father work up a sweat digging at my yard.
For reference, he used to have a lawn himself, but over the years he kept tilling more and more of it for gardens, and today there exists a spot of grass in his yard that one could perhaps translocate to his office. The man grows plants, and when you live under my parent's roof, you have the next layer of cieling in the jungle canopy overhead. I'm sure they'll send me some of their tomatoes, zucchini, squash (even though I hate it), and corn later in the summer. Some day I'll visit them and there will be a goat in the backyard.
The irony of that chunk of grass in the office idea of mine is that my Father would end up digging a space in it for a flower or something.
My Father wanted from there to go and to do, and so I showed him the office where I work. Jimm wasn't around, but others were so I showed him them and them him. I gave him the nickel tour and we departed after scouting out lunch, and doubly deciding to close the distance on the joint by shopping in Fair Oaks a little, me with the quest to find either a long-sleeved pink shirt with a simple collar or a hawaiian shirt with some generic pattern on it that makes it pink as a mean average (it wasn't quite lunch then).
We walked around the mall, sticking mostly to department stores. Dad thought that our collection of stores in Fair Oaks was "offbeat." He may be right. Once convinced Macy's didn't have anything for me, we went to Sears and found still nothing. JcPenny showed promise, and after a closer look at one of the shirts, I decided it was close enough to one half of my quest items. So now I own a soft-cotton hawaiian shirt that is on the whole pink. This makes a second hit for penny in recent weeks. I may be slowly becoming a fan of the store.
They never have a good tie, though. Also I don't like ties all that much, so meh.
It was time for lunch, and we departed for our scouted location, a deli called "Chutzpah" in a little plaza just near Fair Oaks. The same plaza has the Regal cinemas and the Panera Bread.
Chutzpah is a place I am dragging people to from now on. For a long time, I had been looking for a potato knish in the area and kept coming up with nada. Not even in DC was there a street vendor who had knishes. I sent a spy to NYC, and she failed to obtain a knish, and what the hell happened to this treat of mine since years ago? Was there no more knish on the planet? Chutzpah had knishes. I ate a knish. You're going to come with me to this place, and have a potato knish.
No arguing.
And while we were at it, we ate a meal, too. My Father ordered some house specialty, and I had a Reuben and the knish. This was a real Reuben, not that flouncy watery bollocks you get when you ask for one from Damon's. This meat had character, and they have little urns of mustard on each table that contain a thick, mustardy, spicy, rich, mustard mash. Everything about the place had moxie, which is how, I suppose, they can get away with calling themselves Chutzpah in the first place. Also, for a Wednesday lunch crowd, the place was empty save us gentiles, which is a shame. Also why I'm hauling everyone with me. Also they cater, so if you're graduating or having a prom or a wedding or something, have it with knishes and cheesecake.
And if you're planning a wedding, wait until the fall, huh? You want to have all these people in their summer clothes outside in the heat? And how trite is it to get married in the late spring? What will your children think of you? Also to hell with all of you.
Anyway, my Father didn't come to shop and feed me, either.
He came to visit, and visit he did. He wanted the simple answers to the hard questions, and as a master of journalism and former news reporter, he knows how to ask and to get. I remember reading a letter he wrote me last year for my birthday. I was feeling a little low around that time, and hearing the news of the house, reported simply and eloquently by my Father's hand was too much for me to bear. Hidden behind that descriptive letter was a mountain of sadness for my cause, and all the pity of the people of Earth, and all the love a Father ever had for his son. I tried to read it aloud to some friends, and had to stop and try to collect myself midway because I was crying openly while reading. Every bit of repressed pain came out all at once. Everything I had to hide just so I could live. Everything I had stoppered to give the appearance I was a normal grad student with a normal life. All of it gone. Dissolved by my Father the word-smith. I could tell that watching me fall apart was some of the scariest shit these blokes had ever seen. In retrospect, I perhaps should have saved the experience for those who signed up for it.
Come on, who wants to go to play D&D on the DMs birthday and have some shitstorm make him crumble spiritually in front of your face. I think I owe them a coke or something.
I didn't have to relive that experience this afternoon, because I got to demonstrate to my Father just how I was doing, and for how long I would be doing it. He wants me back in school of course, and is now a little skeptical of my ability to go. He's glad that I have a job that's on the books (he thought I was taking money under the table or outright lying about having a job).
But more than any of that, he just wanted to see me again. I don't have as many excuses to run back to Roanoke, and in fact I have a number of reasons to stay the hell away forever. He knows his job as a parent will never be done. He wanted to see my face and hear my voice.
And so it shall be my older brother's voice from now on. I never should have given in to a gimmick in the first place. I took it way too far. What a freakish farce! As if my life isn't weird enough on its own without me throwing another calculated eccentricity into the mix. No more bizarre fronts. I may not have a voice of my own, but if I can't be true to myself, I'll at least be true to someone else.
08 May 4705 - Transcribing the Bible
I have knocked out another two pages of my Startroid tome. The act of transcription will satisfy my players and bring me a sense of accomplishment. You can see what I did today here. Well, most of that, anyway.
I should apologize. Sometimes I get poetic streaks, and what I write is often unbecoming of a witch-doctor.
The worst is when someone other than me loses sleep over it. As for me losing sleep, well that's something different that has little (or maybe more than I think) to do with my poetry.
Further apologies to anyone who wants nothing to do with my Starcraft-Metroid hybrid D&D game. This is what I have been doing.
07 May 4705 - Intrinsic Nature
Take it all away,
Each social part within me,
Intrinsic Nature,
It seems the only thing left,
Is nothing, nothing at all.
-Hyakunin
07 May 4705 - Form Up On The Dream
I know you asked me to do something.
Something I should have been doing.
I just cannot remember what it is
you asked
I do.
There was nothing you left for my dreams to form up on.
The rank and file.
The random pressure.
A single cramped car driving from the airport.
A face from many years past.
Military.
Three days left. Let's see. Damn.
Maybe I can seclude myself, and you can all have the fun without me?
05 May 4705 - Tournament Report
For those of you reading this who have no interest in Magic: The Gathering, you will almost certainly want to skip this. I would be personally and deeply flattered and concerned if you chose otherwise. The following is as accurately as I can, a transcription of the games I played in a Two-Headed Giant tournament in Richmond earlier today. At the time of drafting, the tournament is still going on, which should tell you something about my team.
The format was 2HG Time Spiral Block, which meant one hour to build two decks from one tournament pack of TS, and two each boosters of PC and FS. Jimmy was my other head for the event.
We built the following decks from our card pool:
Deck A, Jimmy's:
17 land
4 Mountains
7 Forests
6 Swamps
16 creatures
Nightshade Assassin
Gorgon Recluse
Roiling Horror
Nantuko Shaman
Firemaw Kavu
Grave Scrabbler
Corpulent Corpse
Big Game Hunter
Augur of Skulls
Rathi Trapper
Llanowar Empath
Utopia Mycon
Blightspeaker
Firefright Mage
Henchfiend of Ukor
Thornweald Archer
7 other spells
Stormbind
Search for Tomorrow
Dark Withering
Pyrohemia
Ignite Memories
Harmonize
Petrified Plating
Deck B, mine:
18 land
7 Islands
4 Mountains
6 Plains
Tolaria West
14 creatures
Castle Raptors
Stingscourger
Revered Dead
Subterranean Shambler
Jodah's Avenger
Infiltrator il-Kor
Soltari Priest
Flying Men
Knight of the Holy Nimbus
Whip-Spine Drake
Veiling Oddity
Keldon Marauders
Magus of the Future
Numot, the Devastator
8 other spells
Ophidian Eye
Piracy Charm
Dismal Failure
Foriysian Totem
Ovinize
Judge Unworthy
Ancestral Vision
Pact of the Titan
Game 1: G/w and B/r
They had a first turn Essence Warden that netted them at least 8 life, and since they weren't paying much attention to all our creatures, it could have even been 10. The player across from me looked to be playing B/r, but I didn't end up seeing much of his deck. I suspended the Infiltrator, then played Foriysian Totem, then had six mana on turn five thanks to it and played Numot. I got in a hit the next turn and blasted two of the B/r player's lands, putting him behind forever where he had only been kinda screwed before. I focused on damage for the rest, favoring an active Totem to another land blast from Numot. They basically couldn't respond to my bomb and lost. There were no hard plays for me the whole match. At one point, a Witch Hunter threatened to bounce Numot, but Jimmy iced it by summoning his Kavu. He traded it next turn with another dude, just to be sure. I was attacking with Numot, Whip-Spine Drake, and Infiltrator il-Kor, all of whom were unblockable, but just in case.
This match was a blowout. They dealt one damage to us the entire time, from the Essence Warden attacking. I thought for sure they would be in tempo heaven then, but turn 5 Numot was just too much for a mana-screwed black player.
Game 2: U/B and G/W/r
We had some early trades and hits in creature combat, nothing noteworthy. The green player helped stall until the U/B player could fetch his preponderance of control for a limited deck. We got them with a three-shot Ignite early on for nine damage, one land, one Mystical Teachings, one Giant Dustwasp. They take a hit from green's Orcish Cannonade as they remove another dude. UB fetches Dismal Failure with a Mystical Teachings. Jimmy draws out the counter with a Dark Withering, and I play Numot and he has two mana left for a Delay. With my Numot and Veiling Oddity set to suspend out and haste and evade the next turn, they swung for the win, flipping Akroma from morphed form for plenty of damage.
Usually I try not to comment on the opposing team's play style or appearance. This round, it was almost distracting. The team reminded me of everything I hate about tournament magic. Neither team really made play errors at all, and they had the cards and beat us, that's that. When they had to call a judge twice on trivial, anal things, I got a sense of their collective character. Their team name was "Brute Squad," probably because UB player was at least two-and-a-half of me, and not quite my height. Watching him sit and play magic almost made me nauseous, and I have a high threshold for other people's lifestyle choices. Them being dickheads didn't help anything.
Game 3: U/G/w and R/B
I guess they didn't get enough good white cards. Blue guy played a Castle Raptors, and that was it for the whole game. Maybe he had a Saffi in there somewhere and really couldn't pass up the splash. Not that Castle Raptors is a bad card for limited by any means. It's good. I played my own that game.
I drop Flying Men first turn, on what is perhaps the best opening hand I've seen all day, and it had been a day of good opening hands. They had some irrelevant critter that we blasted after it hit us once, and I kept on swinging with the Flying Men.
They call Flying Men "the blue Lightning Axe" because of this kind of happening. I got seven damage out of them throughout the game. All for one blue mana. Totally off the charts.
They start mounting and Jimmy and I both raise our own armies. I use Judge Unworthy to save us from five damage, picking my nest two draws as Jodah's Avenger and Foriysian Totem. BR guy jacks my Ancestral Visions with his Imp's Mischief, paying no life, and I try to draw into Numot the old fashioned way. I drop Jodah's Avenger, and Jimmy lights the board up with Pyro, killing my men and GB guy's Serendib Sorcerer, who made Jodah a 0/1. BR guy had witch's mist, so we had to be careful with the Pyro after. That same turn, I Ovinize BR guy's Skittering Monstrosity (for whom no one will ever discard the cards, I expect), and with 1 damage still on him, he dies to state-based effects. From there I summon Soltari Priest, and between him and Jodah I can keep creatures around all day for the pyro, and we were ahead in the damage race, so a few turns would have sealed it.
Well I had dropped Numot in fact, but BR guy throws Phthisis at it, hitting us for 12. The crazy bastard jacks my card drawing, and then ices my bomb and spills out the biggest life swing I saw all day. What a nuts format.
Back to the pyro about to kill them with shadow guys scene. They killed Jodah with something I forget. I attack with Soltari Priest with Jimmy's Petrified Plating on, I flash Ophidian Eye on it ahead of the damage, draw my card, and play a Revered Dead. This leaves them at 7. Jimmy plays the best card in the format, Ignite Memories, and one copy reveals a Goldmeadow Lookout for 4 damage, meaning they die no matter how the others resolve. They had had the lookout, a land, a Brute Force and a Blightspeaker in hand. Talk about a format!
Game 4: Team Cathouse, U/g/b and R/g/w
These guys had the nuttiest pulls I had seen. R guy suspends Greater Gargadon on turn 1, making me think the entire rest of the match is going to be about us dealing with it, which it was. Having the Gargadon around to sack just anything we killed was nightmarish, especially when our prime removal was Firemaw Kavu. Later they pulled a Damnation off. They just had the answers. Also an Arc Razor hit us four times. It was nuts.
These kids needed a lot of lessons in manners, both for life and tournament play. They couldn't make a wrong decision given what they had drawn, and so I couldn't approach from a technical standpoint, which is really the only valid place to approach from if your targets are strangers. Its a bit of a hit to the ego to know that any moron with the luck draw can ice you, though. Really the only thing separating pros from others is the sheer number of games. They play enough until the odds even out and everyone else they played against has played less, and then they have the most wins among them and can go pro and get sponsored and paid.
Not these kids, though. Their luck was all spent on that game. No more Gargadons and Damnations for you.
After a 2-2-0 record we dropped. Mostly because I wanted to keep playing just for fun and Jimmy had something else he could go and be doing, so off we went. Which is why I'm typing this now instead of drafting in the top 4. Oh, and since everyone had to choose a team name, I'll leave you with our conversation about it:
Kaz: So, we have to choose a name for our team. I would suggest "Throw Your Life Away for Justice," but you didn't wear the shirt, too, so...
[for the record, we were a hair's breath away from wearing matching shirts, which would have been the shit, but some other mental powers kept my transmission last night from fully getting him. will have to investigate later.]
Jimmy: We could still call ourselves that.
Kaz: Except someone could take exception to advocating suicide and have us dqed.
Jimmy: It's not that bad.
Kaz: To you or me, no, but people are anal, and it would be horrid to lose for something like that.
Jimmy: Howabout something just silly then. Like "Blueberry."
Kaz:...
Kaz:...actually I like that. Can I add something else, like "Blueberry (something)"? [yes I speak with all that punctuation]
Jimmy: Well, what did you have in mind?
Kaz: "Blueberry Nihlifaction." Just a nonsense word.
Jimmy: Okay, its still silly enough.
Kaz&Jimmy: Go team Blueberry Nihlifaction!
03 May 4705 - My Dream Job
Strictly speaking, my dream job is to be the voice of a cartoon character, probably a villain or monstrous henchman as my heroic sounding voices are all either painfully painfully ironic or bravado, or don't sound whiney enough.
On Saturday, though, I get to pretend for eight hours that it is my job to design and build Magic decks and play in tournaments against others for dollars.
There really is a profession for this, and the only thing keeping it from being my dream job is that I don't see it as a legitimate job.
At all.
Really, I hate the guys who have printed on their pro-player cards that it's their goddam job to be good at a child's card game, and have much respect for the ones that say "student at wherever" or "software engineer" under the career heading. So my dream is not so much to have that as a job, but to be great at it as a hobby. To be renowned, and esteemed among teens, maybe even a hundred.
Specifically, there's a tournament in the Richmond Convention Center this weekend that I shall attend. Wish me luck.
That also means that I may be a little...erm...edgey tonight. In fact I remember it, so I apologize in advance.
I know it sounds weird, but I will not have had meant it when it happens. Also I'll forget to apologize after, so I'm clearing it out of the way now. Sortof. See, I'll remember this and someone or maybe I will direct you to it and you'll say that it's bullshit, that it's just bullshit and I am typing it now or recently and that the timestamp is easily faked. Also how can I be sorry for something I'm going to do, why not simply stop yourself from doing it in the first place?
To be fair, we could extend this reasoning to the nature of all apology. If you were really that sorry, then you wouldn't have done it.
This is an unhelpful mentality, no matter when it happens, and that's not what you're trying to get out of me. What you want is impossible, but my reading this aloud should be a good runner-up to that.
I can also back that up by giving you a good night's sleep. I used to do that more often for people, but then they stopped asking and I got lazy and they did well enough on their own anyway. But sure, I can clear out your dreams of invaders, probably when I'm asleep, too.
I mean, I'll pretty much have to.
It's my dream job.
01 May 4705 - Honorable Mention
My mention of my new goggles was brief, and it pains and surprises me that I did not mention where I got the idea. My super-science geek friend John showed me his pair, and I knew I had to have a pair of my own. He's called thebemdude out there on lj.
How much nicer it is to be able to praise and thank a friend than having to scold one.
Yep. John showed me his, told me about the science, suggested some goggles for the job, and gave me a little of his filter paper to complete the task.
Did I mention I had been making every little decision the wrong way lately? I have.
01 May 4705 - Dedicated Design Team
The last time I remember being this frustrated with a friend was two years ago in the summer. The man in question had repeatedly crossed the line with me for sport, and I had, over the previous eight years, grown sick of it. History will perhaps show that my patience was not great enough. The pattern would go: he would try to humiliate me at every available opportunity, mostly by bringing up old shit that I thought we had hashed out before and buried in High School memories where old stupid High School shit belongs. He would continue provoking me until I reacted, either by calling him out or (more often, I admit) pranking his sorry ass, as whatever I become in life, I know I shall be a prankster through and through. Then he would react to this saying it was uncalledfor, unprovoked, or unwarranted, usually all of the above, and try to convince the rest of the crowd that I had done this most recent thing out of a pathological malice.
Problem is, about two years ago, everyone else had finally grown up enough to no longer believe that line, and realized for the most part that he was fighting just to fight, and didn't care about putting his daughter in harm's way, either.
Did I mention that one of our points of contention (and this spread throughout the group, mind) was his foolish decision to take to bed someone we all warned him off of? And then he had a kid?
It was, we did, and he did.
So one last time I was sick of all of it. One last time I had extended the olive branch only to be systematically insulted. One last time I decided to give him a mother's day gift, as my personal joke for his life was that he was stuck as the mother of this poor little girl. (For the record, the birth mother was ruled unfit to raise her by a court, and in VA, getting that to happen is hard.) So I laid the trap.
The joke was calling him a woman. He took the joke as not on him but on his child, making fun of her for having no mother.
I'm not quite so far gone that I'm willing to take my vengeance to the next generation, much less verbally assault a girl who is too young to really understand it, much less use adult weapons on children in general, and so on. But no, my comrade was so willing to hide behind his daughter that he immediately assumed my joke was on her, just so he could take the holier-than-thou approach that he loved so well for so many years to come at me with. But even this I was willing to ignore. I was going to let it all go at that, mistaken though he was, misunderstood though my joke was (did I ever mention that I sometimes pay a heavy price for bad humor? I do) and go back to college while he stayed in the workforce trying to support his kid, while in fact great-grandma was doing the raising. (The girl has a lovely and sensible great grandmother, and I hope they spend as much time together as they can.) This simply didn't happen.
Someone else decided that this one and I needed to hash it out again, and bury the hatchet once and for all. So outside we went, there in the night, at the beginning of Sin City going on inside. I prepared to aim the knockout punch at his face in case he took a misstep, which would have been satisfying but never happened. Instead we talked. First about the joke, I explained what it was and how he could have mistaken that, but that I had no intention of going after his kid, it was him I thought was the fuckup and who should take responsibility for his actions for once. He didn't buy it, which is a shame because in cases where I'm not involved, he valued honesty and even liked to hear the truth.
He brought up some other things I thought we were done with. I dealt with each in turn, explaining that I had never been the progenator of the events, that someone had always outright crossed me beforehand, usually again and again before I did a damn thing. He got his sequences wrong and insisted I was at fault on all counts, that I had somehow started all this with something I had done perhaps even before he and I met. I know what he meant but it would take too long to explain right now, and it's total bollocks anyway. I figured if I simply let him rant on and on that eventually we would be done, I could lower my ready stance and go back inside and watch Sin City.
He kept going.
At some point, I gave up trying to reason with him and simply agreed with him. Yup, you're totally right. I did the wrong thing there. Yup, I am totally responsible for you screwing up and having a kid. Yup, I was behind the JFK assassination that led to all this. Anything you say. I am that asshole.
If he could have known that his stories were having as little effect on me as my explainations were on him, we could have saved some time. He didn't realize a damn thing, and falsified much, but I no longer, at that point, cared to speak the truth any more.
He was finally done and we went back inside, and I saw the ending sequence from Sin City. The ass had wasted all that time accomplishing nothing with me, whereas, sauced as he was, he probably went home the next day and said to himself: man, I really told off Kaz, I'll bet he feels horrible right now.
So, its not often that I ever feel that frustrated with a friend. Usually its when I know that he's fucking up, and for all I do I can't get him to stop, or even see that he is approaching disaster. How would you feel if you knew how things were going to play out, but no one would listen to you anyway? You wouldn't reach outright rage, but I'll wager you would be irritated in the extreme.
Monday, I was actually close to that point. It's vulgar and stupid, and I didn't enjoy it as much as I usually enjoy life's rarer emotions. I had to use Illustrator again.
I know, I know. I shouldn't go out of my way to do things that really frustrate me, but here's the score:
Bonnie, Jeff, and I had to make a poster. Design initial schedule set for one week. Really, I didn't have to be part of it, but wanted to share some ideas with them because I thought it would be fun, and even offered to help with some of the work, even though it wasn't given to me as my thing. That was Friday. The design team was prepared.
We started in on it again Monday, after some of the Friday work I was more certain I would have an active role on the team, and again suggested this and that (I've had a good deal of design experience between a professional friend and a technical communications course, enough that I don't think twice about speaking my mind about the design for this poster.) Once I saw how the work was going to be parsed, I wanted it done in photoshop, illustrator, and indesign. I thought this was a pretty easy solution. Bonnie could handle the assembly of components in indesign with ease (in fact, I suspect she could have done the whole thing herself and it would be brilliant if only she were so motivated and ordered). The photoshop was a two-or-three minute job, and she had it done while we were talking about it, so really, I saw there as nothing left for me to do.
Aces. The story continues from here for some reason. I really didn't want to do the Illustrator, but I recognized that vector graphics would be just the thing for the next step of the job (stolen graphic overlay), and decided it would be right up Jeff's alley because he likes Illustrator, bless his backwards head.
But instead of just catching on and doing it, and having it done, Jeff quipped that the only reason I wasn't doing it was that I wasn't proficient with a graphic program that could do vectors, to wit, that I was skill-less.
So we got upset. Right there I tried to defend my demonstrable skill, and entreaty that I admitted to not liking the Illustrator, but recognized the need for the vectors this time. He stuck to the playful insults, not noticing, perhaps, that I was becoming incensed not from his attack on my character, but from his shrugging off the work.
I was done with arguing, because I knew the job had to be done by Wednesday, because I had asked my boss about it, and he agreed with me that the deadline should really be sooner for the sake of the guy who had asked us for it in the first place. And I knew to ask because I had my own suspicions because sometimes in jobs, as in life, not all the parameters of the problem are simply handed to you. Sometimes you have to go hunting on your own.
So I knew it needed to get done, and he was shrugging off the work, so I decided to do it myself anyway instead of trying to pester him about it any more. It looked like he was doing a paper anyway, so he probably didn't want to be bothered. I hated it. I griped about it. I asked people why some of the features acted more like bugs. I finished it. I was pleased to have finished it and to no longer have to mess with that cursed program. I wanted Jeff to have a look to see if he had any suggestions for the graphic that I could have missed, as I am a comparative novice to Illustrator, and hate the program besides.
Instead of offering me his critique, he opens with a condescending " Oh, so we had decided on that?"
Well, in fact I had because he clearly wasn't making decisions any more on it, so could we drop that and have your critique now?
Naturally no, we had to get back to arguing instead. A few things I could have done better:
-1- instead of being upset at his obvious provocation, I should have let him have it and remained calm instead.
-2- I should have explained about the schedule: it was not safe to assume that he had also done the responsible thing and asked on his own.
-3- I should have gone to the boss man instead of bickering with Jeff in front of clients, one of whom said in a motherly tone "Boys, boys. Calm down."
-4- Did I mention that my job is awesome? It is.
-5- basically I made every decision wrong despite my best efforts.
So I'm coming in tomorrow to finish things up (I usually am not on the schedule on Wednesday, which allows me a lot of time to tidy up for Thursday, hrm). It is so rare and bittersweet, this emotion is not fitting of my demeanor, so I'll dismiss it outright. In general I should be less passionate about people. I let myself care too much and every memory I have of doing so is also a memory of my screwing up.
Well, no harm in being only dashing, daring, and courageous, no? Besides, my pokemon need attention too. I became a trainer again after someone told me there was a ghost-dragon, a type I had dreamed of since the red-blue days.
30 Apr 4705 - Startroid Update
Its about time, no? I've been meaning to post the game rule information on the web for about a year now, and I only recently felt the urge to do so. I should have as many lazy days to pursue my vanity projects. If you're one of my players, check out the rules I have so far under the Games heading. You may be particularly interested in the Pilot skill on the skills page.
Speaking of vanity projects, I finished my IR goggles today, and they work like a science-fiction dream. Everything looks like Mars outside when I put the goggles on. Its swank. I'll see if I can obtain some plexiglass tomorrow to cover the film, and maybe shop for some infrared LEDs to enhance the effect, or shine light that only I can see.
Along those lines, I read a little about LEDs and found out some interesting physics facts. Apparently, LEDs act like open circuits when paired with a battery because their resistance is so low. In fact, you're supposed to put them in series with a resistor of the appropriate Ohmage, or else the battery could burn out for being in an open circuit for too long.
This chafes against the engineer in me. Just put resistors in the circuit, you say? I have played with plenty of circuits in my day, and the story every single time was to keep the resistances to a minimum, and here I'm supposed to just throw one in with a light so it will work? It sounds crazy. It sounds like a terrible waste of battery power. Why not find a battery of the right output to begin with, or figure out the actual (albeit small) resistance of the LEDs and use them in parallel with each other to achieve the desired voltage drop?
My experience working with LEDs before is that they are surprisingly robust, and accept all kinds of power for extended periods of time, and guidelines be damned. The last time I stuck a string of them across the terminals of a nine-volt, the system worked just fine.
Of course, the problem with doing that this time is that I won't really know if they're working unless I have the goggles on.
29 Apr 4705 - Moonburn Wanderlust
I set a lot of stock by what my parents tell me. Some of that may be from growing up: simple obedience of obvious authority, the kind of thing I have tried to pare out of myself over the years. Much of it comes from my experience in their satisfactory performance as parents over the years, seeing myself and my brothers grow up. I'll never really know how hard I was to raise. I suspect the best reason for my listening to what my parents have to say is the belief that I really am like them, much as I try to act like an oddball compared to everyone, and that my life is a kind of their lives that they have been through already, and so I have much to gain by listening to my parents.
So when my dad asks me why I haven't been going to church, I have to give him the first few logical reasons and then ultimately arrive at really not knowing why. I grew up with Catholic church every Sunday and Holy Day, and I like going to mass, so perhaps more than the desire to make my dad proud was my own curiousity of why I hadn't yet found the way.
I finish the conversation with my parents on the way to James' to rally before heading to see Hot Fuzz at Kingstowne (it was excellent and you should see it, by the way). We went back to James' after the movie to hang out a little; I started playing Super Metroid on his SNES again (it had been something of my custom to do so at his house and in general, and I'm sure I've played it through at least twice at his house), intending to complete it and then retire for the evening.
Something felt wrong. It wasn't the time, I knew how long it would take me to finish, and there was plenty of time for that. It wasn't really anything I knew I needed to be at home to do. I had already cooked and cleaned a little earlier in the day, and though I knew we had guests, I also knew that they weren't mine and that I would have no trouble from them besides, so I didn't need to be back home to see to anyone. I hadn't set any meetings. So why did I feel I needed to be home before finishing my communal playthrough of Metroid 3?
I still don't really know, but I know from memory that whenever I get that feeling, I should really listen. Home I went after only finishing off Phantoon.
Everything was quiet at home. Two roommates out for the weekend, one out for the night, to return only a little later with guests in tow, prepared to sleep for the Big Day tomorrow. No one called or appeared either in digital or analog form, so nothing there. I decided to use the time to investigate about a nearby church or fold my clothes.
I had seen this one on my travels before, and I knew it wasn't too far away for me to take the walk there every week, but I didn't know mass times and they didn't have a website, so I went out walking at 1:33 to find a sign of theirs with the times and at the same time figure out how long exactly it would take me to walk there.
The way was unusually dark because on the whole long street leading to the place, there was but one streetlamp, and I kindof regretted not taking my torch so as maybe to not frighten people and attract spirits and be able to glance up at the occasional sign without problem. When I got to where the street was supposed to connect, it simply ended anyway, and I decided to dogleg back to the main road that connected up with the church's street besides. When I arrive and have a better look at the place, I realize why I hadn't been able to notice the mass times before. They don't publish those for a private school.
All that way, and it's still the closest church, and it isn't really a church. Instead of the warm greeting of Christian fellowship, I was faced with the wary sign of prohibition of trespassing on private property. I consider this a necessary stricture of a school zone, and do not think less of my brothers for this position. I would have preferred, though, that the school part of it be as pronounced on the sign as it is in fact.
The next nearest is about four times as far away, meaning a two-hour walk if I go straight there with no traffic.
Everything here is designed for drivers. I take comfort in the fact that God loves me whether or not I own a motor vehicle, and I consider there to be more than one way to keep one's Sabbath holy.
It is still a difficult feeling to shake, the notion that I should have been somewhere. Where was I when you needed me? And when did you need me and what for?
I couldn't live with myself as a witch doctor if I stopped asking myself that.
Maybe tomorrow I'll know better. Sleepytime now, though. I did that folding after all.
27 Apr 4705 - The Common Problem Is Problems
Tonight was Dungeons & Dragons night, as is every Friday, barring the myriad of hangups that I have between my own life and players lives: people sick, me sick, parents in town, obligations, marriage proposals over sushi. All kinds of things. My problems there are the greatest any man could ask for. If the most difficult decision I have is how to keep my friends entertained and enthralled with my imaginary world, then I'm cruising. Naturally this isn't the case, but a man tends to focus on his vanity projects and the low-risk problems and ignore the bigger problems for as long as he can. Or at least I do. So here's to ignoring the important things, the second noblest activity of them all:
Free, venal, and verifiable,
pocket queens and live feeds,
fields of fields. Mountains beyond mountains.
Neverending endeavors,
effortless breaths over instant messages,
head to head. Seventh about a six-deck shoe.
About, about in reel and rout,
And one-two, one-two, and through and through,
Sweet honey home, Hawaiian island retreat.
I'll meet you halfway when I plant my feet.
26 Apr 4705 - The Perfect Ingredients
If I told you that I was going to make a dish from zucchini, white yogurt, sour cream, soda water, dill, olive oil, and bread crumbs, you would probably say I was daft. Maybe if I mashed it all up like that and gave you the zucchini slurry that results, I would be daft. Well howabout this:
Soak sliced zucchini in soda water overnight, chilled.
Remove, batter with crumbs and shallow fry in oil.
Serve with white sauce made from the sour cream, yogurt, and dill.
I had this dish once as an appetizer at this place in Tyson's. My Dad and I have been working on the recipe since, and this will be my first attempt since eating it almost a year ago. I've a kind of replacement bread crumb, as the crumbs they used were for some kind of sushi instead. I guess I also still have to mix the sauce, but meh. That's the easy part.
Also I don't know if the recipe I use for the white sauce is at all what they used. What I'm using is one I know that's good on broiled or baked salmon steaks, and for that it is absolutely top.
I'll have to finish them up this afternoon or evening, perhaps after the cookies...yes. So cookies then zukes. But also folding. Folding then cookies, then zukes. There's the cleaning to consider, too, and the secret plan I mentioned. Okay, so I'm basically going to become a whirlwind as soon as I get to the house. If there's still a few things I'm doing when you get there, just say hi and sit down and play something. Or attack me. Up to you, really.
I am reminded of my first day of work in the IRC. It was also, as it turned out, my hardest to date. I didn't yet know I could (indeed, am supposed to) foist of the problem cases on my boss. So there were two or maybe three people between the phone and walk-ins who were dissatisfied with my lack of Absolute Knowledge of All Things. In the IRC, we get called for anything whatever, and though I was able to know or immediately learn what most of them needed, there were those two or three. One of them even said at one point over the phone "you know, this isn't helping" in a kind of frustrated, defeated tone. I know for a fact he was asking for something I was supposed to do, and I had given him a work-around (we love those here) and still he says I'm not helping. Balls.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure why this reminds me of that. Something about every bit of work having to happen all at once...
On a completely unrelated note, the yard, patio, and carport are now groomed. Enjoy your seclusion from reality! I mean...exams and papers...
24 Apr 4705 - Coalescent Transmutations
After a month of sorrow there came a week where everything came up right.
I discovered that I do still have a taste for things other than the bittersweet. Though I still like bittersweet, mind you, I had thought to have lost all taste for things that were simply sweet and good. As it turn out, there is the occasional event, persona, or emotion in this lifetime that is genuine. Perhaps I'm simply finally becoming sanguine after living in a house for so long.
Or maybe life has given me reasons to beam without end. Behold:
Thursday: I absorbed massive amounts of energy from all of you. You weren't going to use it anyway.
Friday: Normal for a Friday. A good D&D session. Introduced main villain for first time.
Saturday: Tempered excess energy in sunlight. Read excellent graphic novel and began another. Walked far. Also vouchsafed zombies (in magic card form).
Sunday: Spoiler removed.
Monday: Computer parts arrive timely. Record Demon's Crest for Let's Play.
Tuesday: Green lights all around. Fresh install of windows. Drafted this.
Yep, I'm typing this from my room, on my computer. Ya-friggin'-tah.
To summarize: power - villain - tempering and zombies - spoiler - parts install - awesome.
And I even have a plan for Thursday.
23 Apr 4705 - Kill Them With Zombies
I have a little problem brewing.
It has to do with a word I have yet to invent. The Protoss language will have more words for states of mind than does English. I'll get to that later. Right now I want an English word and I am at a loss. Let me describe the state:
You're playing a game that has a building or collecting or leveling aspect to it, and its kinda tough but not too bad.
Then you find this superweapon or power or something, and the game gets way easy, but the fun kind of easy and not the boring kind of easy. So you feel potent but in the context of entertainment, and joy in the context of power. I have no word for this feeling, so for now I'll simply use zombies.
Naturally, I see zombies as a positive good in the world like I see any citizen. Zombies have a bad reputation, however, for incoherent speech patterns, bad art, and brain eating. I cannot dispel this phantasm all at once, though I shall fight for zombie rights and the protection of all zombie citizens while I live, and maybe even after. I considered long the use of this word to describe my mood, but in the end it cannot do.
For a word to be a word, the phonotactic significance must inspire a proximity of thought in two or more people. My zombies simply will not do. I alone shall understand the meaning; I cannot transmit the meaning with the sound, even after I explain it all. So for now, I must table my zombies.
It may be for the best.
For the time being, I'll try to combine the root words for joyous, potent, subtle, and direct.
Blast! I forgot the Nightwish. Next time...also I'll sauté the chicken with the broccoli added after (it needs to be just seared whereas the chicken needs to fully cook). That'll go in the fettuccini and alfredo sauce, with a wedge of lime and pinch of oregano on the side. I'll see about pine nuts and the cucumber fry appetizer too.
22 Apr 4705 - Let's Head Out...Out Questing!
Okay, so my weekend went something like this:
A slime draws near!
That is all.
20 Apr 4705 - Overdriven; Overdosed
Last night I felt a warm reminder. The wholeness and power of my visitors beamed through windows and banished ghosts. I suspect the ghosts will return soon enough, but not the ones who left. It was quite a feeling. How do you Terrans put it? Too much of a good thing?
I was more than a little off form last night. Skittish is the word, I think. I even stuttered once. This is a clear transgression, and I apologize. I have some idea as to why, but mostly I was simply there, overcome.
And when everyone had left, I stayed around the downstairs for a little bit to absorb the energies. If I had been squinting at your power before, then I let my eyes wide after. That was also quite a feeling, and I thank you.
I rarely have such fine meals.
I'll try to contain myself better in the future, but I suspect I never shall. There's always something to spruce up the place. Various events conjoin this hallmark of spiritual boon.
My computer components should arrive Monday. The saga continues then.
I have discovered mouse gestures. I had heard about these, and got hooked after trying them in the Opera browser. As it turns out, I ditched Opera and found the Mozilla add-on that does the same thing better. I had ditched Opera for three reasons. Call them strikes, if you will:
-Some objects simply would not display. This prevented me from using gmail chat.
-Opera could not handle a pdf in-browser, and when it passed the order along to Acrobat, Acrobat said "nothin' doin'" in reply.
-Finally, Opera crashed and closed out at random. I have never had Mozilla do this even once in years of navigating (that is, not counting times when the OS or hardware failed and crashed everything).
It's a real shame because I liked the way Opera handled things, and how easily I could change the style and color of the browser itself.
Oh, and did I mention that I couldn't find a stop button? I actually use that command, thank you very much.
Later today I'll see about adding a feature and removing one. It should be exciting.
19 Apr 4705 - Washing Quotes Clean
My Father wrote the following article as a letter to the editor, and was published on April 9th in the Virginia section of The Roanoke Times. My guess is he won't mind me quoting him in full here. The article heading was as my article title here: "Washing quotes clean," which I imagine was not what he had entitled it, but a quote is a quote.
"Fight Fiercely, Harvard!" ... and Tech ... and UVa.
If Vic Brancati ("When players break the rules -- of grammar," March 13) had been covering the Black Sox gambling scandal of 1919, he probably would have rendered the immortal line: "Say it ain't so, Joe!" as: "Say it isn't so, Mr. Jackson!"
And instead of reporting Willie Keeler's memorable reflection on his career as: "I hit 'em where they ain't" he might have quoted him as saying: "I hit them where they are not."
Better grammar, to be sure. But off base, and dull.
It's true that all reporters trade away some accuracy in quotes; seldom are they exact transcriptions of every syllable from an interview. In many cases, of course, they can't be. As Leigh Montville tells it in his recent biography of Ted Williams, one of the Red Sox slugger's terms for the "knights of the keyboard" in the press box began with "gutless...syphilitic" and ended with words for certain unprintable and unusual sexual escapades.
Those frustrated scribes, upset by the Splendid Splinter's many instances of boorish behavior, yearned to show readers just how profane he was. They would toss their fedoras high if they could have enjoyed the freedom of today's writers to let athletes hit away with a few mild curses and conversational syntax.
But banishing "f-this" and "f-that" along with "um," "ah" and that all-star ejaculation "man!" is as much buffing as a quote needs; washing it through "The Elements of Style" makes it too misleading.
Broadcasters have to put what comes out of the mouths of players on the air and on the Internet, although the day is coming when even they might be tempted, through digital wizardry, to remove a few double negatives and turn post-game news conferences into prime minister's question time. But those wouldn't be the candid comments caught by a camera or tape recorder or cellphone.
And people would know it because so much material is out there these days.
Fans who can see ungrammatical interviews on TV and then read laundered remarks in the paper can tell something's wrong with the print version of what an athlete reportedly said. They have to wonder how anyone can use such precise grammar talking to a reporter with a notebook, but seldom manage to do it speaking to one with a microphone.
So, today's sportswriters and editors just have to cringe and bear it or risk damaging their credibility.
I do think athletes should know the rules of agreement as well as they know the scriptures of the 3-4 defense or a zone press. But it's up to their coaches and professors to improve their public speaking skills; reporters should just cover them, not cover for them.
Maybe along with trainers and bands and cheerleaders, colleges could dispatch platoons of English teachers to their stadiums to help student-athletes speak in phrases as well-rounded as the balls they hit, kick and toss.
Until then, it would better meet the goal of honest storytelling if sticklers for more precise grammar in quotes -- as the Rolling Stones might say -- fail to obtain satisfaction.
So if any of you thought that I was a word-smith or bard, here is my dad for contrast. After reading this article aloud to Darryl, he remarked "so that's where you get it," to which I can only shrug and smile and beam. The most eloquent epithet I ever eructated at my enemies never resounded so sonorous and smooth as what my Father fabricates over breakfast.
In case you're not familiar with The Roanoke Times, opinion pieces that take up this space on the page usually run topical to some other opinion article from a previous paper, are usually heavily partisan, border on ad hominem slander, and bring nothing to the table. My Father doesn't slam one person, he slams an idea and the thousands who subscribe to it. He comes from their same world, having worked as a television journalist for years. My guess is that he's had these ideas for a long time, and has recently discovered the time and drive to publish them. He's been stalking this idea for years, watching it grow, waiting for the right moment.
I was so impressed with this that I wanted to publish it on my site. I expect he's pretty pleased himself; he mailed a copy of the paper to me.
I've added a hyperlink here and there to make everything spruce, and I've transcribed the content from the paper as printed rather than from the online article. I guess, also colours, but you guys are used to that, being this is the Internet and therefore scifi. I promise that's the only bit of digital wizardry I've done. I wouldn't want to change this at all: this is the most excellent telling of "fuck what you know, son" I've ever read. Fail to obtain satisfaction indeed!
18 Apr 4705 - Computer Saga, Day Thirty-Eight
Today is the thirty-eighth day since my computer failed, shortly after I drafted an update (which I had to post days later thanks to the crash).
Last night, Kurt and I installed the new chip and powered on the system in its new configuration. All auxiliaries in. New mainboard. New chip.
Boot fail, same as before. Same error as before. The old chip was certainly incompatible with the new mainboard. The bus speed was a mismatch (both of these are from back in the days where bus speed mattered and not transport architecture). This chip should have had no reason to fail. Sometimes you get a bad chip. When this happens, you have it warranty replaced. Solid state electronics are an all-or-nothing kind of creation, and some runs simply have bad chips.
I got this from an ebay store seller, so all bets about warranty replacement are off. I'm out fifty bucks to a bad chip.
I ordered still more new components, which should arrive Friday. This time the source is a wholesaler, okay, maybe its a retailer, and will in any case have a return policy if the shit still doesn't work. I'm sick of this. It's like every component from the era of computing in which I built systems is failing across the board.
And speaking of the board, if anyone is interested in a super-shiny mainboard (not kidding, the packaging for this beast is blinding), let me know and you can have it for a song. I'll take that one back to e-bay most likely, as we're pretty sure it is fully functional. As for the rest, I'll either destroy it or make it into sculpture. There's nothing else for it.
Except feedback, of course. Ebay social capital.
The seller of the bad chip sent me this e-letter just today:
Dear kazeugma,
We are preparing AMD AXDA2200DKV3C AMD Athlon XP 2200 Socket A Processor (eBay Stores/Fixed Price #300096266789) for shipment and have posted positive feedback for you. We hope you will do the same for us. Please use this link to leave your feedback on this transaction:
------------------------------
##################################################
------------------------------
We appreciate your business and hope you'll return to GearXS.com Auctions soon.
Sincerely,
GearXS.com Auctions Customer Service
-----
This email was sent using ChannelAdvisor marketplace management software.
Visit us at ###############################
I've omitted some of the specifics. Simple links. I could not be more furious with this seller. You take six days to process my order, sell me a bum chip, and then ask me for positive feedback so you can sucker someone else? Like hell. I sent them this back, silly as it may have been to so do:
I hope this isn't an automated message. It would be a shame to post this to any computer system who I can only imagine does not deserve it.
I waited six days before getting confirmation of my order. An internet eternity.
The order shipped promptly from then, which was a relief.
The processor failed after a myriad of tests on my system. My associate and I eliminated possibilities until it could only have been the chip you sold me that was failing.
Now I ask you, what kind of feedback would you leave?
I'll look around your links for some kind of support or return option before I give you the mark I think you deserve right now. But perhaps even after that it would be best if future buyers of yours knew that they would be gambling with their money.
Caveat Emptor.
-Kaz
Oh, I'll have feedback for them, just as long as they have a return address. I'm sick of this.
16 Apr 4705 - A Quaint Setting
Sometimes these things come up, and damned if you can't stop thinking about them. This had better have nothing to do with a previous article of mine, or else I'll have to start signing up for classes early. That all sounds a little cryptic.
The fact is that Virginia Tech has once again made the news, and though usually I say that with derision, this time it comes with grief. The news reports are coming too soon to have the real story at the heart of the matter out there, so for now rather than aiming blame at those responsible, all we can do is panic at hearing it. So far there are at least 20 dead from shootings and the ensuing chaos that shootings can cause. This is currently the only relevant fact. They say the gunman is dead, but hint at the story developing and the accurate body count climbing, so who knows. Maybe he has an accomplice, or the Blacksburg county police are incompetent, or the reports are premature. My hometown news station and newspaper are getting the best coverage, so I'll call my father tonight and ask about it, as he will have more and better information about the whole thing than all of CNN, who I'm convinced is in it to panic you.
I am reminded of the Morva case because that also happened on Vtech campus, and was also a news disaster, and also failed to answer the simplest question that the weatherman, for example, never fails to answer: why did it happen? In cases like this, the relevant crimesolving question rears its head in place of why, because why is often impossible. Instead we have cui bono: whom does this benefit? I'm not so cynical that I claim its a VT publicity stunt, or engineered by the president Steger, but it still fails to shed light on this important coping tool. Understanding.
The real reasons are often not-so-deep down as in thriller novels. Someone must have thought it would be a good idea to do this. And here I was all ready to have a boring day with the wind howling, exchanging words about power-outages and closings and marking upon my weekend. I had begun to draft another article and shall continue to do so now. There's little point in further analyzing the story with so little information.
16 Apr 4705 - The Wind and the Winnows
Federal taxes are due tomorrow. You should go take care of that before you read this. Not for the particular relevance of the article to those of accomplished tax forms, but for the sake of you who are like me and wait to do everything. On the plus side, my taxes are always very boring.
If only my role were the same.
This weekend, Dan (that is, roommate #2) had his birthday get-together (his birthday had been the 10th of April). Having the party on the weekend was a good move on the one hand, and a bad move on the other. On the one hand, Dan got to include a lot more people whose schedules wouldn't have permitted the Tuesday night event. On the other hand, same sentence. There is a common thread among those who see me bummed out at a party in my house; that I wish I could tie off in a knot. There is always something wrong that's getting to me, and always someone who notices my reaction but can't fathom the cause. And then someone else. And then someone else. I must exude acrimony or something.
The storms came in. The house was full, and everyone was louder than usual and gradually losing their inhibitions. That much I expect from a party. What I occasionally get is Dan or someone else yelling directly in my ear as he turns around to reproach whoever just smacked him for no reason whatsoever. And since we're all collectively becoming children again, the yelling and hitting back and forth last for hours. Hours lost to knocking shit over and hitting people with couch cushions and spilling beer and rum all over the place. Everyone remembers who hit whom and forgets who drank what, or where the trash goes, or where anything else goes for that matter. All it really takes is for me to have nothing to do for a few minutes, and all the designated drivers to leave, and then the natural ratcheting up of the situation, and then I need an out.
Sometimes this is quite literal, like it was on Saturday night for me. To have an out, I simply left, leaving a few confused looks in my wake (why would he walk in the rain instead of staying here and enjoying himself?). I spent about two-and-a-half hours walking in the night. Thugs, like most people, don't like going out in the rain, so I didn't worry about any urban menace. I had my umbrella and boots, so I didn't worry about the weather. I enjoyed the simple act of walking and exploring, welcoming in the peace that it brought. I discovered a pizza place that's open until 4AM, knowledge of which I'll have to keep handy for later.
Little else. I saw a few full parking lots near closed stores and couldn't fathom the reason. People were going to and coming from someplace, and I did see a few pool halls about, so maybe it was just a night lounge crowd. These were the hours between midnight and two, so I don't know what else it could have really been. Who knows, maybe the small business owners of the area all throw parties around there on Saturday nights when everything has closed down. I found nothing that I needed to do, so I left again for home, I think making better time on the way back as it is slightly more downhill.
When I returned, a few people had left the party and things were generally winding down. Same problems, though, with a new twist to come a little later. Darryl (that is, roommate #1) had gone to sleep, able to let things happen as they will. Dan was sauced and ready to pass out, and in a few minutes finally did, thankfully in his own bed. Elisa (that is, roommate #3) had left, saying she would be back later, which usually means later in the week. So there I was with the stragglers, those without ride or direction. One asleep, two at laptops, two hovering. Someone had seen to their sleeping so all I had to do was lock up and go to sleep myself and the night would be a success. I did so.
I couldn't sleep.
The door kept opening and closing for some reason. Then there were phone calls going each way. Then talking. Then the door again. I knew that one of them smoked, but these sounds were too close together for that. I awoke, dressed in my robe and cane, and headed downstairs to learn why my security was being periodically pawed at. The players:
Jeff, asleep, not a player, but mentioned for backdrop. He had removed his shirt and crashed hours before this all happened.
Lee: I knew him through Dan from before. A friend. Sober for the duration, but doesn't drive.
John: I knew him through Dan. He's around a lot. A friend. Between outright trashed and pretty tipsy for the duration.
Juan: A friend. Was buzzed but unfazed. He was on the laptop.
Greg Dwight: Met him that night, a friend of Lee and John.
So Greg is a fan of this girl Brittany, and why not? No harm in a little sweet spot on somebody. Greg had been so drunk that he was slurring his words and largely unable to speak only an hour before all this (this is mostly the 2AM to 4AM slot, it took awhile to actually wind down and get people to leave). And whether she called or he called or their friend Jenny called, they all got the idea that Greg Dwight was an okay person to visit inbetween partying somewhere else and going home. Greg asks Dan if its okay for them to come over, Dan says okay or otherwise Greg understands okay, and has Jenny drop them off. Yes them. I sat and had Greg explain to me what was going on. He and John and Lee were apprehensive about my presence, and I assured them that although I regarded this arrangement with skepticism, that they had not made a mistake and I was not upset with any of them. So in come Brittany and Stephanie, obviously partied out. I prepared some tea and made it clear to everyone that I was the host, and then let them talk about just whatever for a little bit, taking on the role of observer for as long as I could. I imagined I would have to prepare more space and make two of the dudes crash on my carpet, and deal with them all the next morning.
For the record, I asked each of them how much they had had to drink. Brittany politely but defiantly responded that they had no drinks, but were high.
Great.
If before then I was shaky on whether or not this little arrangement was a mistake and a transgression, that flat out did the trick for me. Greg and John reassured me later that she meant high on pot, which was more believable for Brittany than for Stephanie, who was fatigued in the extreme. Stephanie found a recliner and sat and napped. She was largely the problem.
The conversation went on, and I realized that I wouldn't have to make extra sleeping space for the newcomers. They needed to be home. Only, whomever had dropped them off was no longer available, and Stephanie at least needed to be home before her parents awoke. At 6:30 at the latest. As in, one hour from when I learned about it. Greg and John's idea was that one of them was going to drive the pooped pair to wherever they needed to go.
Like hell.
I secreted John downstairs so that Greg Dwight could keep discussing things with Brittany and make hookup magic happen or whatever he thought he was doing. I told John that there was no way I was going to let him operate a car that night, and that even though I had only just met Greg, the same went for him, too. I told him that in our sitch, a cab was the only option left, as I wasn't about to leave the house myself considering what had happened already, and all the other drivers were either asleep or gone. Greg had already mentioned his willingness to pay for the cab fare, and so I saw the problem as solved. Call a damn cab.
I let John explain it to Greg and Greg explain it to Brittany. They did good. Greg was bummed at the expense ($1.75/mile over what I can only imagine was 20 miles), and had a Sam Adams after the girls left.
I had a man-to-man with him and made sure he wasn't sore at me, which he is anyway but I'll take it. I'd rather have that than learn about the kid I met that night dead in a car accident or jailed for DWI or vehicular manslaughter.
This was too far to go. I shouldn't have to bother about all that when it isn't even my party. I don't expect Dan to stay sober for his own party, either. When I ask myself the question "who will take responsibility for this" and realize that I am the only candidate, I get a little bitter about it. And people wonder why I look dour while everyone else is drinking. I'll find some way to fix this.
12 Apr 4705 - Taking Steps
Little struck me as needing to be done online since nearly one week ago. This is in part a consequence of my only having the internet at work, during which time a man tries to do as little work as humanly possible...or maybe simply as little as manly possible. This is also in part due to my desire to craft a kind of FAQ for one of my favorite games, called Way of the Samurai, as I have found existing FAQs to be severely lacking in the areas I wish to communicate about this game. This is also in part to a dozen other things.
I am taking steps to make sure that all these things are as short lived as possible. At that, it shall still be awhile.
Remembering can be a bitch.
One of the first steps is to be completely opaque. Opacity is a measure of shyness, and that's something I already have in abundance anyway.
I once tried to apply my shyness to itself, that is, being shy about one's shyness, and the result was I appeared gregarious. Then I became king. I went too far. The way back was painful, something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Ordinarily I can enjoy those emotions which are simply to be endured: the finest flavours in life are those most bittersweet. I make a point of savoring every embarassment, scorn, cowardice, fright. But there is only so great a percentage of cocoa I can stomach in my dark chocolate (the current winner is 60%, as a kind of default radio button. Scientific experimentation into this will continue) before a moment becomes downright torture.
I can remember the day.
Actual moments are easy to enjoy. Try to remember how many times in your life you'll feel embarrassed again, and take joy in this unusual moment. Moments that last too long are called eras, and no matter how infrequently in your life they will come up, they won't come at the right time, or be enjoyable besides. Joy is a funny thing, after all. A thing unto itself: the emotion of emotions. Saint Thomas of Canterbury said it was the most sublime human emotion. Or maybe that was Saint Bernadette.
At any rate, my teachings are no longer meant to be passed along soothingly in personal corners given dim candlelight and a warm merlot swirling in a wide glass. They are meant to be pried from my cold dead hands after years of killing oneself with research of yellowed tome pages and jaundiced accounts from second and third-hand sources. My tias indeed. I should bottle every thing I hold dear and send it out to sea.
But that would require walking.
And my feet are sore from taking steps.
06 Apr 4705 - Bus Speed: The Saga Continues
This story begins with a previous article of mine, and continues in part up to now. My mainboard arrived, and looked pretty sexy out of the box, too, although it is surrounded in the packaging by the most overdone trimmings of any mainboard ever packaged. The box is foiled, with a CGI image on the outside of some kind of spacecraft flying above a future cityscape or perhaps inside a computer. The manual is digest sized, mostly in English, terse to the point of vagueness, and also foiled. The company included a punch-out calendar with a little popup future motorcycle with a jet engine on it that you can stand in your room. The calendar only goes to 2003, which probably says something about the kind of computing I'm used to doing, or at least about the nature of my opinion about the cutting edge of computing technology.
I suppose the thing served me well before all this unusual bugaboo.
Now, though, it's just a pain.
I had Kurt over to help with the installation, and while I didn't need his expertise, I did appreciate having him around. Having your case open and digging around with the flashlight and screwdriver can be the fun part of computing. I knew men who compared it to building with legoes, and found it released an inner passion long kept dormant in the belly, or soul. We took out the old mainboard (which means everything else, too), and put in the new one and attached all the devices and satellites, blushed a kiss at the Moon Drift Initiative, and powered it up.
And it gave an error code.
The code showed in a little led indicator sequence, and meant (thanks to the manual's interpreter) that the system got through initial boot but failed at the processor level. To wit, now my processor was malfunctioning, and goddam it, when is my compy going to work again? We inspected for damage, checked and rechecked how the chip was seated, talked about the cooling fan and heatsink and custom duct (I may have to make a new custom duct), and sat and stared. Finally he asked me the relevant question, which turned out to be "what was your old system bus speed?"
"Well, both the chip and board could handle 133Mhz or 166Mhz bus. The board had a jumper for you to switch between them."
At which point we had about the same idea, looked at each other, and then re-read the outside of the mainboard packaging.
"For socket A processors with 200 to 266Mhz bus!"
Because everything needs to be exclaimed on this package...so there it was. I had purchased a board that was incompatible with my chip. I goofed a little. Then again, that information wasn't ready to me until I was holding the package myself, so who knows if I could have reasonably predicted this problem or not given any amount of perspicacity. I'm not sure I could make a good analogy for what is going on between my processor and mainboard for lack of knowledge of what bus speed is and does for the two. What I have done instead is simply purchased a new (to me) chip online and begun waiting until it arrives.
I thought I would have enough time behind the screen at work to do everything I wanted, but I found a number of times during the week I had to find things to do other than what I wanted to do on my computer. There's something about the late night and early morning that makes me more productive. Partly because I'm Batman, partly because there's no one left around to distract me from anything. There's a lot I have left incomplete because I can't use my favorite hours, and having no reason to spend that time in my room, I've let the room get a little sloppy.
There's also the matter of a different crowd being around to chat at night than during the day. Their reasons are myriad, and my treatment of them lax. My apologies. My spirit naturally wanes following the winter months, and quietude becomes my natural reaction to everything. So I like to be bothered in the spring. There was once when I awoke to a phone call in the spring time where my friend invited me to lunch in another state, and in fifteen minutes we left on a private plane. That was fun.
Among other things, I have to draft another thousand poems, concoct a plot, and shore up the comprehensive rules for a game of mine.
I have to finish documenting my D&D game rule alterations, of which there are many.
I have to continue work on Project X.
I have to Bilge, Carpent, Sail, Gun, Navigate, Rumble, and Swordfight until I have Narrow experience as a Pirate in Puzzle Pirates.
And failing all of that, I should delve into the ancient cave again and beat that goddam jelly once and for all.
03 Apr 4705 - Beyond Batman
I am now a ripe, silvery, quarter-century old. This is a fact. However, this year marks the first time that about half the people in my facebook crowd decided to fill my wall on the page with birthday greetings. I suspect this may have been a snowball effect of sorts, where after two of them decided to post greetings, the rest picked up on this and decided to pitch in their greetings as well. I do plan on crushing one-thousand hearts. That's something of an in-joke.
I think I'll take knowledge of my birthday off of my facebook. Even that little bit of knowledge about me can be used to taunt and tease, and little else. I guess the older you get, the less you wish to celebrate getting older. What I was afraid of was a bunch of people showing up at my house, then me baking a cake, then them being loud for hours on end, and then its Thursday night all over again. Nothing to make it significant. Nothing to make it my birthday celebration. So I hid.
I had Devon pick me up, and she and I and Josh went to dinner on our respective checks (mine on my parents, whom I guess I cannot stop from doing this kind of thing). Thereafter, Devon and I went to her place to watch My Neighbor Totoro, which is the last Miyazaki movie I had yet to see. It was cute and cracked out and enjoyable. I think she nodded off again somewhere in the middle of it. Its amazing how many of these movies have either pastel soft-tone colouration or a smooth soundtrack or both, especially as my first Miyazaki movie was the bloodiest.
After that she took us to my house, where she baked the cake I had left over from Juan's birthday a few weeks ago, coated in the frosting Dan had left over from a few months ago. I suspect I may have tricked her into this under false pretenses. She got the idea from my retelling of the night before that someone else in the house intended to bake this cake. Indeed, in her words, promised. I don't hold every off-hand statement, especially one from my joker-roomies as one of promise of intent. It would be ludicrously literal-minded to do so. But hearing and seeing Miss Devon so resolute, even determined to bake this cake, and me wanting to clear up a little of the space in the fridge, I decided to let her go ahead and do it. I gave her the materials and ingredients, and even some of my secrets for how to make delicious cakes. By the time she was done, I realized I was quite full from the meal earlier and the dark chocolate she had given me, and so only ate a small slice of the cake. In retrospect, it must have been a very annoying experience for her!
I mean, here's a friend of yours for whom you want to do something nice. But it's not enough to just go and do this thing, you have to make sure he also wants it, or else the whole idea is worthless. So, you ask him directly, getting back non-committal statements of acquiescence to support your wonderful gift idea. You forge on and bake anyway, using the mostly spare ingredients, including a only half-full can of frosting. You pester him until he gives you the unopened can of frosting that he's not sure he should use but decides it would be okay as long as he can get you to calm down about the damn frosting. Then when you're finally done, the cake hasn't risen all the way because there was too much noise and banging about the house, and your friend for whom you're still trying to do something nice says he's about too full for cake.
At this point you explode and shove some down his throat anyway. And to hell with all friends and all cakes.
Actually she didn't have to shove it down my throat, but I did take a small slice. Actually I was pleased with the whole day.
When we had returned, I found hardly anyone at home. Dan and Alex were downstairs, Mark and Jeff were upstairs, every one of them in front of either television or computer screen. Few of them even realized it was my birthday, and none had gone there intending to celebrate it. This is about ideal, and I'm not sure whether my deliberate dodging payed off in this regard.
Last year, my birthday happened on a Sunday, and I remember canceling my D&D game in the afternoon, and sitting alone in one of the school's public areas (I do remember the specific place, but given the circumstances I don't wish to release that information). I sat for an hour and all I could think of was "I'm 24 now, and this is where I have come." Over and over again in different ways. I did not like my situation, and it was inadequate for a man of 24 years to not find something better and seize it with his own power. Again and again. Later, Bonnie and Steve took me to dinner and even made a red velvet cake with white frosting later. I suspect they were the few of my lot who were not fully convinced that I could take care of myself. I had managed to convince most everyone else. I had the mushroom-swiss hamburger that night.
This year, everyone knows without convincing how well I can take care of myself, because they all see it for themselves every week. More and more I am coming to appreciate the wisdom of my decision to take a break from school. I am in a much better situation now. Much more fitting.
I have been watching a lot of Batman Beyond, too. More on that when I finish it all.
29 Mar 4705 - Sprite Based Systems
Since last week, I rediscovered the ancient cave thanks to the latest installment of the Lufia series, had a mainboard delivered to my house, cleaned up the bottom of this page to sweep all the old news into hyperlinks (did you scroll down and notice, or see the better loading time? I'm a softie for loading times), continued secret ninja training, and passed an important resolution.
The Ancient Cave is an optional dungeon in Lufia 2, Rise of the Sinestrels. This game brought me so much comic book style joy as a kid, and continues to deliver ironic jokes and kitch even today. This game has so much stereotypical dungeon RPG crammed in it, it would be easy to miss a part of the game as big as the Ancient Cave, nevermind the intricate dungeon puzzle system, including a sliding block puzzle called "The Hardest Puzzle in the World," which is ironically harder to get to than to solve (come on, its a freaking sliding block puzzle), or the plot twist circa the middle of the game, or the epilogue which takes what you thought what predetermined and throws it right out the window. Its is a full game, but not a complete one. There are flagrant graphics errors in two major rooms in the game, and the equip screen has a running text error that causes continuous overlap of equipment names. The Ancient Cave, however, is a thing you don't usually find in Super Nintendo games, in fact something I've never seen in any others:
The Silver Dragon breaths Diamond Dust on your party, would you like your possessions identified? There are plenty of SNES games that provide challenge, some even too much. There's one SNES game that contains the hardest boss of any game ever, which is a discussion for another time. This one provides an RPG element where you can just randomly lose, even with perfect preparation. This means that, 90 floors down, you could be killed and have to start at the top with nothing. Here are the rules of the Ancient Cave:
You start at level 1 with nothing on dungeon floor B1.
There are stairs going down, but none going up (go figure).
You get 10 potions and any blue items you have collected from anywhere.
The dungeon contains 99 floor's worth of monsters, red chests, and blue chests, assembled at random each time you enter.
You can leave if you find and use an item called Providence, or if you die.
If you die, you don't even keep the blue items you found.
The bottom floor has a boss you're not ready for.
Enjoy. I should get a cart of the game and start dungeon diving to keep myself honest. One of the biggest features of the dungeon is the inability to save on your way, so the final descent into the dungeon could easily take you ten straight hours. Of course, that means leaving the SNES on for way more than the recommended amount of time, but whatever. Until I get one, I'll just have to keep myself straight by not doing the final descent. The initial dives only take about 45 minutes. That's enough for borrowed time, especially as the fights don't become even noticeable until floor B30 or so. The whole thing is delicious.
I discovered it again recently because of a GBA game called Lufia: The Ruins of Lore. I appreciate it when a series of games stops numbering itself in favor of adding subtitles instead. Take Castlevania, for instance. Well except for the 64 games. Anyway, in the Ruins of Lore, the town of Gruberik still exists, and so too does the ancient cave. This time, though, you can only send in one party member, you can take 10 items of your choice with you (not including your equipment, which simply stays on you) and every floor has a floor boss. Its stupid. Worse still, you start with Providence. The saving grace is that there are missions to be done, and that the game makes up for it by assigning random difficulty and death everywhere else. Delicious.
When my mainboard arrived, I was all set to install it and get my computer back online, after which time I would have written a triumphant article about how wonderful it is to have an upgrade after so many years, and to be able to chat with everyone at night again and update my website from home and play all my emulated games, and the occasional spat of Diablo 2. Instead what I have is another problem: it takes different RAM than what I already have. I thought this would happen, but delayed the purchase of new RAM until I could see what kind it liked (by reading the engrish-filled owner's manual). Delightfully enough, it takes a kind of RAM that still costs hundreds of dollars, well more than my purchase price of the mainboard, and I wasn't lucky enough for it to come with any. So the triumphant return of my machine is now scheduled for Monday or Tuesday when my RAM arrives, which would be ironic after a fashion. Until that time, I get to marvel at how shiny and awesome my mainboard is, as well as the included USB2 expansion card. It is very shiny.
You can scroll to the bottom if you would like to notice how I've cleaned up.
If the secret ninja training was worth anything, you'll never notice that.
The resolution, though, is something everyone should notice, something so important that I have lowered myself to include this paragraph in the corresponding livejournal entry, the viewing of which I can only imagine to be the finest experience of any of your weeks. So much the happier, I suppose, that you can defray the weighty cost of delaying the gratification of reading my entry by circumventing a single click. The resolution is thus:
Starting next week, the canned sodas we provide at gamenight will cost you $0.35 each. That's one quarter and one dime, or any equivalent american currency. I can still feed you water and tea post resolution (and I guess coffee, too, but none has yet asked). You want a drink, you pay for it, simple. We can't keep simply supplying them anymore.
Now.
What this also means is that with your backing, I never have to stop having drinks there for ye, and you start getting to decide what I have to make available.
No exceptions. I will be an ass about this.
22 Mar 4705 - With Prestigious Acumen
Two stories of life. One revenge tale. Three tidings. Yesterday was more eventful than I imagined, and certainly more than I intended.
I did manage to clean in my state, and you try out the maniacal torture mechanism that is surgical tubing sometime and then clean up the house. This is a matter of science.
It also makes me want to clean more things maybe. I haven't made a starcraft map in almost a year, for example.
For tonight, everything should be in order before I get there. Then I'll finally arrive, cook and eat my dinner, and collapse. This is the problem with power budgeting. I was all set to enjoy a momentary boon, the last one, I expect, before the warmer months arrive, and instead I misestimated and suffered an equinox. My relationship with the Sun has been lacking anyway, and then I missed the equinox. Bah. Its not entirely inconceivable that another snow could come in April. I was born in the snow after all. I should still conserve.
And what does that mean, exactly? Less meddling. Probably this also means I should try to find again that congenial sweetness that kept me alive last year. I feel I have lost something of my sweetness and charm, making up for it with winter magic. Entirely less meddling, and that means less fun.
It was worth it. I managed to get an entire descriptive article of an evening without the joke word coming up even once. I regard this as marginal progress toward unreasonable goals.
And why is it unreasonable? Words. The only word you need understand to know why this goal that I speak of is unreasonable (that is, apart from all goals being unreasonable), is the word scrowling. Scrowling is an adjective I devised to describe my opinion of hiveminds, which is, after a fashion, another word I'll have to define for you before you completely catch my meaning, so lets start there.
A hivemind is a collection of individuals whose spirits are so intertwined that they are indistinguishable from one another by those sensitive. Commonly this is a visible phenomena in dress, mannerism, activity, and discourse, although some hiveminds exist that disregard the more visible signs of compelling linkage, and stick to the invisible and interchangeable spirit threads that tie them together like a sailor's knot. The causes of hiveminds, even any particular one you may examine, are myriad and unfathomable. The effects of hiveminds are what cause me to invent words to describe my disposition to them. The other effect is that some social rules treat them as one being rather than the actual number of discrete bodies that they are for the purposes of calculation. For one of the four essential oils of the soul, for example, this math can become very complicated. Hence scrowling.
In the Carrollinian spirit of word invention, I have smushed two together to make scrowling. A scrowl is a scratching howl or a rolling scowl. To say scrowling as an adjective is to connote the feeling one gets from hearing a scratching howl, or witnessing a rolling scowl. I find these as largely the same feeling, and so use them as the same adjective. The verb scrowling, though, should only be for sounding a scratching howl. To deliver a rolling scowl, you would need to have more than one face experiencing the same emotion at feedback-delayed versions of the same time. Then you would have to be part of a conclave or hivemind.
Oh, and why did I think up the word in the first place? As I said before, this is what my disposition has come to in my social dealings with a hivemind. And if my experience were simply negative, I could use words that already exist (English has a vast reliquary of pejorative words). My experience isn't negative, its quite the opposite, and its the spiritual representation of soreness from a workout, let's say.
That happens to be a dandy topical link and allegorical utility for me, as I'm currently under the spell of both and each. Thanks to secret ninja training on Sunday, I'm still sore and exhausted, and for once in a long while, don't feel like punching anything. I could work on some kicks maybe...but this is enough to understand the level of muscle soreness I'm talking about. If you can imagine that as a soreness of emotion itself, then you're three-quarters of the way to understanding what I mean. Dealing with a hivemind (oh, if there were a softer way to say dealing) does this to me.
Dealing with one person at a time, even when it is one of many in the same room, this is fine. This is like doing pushups one at a time. There are maniacal and splendid devices that are made of surgical tubing that I mentioned before that make doing one pushup akin to doing four at once. Speaking to, interacting with, listening to a representative of a hivemind is like this. I'm not sore at anyone, just plain sore.
So far I've only harped upon the downsides of hiveminds. I should defend those features I consider to be benefits.
In time, you can grow to miss a person. This process dives headlong into a discussion I have yet to have with myself. When I finally do have that discussion I'll publish it on this site as another of my treatises. For now, I simply state that you can grow to miss people in time spent apart from them. For individuals, you can only supplement this with snippets of that person's self-same spirit. With a hivemind, you need only meet with one of them, or find one of the snippets, and you have access to each. Opinions, emotions, memories, you can have it all if you have only one at a time. This is actually a lower-stress way of conversing with a hivemind. Make no mistake, its still not easy...I guess putting a bookbag on.
Second, there's a kind of mathematics to spiritual summary features that allows the hivemind to achieve different levels than individual others. This is best imagined with colours. Imagine each of a hivemind of four is a two-colour lump of clay. If they are different colours, and you can experience two at a time, meeting any one of them is like seeing one of twenty-eight combinations, the one of which you will see is the one you want. Meet one person and there's one colour combination. Now imagine that instead of two colours, you have a million, and that each colour is a representation of a personality trait, then it would be eight million choose two, which is a big number. Its like the spray-paint section of the hardware store where people have tested the colours on the shelving. You see this whole beautiful random big general mishmash of enamel. It takes some imagination, is all. This leads me to the mixed benefit and problem of number three.
Third, it's like staring at the Sun through a kaleidoscope. In space. There's so much there. There's so much more than you can even see, in spectra carrying more power than you can imagine, faster than you can think, sooner than tomorrow, and deeper than you dare reach.
If only, if only.
If only I could speak my mind with prestigious acumen, and see what I wish to grasp through the light I cannot imagine, and go and do without hesitating to imagine the ripples it would make through the spirit that is shared. A complete relapse of winter would not supply me power enough to begin. I'm not sure it's even within my capacity.
20 Mar 4705 - Server Up, Compy Down.
Almost as soon as I noticed it down and hailed my admin, he went and fixed it. In the meantime, I expect I shall never again have to post to livejournal the full content of my message.
Tell me I don't have the greatest webspace ever.
I've decided to go ahead and do that thing that I said I wouldn't do ever again and work another nine hour day on Thursday. Since I don't have any hours on Wednesday, I can use the time then to clean and sleep and prepare for Thursday night for all of ye. I'll see if Dan has Timesplitters or something. Halo was a hit when we could do that. Anyway, since my computer contracted its final pathological problem and stopped booting, I've been once again in the dark of modernity as soon as I leave work. So you should not take my silence tomorrow as indication of coldness. I can be plenty cold already without needing that little keen feature to help me along.
At any rate, I'll have a report Thursday morning about what to do, what I've done, and so on. And I still have that one more cake...
Is there no more way I can beckon you return? Just do all the right moves. Careful with those inputs.
If only, if only.