Spirit

Leather

daimones — Sat, 27 Dec 2014 03:51:20 GMT

So, I got a leather vest for Christmas. My initial response is, 'now i need to buy chaps and a harley.' For some of you may remember my less sedate days where I actually wore leather pants. Can't lie, I wanted to break them out, (i'd have to get shoes to fit tho again but yes they still fit!), put on my vinyl shirts with leather studs and wrap myself up in a leather vest and adorn myself in black shades.

Later when I was putting it away, I put it on over the sweater and button down I was wearing and laughed. :P Does look pretty good with jeans. Not sure what even would fit that combo that I may attend. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Leather smells good. When did I get (more) boring. ;)

P.S. I got legos.

Ressurection?

daimones — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 06:53:16 GMT

Today was fubar fnar and on top of me being just getting over a nasty 3 day upper respiratory infection that sidelined my wedding anniversary trip plans and ate into my vacation, I just about couldn't handle it. I lost my temper for the first time in a while and it was...unpleasant. Also, seriously 6 hours to procure a Christmas tree? F that.

Future self: You deliberately didn't write down what made you mad today bc you don't want to remember in the future. It was spouse related. It was nothing. It was both of your faults.

It's days like today that make me miss WoW for the nights that follow. I miss the socialization of the game while I can mindlessly grind away at some task for some purpose. Especially since sleep seems unlikely. I could play D3, I suppose, but I've never figured out how to do the multiplayer part of that game. Reasons I play D3, I can play it in 30m increments. A trick I never did figure out w WoW. :)

In unrelated news. Seriously.

I put together my wife's new computer and finally got it up and running. I decommissioned the system I bought in 2008. Pretty decent really, a few days over 6 years. It was the last system I had that had an IDE controller, so after I used it to look through the old IDE drives I still had (they had nothing on them of note so I got rid of them), I began to tear it down into a small pile of 'keep' and a bigger pile of 'recycle' and a small pile of 'sell/trash?'. It was also the last system I had that I and Joe directly collaborated on. I found myself getting nostalgic remembering our friendship. Some highlights: WoW - tbf, he didn't get me started, that I did bc of Bri/nykkit/Matt, but he got me into raiding which is what sunk it's dirty little teeth into me and didn't let go for 9 years. ;), computer building - he taught me what to look out for and reliable sources to find information for the heavy lifting I can't do myself, a love of random late night runs to ihop, and he even helped me pick out my first car. Our friendship didn't survive, but it was truly one of the few adult male friendships I've had - all my other 'guy' friends were pre 18 - and oddly enough I felt bad throwing away the machine bits that remained. I'm a nostalgic kinda of guy? I know very recently he lost his job and I hope he manages to land feet down and running.

Future self: So Watts sent you that message on facebook. How'd that turn out? You better not have been a pansy and not told Lisa.

From a Time article.

daimones — Sat, 22 Mar 2014 19:20:56 GMT

So where do you fall on the evolutionary debate?

I have trouble with orthodoxy in any form. I fell, having studied the 19th century evolutionary debate, a newfound sympathy for the pain that this discovery brought to people who, prior to Darwin, would have happily called themselves men of science and men of God. We now have a world full of scientists who have no faith and the faithful who have no reason, and that's a great loss for all of us.

#45 animals are delicious.

daimones — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:32:17 GMT

I Am A: Lawful Neutral Human /Sorcerer (2nd/2nd Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-13

Dexterity-15

Constitution-14

Intelligence-16

Wisdom-17

Charisma-12

Alignment:
Lawful Neutral A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs him. Order and organization are paramount to him. He may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or he may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot. However, lawful neutral can be a dangerous alignment when it seeks to eliminate all freedom, choice, and diversity in society.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Primary Class:
Monks are versatile warriors skilled at fighting without weapons or armor. Good-aligned monks serve as protectors of the people, while evil monks make ideal spies and assassins. Though they don't cast spells, monks channel a subtle energy, called ki. This energy allows them to perform amazing feats, such as healing themselves, catching arrows in flight, and dodging blows with lightning speed. Their mundane and ki-based abilities grow with experience, granting them more power over themselves and their environment. Monks suffer unique penalties to their abilities if they wear armor, as doing so violates their rigid oath. A monk wearing armor loses their Wisdom and level based armor class bonuses, their movement speed, and their additional unarmed attacks per round.

Secondary Class:
Sorcerers are arcane spellcasters who manipulate magic energy with imagination and talent rather than studious discipline. They have no books, no mentors, no theories just raw power that they direct at will. Sorcerers know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire them more slowly, but they can cast individual spells more often and have no need to prepare their incantations ahead of time. Also unlike wizards, sorcerers cannot specialize in a school of magic. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills and are proficient with simple weapons. Charisma is very important for sorcerers; the higher their value in this ability, the higher the spell level they can cast.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Hi. More S2 nonsense that i feel the need to share.

daimones — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 04:13:11 GMT

So I use lj as my journal/syndicate reader. I'm very fond of my style, but it's not perfect, and hell, it's not even up to date anymore. But it does what I need. Warning, small geek quotient ahead: A 'quirk' of my snazzy links was that because a table was a block level element, if the link was contained within an inline element, such as a paragraph tab, it would created a newline when rendering. Very obnoxious, but fixing it was...beyond my css skills and honestly w/o javascript, I'm not sure it was fixable. So I lived - generally it only affected my syndicated links. Used to be back in the day I would pay attention to things like CSS support in browsers because I still believed I would get to use them professionally someday. (nope. not bitter. Hint, I'm whinging.) That day has long since passed. If it hadn't, I would have been alerted to the advent of the box-radius property sooner. I came across it randomly and a lightbulb went off. Long story short, I was able to replace a metric ton of code, the bulk of which is a complicated table like the above reference link mentions with some css.

display:inline-table;
background:$*header_bgcolor;
border-spacing:3px;
border:1px solid $headerPlus3;
-webkit-border-radius:5px;
-moz-border-radius:5px;
border-radius:5px;
box-shadow:0px 0px 0px 1px $headerMinus5;
font-size:95%;

I love technology. And no obnoxious line breaks!

Reality update: Work proceeds. Looking for better, need to be able to support family++ (groceries, car maintenance, vet bills, wishing for monies for schooling, hell I'd like to retire, maybe even own my own home someday?). Really want to get my wife through her degree first since it'll realize higher returns immediately. My wife is having health issues related to blood pressure and fainting. Our respective mothers are still insane, tho I think hers is worse. Maybe filial duty, i have no idea. Her brother is getting kicked out of where he's at and has no place to live. We still haven't done 2012 taxes. Thankful that of all the above crazy, at least the insurance and health spending portion as relates to monies is taken care of via work at this time.

Spending my mental energy to figure out a tiny display problem may seem trivial in the face of all that, but it still makes me happy. God help me. I'm going to eat me a pb&j. Take it away G&R.

Oh S2, I've missed you.

daimones — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 03:18:54 GMT

My journal was breaking when certain communities would post. More accurately, a self written function used to produce my spiffy links would not terminate because it was badly written. :P So I found someone else's function and used it instead. Very similarly written, which makes me happy...amused that old me never realized the terrible condition that would cause my old function to fail. Anyways. Problem fixed. While I was there, I even fixed one other minor display error. When I first setup my LJ, the idea of having a 24" monitor was...absurd. =)

So, today, for the first time in god knows how long...I fiddled with my LJ layout. I miss S2, or more accurately, I miss the problem solving part of coding. Even if in the scheme of things, this was a tiny thing, it felt nice. I even got to use the coders, 'enh, that's good enough' clause - I realized that it's been long enough that they've changed a lot of the linkbar stuff (the buttons that let you edit, track, etc. Maybe just text links on your layout, who knows) and I'm not sure if the hacked function I have properly lets all the new stuff work. But honestly, you know how often I use those? Yeah. That's what I thought too.

It was a pleasant way to waste an hour. Maybe 2. :) Very nostalgic.

Is this thing still on?

daimones — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 02:18:06 GMT

So, I wanted to post a few things after reading back through some old entries. A) My first page spans more than a year and b) My life is much different now.

I still live at home with my grandmother and my mother. My wife (hey I got married - if you didn't know, and want pics, you clearly aren't on my facebook. If I like you, this can be remedied) and I live in the bottom floor/basement. It could be better, but without us here, my mom and grandmother wouldn't be able to stay here. I'm a much different person in a lot of ways. I'm much less conflicted. I think this could be a lot of self work I've been doing...or maybe that I've had a stable job now for over a year with a company I enjoy, and hope I can get promoted at. =) It's done wonders to be able to support my family. :P Still though as a part of being stable and my particular job, I've become a better communicator, and along with my wife, both of us are working to be better people than what we were.

I will always have some work to do. I think right now, the big one for me is getting out and having a community. It is rare that I do things with other people that are not quasi work events. I work out with my wife 1 to 2x a week, that's it. Tonight I got to hang out with Darryl and a bunch of people that are gamers/extended family and I realize how much fun it is to just hang out with a bunch of like minded intelligent OPEN people. (seriously, when was the last time you had an open and honest conversation about BDSM nudist communities - why do we still call them colonies, anyways? - in a Chinese restaurant...) If only Lisa didn't get a migraine because she's still struggling with managing her newly discovered diabetes and I wasn't still in the middle of this nasty f* headcold. She gets out more than me, and I admit, she's more social but still. She has her spirituality classes, and she 'goes out with the girls' to do pampered chef parties, sewing stuff, candle stuff, etc...I need to find some hobbies that are outside my computer and that actually involve a good group of people. I've been pondering trying to find a maker faire, it seems pretty up my ally. =)

Ah well, I'm sure in 2 years I'll post again and I can see what's changed since then. And between now and then, I'll learn to use paragraphs appropriately in my LJ (hahahahaha).

I could go back to dream posting - I did actually derive some benefit from that. This morning, for example, I was discussing a dream element of mine that involves stairs (stairs in my dreams are...ominous). Not sure if it was my dream or not. Probably not, I don't dream very much - my wife i s much more active in that regard.

Randomness.

daimones — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 21:33:44 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TshFWSsrn8&feature=popular

The very brief explanation that appears around 30s in, you may want to pause to read. A) that's a hell of a course, b) that's a lot of driving skill and c) that's a heck of a car. Many pairs of tires were killed to bring you this video.

And onward: I took some pictures last night, or attempted to, of a really big spiderweb that has been gracing our front porch for the better part of a month now. Apparently the spider thinks we bring in good food, I dunno. It's hard to get pictures of a web, it really is. I got one where the web is all shimmery, though. It's times like these I wish I knew more about photography. If people really want, I can upload.

Add it to my list of thing I can learn someday when I have money. More pressingly, I'd spend that money on getting various certificates that tell people I have a clue. Still looking for full time work. Just got done with a contract job. Worried about that'll happen if I don't find something soon, but I've been worried now for 2 years running and somehow yet still haven't hit the end of the wall. We won't even talk about the 'family' money situation. /sigh

I've gotten a few emails/queries about 'hey where are you' and to those I mostly haven't replied. I'm in a bad place right now and don't really know how to come out of it. I spend nearly all my time looking for a job, playing WoW when my eyes aren bleeding from the prior, and every now and again I go outside to remind myself why I am bothering. :)

Loot-hor.

daimones — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 04:15:29 GMT

Right now, if you meet some prerequisites, you can give out free fuzzy dice vgifts.

I want one. :) I don't know who to give mine yet to, but I'll do trades!

Dreaming.

daimones — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:57:39 GMT

I was wandering around with Lisa (but I felt younger, like 21'ish), and there was a sermon going on in a gym auditorium (think your average small highschool gym). We came in, interrupted the sermon with a slam of the door. The preacher guy kept on going. I don't know what words he was saying. It ended shortly after, and we came up to talk to the preacher. There was another person who had listened to the sermon who said something like, 'No offense, but you ruined the mood for me.' or something like that, but with swear words. The preacher didn't seem to mind. We all left.

Now we're wandering some more through an alley type environment and there was some reason I threw a ball. It hit the frame of a second story window (there was no glass in the window) and the whole thing fell down brick and all. The same guy from the sermon poked his head out and was all, 'you again, god damn' blah blah. But then I said, 'I'll take care of it man, let me give you my info, we'll even get you some glass.' and then all of a sudden he was all smiles and invited us in.

Then I woke up.

Good bookery.

daimones — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 07:07:27 GMT

I haven't used this space publicly in a while, mostly because I haven't had a lot of things I want to talk about publicly. My life is mostly a train wreck, if you're curious. I had a job, was fired, am facing financial doom.

My grandfather passed away.

There are the quiet good moments of course, but in general....as my mate says, when one is fighting to survive, all else tends to be put on hold.

Anyways. Bookery.

It's been a very long time since I've picked up a book and read it one sitting. But I did just that for the past 4 hours (in which i read a 330 pg paperback). www:wake by Robert J. Sawyer. It was a fantastic read. I've never heard of the author before, but according to his bio he's been around a while and very accomplished in yonder writing world, so I shall be looking up more of his work in the near future. It was riveting sci-fi, to me, with some very interesting science thrown in and linked together in ways that make me wish I could be getting paid to do 'stuff like that'. Lots of information theory and linguistics and math that's simple to understand conceptually (though I'd wager the math behind it? not so simple) and the idea of what the world would be like to a 'blind' person transitioning to sighted...good stuff all.

Random note: each of his chapter headings had a binary string under them, as far as i can tell, the same one each time. You'd think it'd translate into something, but I can't get it to do so. String as follows below. Oddly, I couldn't find any mention of it on the intrawebs, which leads me to believe it's just some 'artistic' nonsense. But still. I am at heart a geek.

As a number it's very large (2^78), and amusingly, I don't have access to my ti85's anymore, I don't currently have a calculator on this pc capable of it, and all the converters I try online run into the fact that this number is so big. In that vein, I no longer have a space to do coding of my own, and I don't want to do it by hand. =)

All that also being said, I'm sure I'm missing some blindingly simple way to do this. :P Sometimes I miss being smart.

00011100101010100000000101111111010100000001010001010100000010111010100101010

On the topic of new jobs and fingers.

daimones — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 15:24:44 GMT

So, I wanted to finally write down some thoughts about my time with the census, my thoughts about my new position with a biomed company...maybe get in some video game time...and what do I do this morning? Cut off the tip of my left index finger because I was in a hurry and didn't use the hand guard on a mandolin. /sigh. I knew better...and now I won't ever do it again. :P

Typing is fun. I think I will save myself the agony of much more fumbling about. Bandage is huge and clunky. At least everything should grow back. This will also be fun for work....BLERGH EAT KITTY.

I am officially disappointed in myself, especially because the lady stayed home to take me to redimed instead of going out with her friends out of town...I mean, I can deal with my own dumbatitude, but inflicting it on someone else? :P

At least the cucumbers were tasty!

And just for completeness.

daimones — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:53:18 GMT

http://www.datamancer.net/steampunklaptop/steampunklaptop.htm

Really like the website. Really like the mod. =) Thought I'd share!

Status Quo.

daimones — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:48:37 GMT

I really like this particular comic.

http://www.goats.com/archive/090918.html

The two kittens that currently reside in my home. :)

daimones — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:16:13 GMT


George resting on a pillow.	Gemma playing with my computer.

Updatey type stuffs.

daimones — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:01:18 GMT

Things really aren't going so well for me and my family.

If I don't get a job soon, well. In the next month, I'll probably have to sell a car (or let the bank repo it) and figure out where I can live that doesn't involve a box. Internet, cellphones, credit cards, TV, and other such things will probably disappear too. Cue absolute failure feeling.

My g'pa is in a nursing home now. G'ma could no long really take care of him and he made it too hard for my mom to help him. I should visit him more often, I've only done so once. My g'ma is looking at foreclosure on the house. My mother lives in her own little bubble. At the very least she does try and help out around the house and get things done for my g'rents both legally and by cleaning, etc. I just feel she could do more by you know, actually attempting to get a job. More failure!

But in good news land:

Keep your collective hopes up for me, I had a good interview on Friday. :) I'm really hoping I can land this job, it would be fun, hard work, and have lots of room for growth professionally. Not to mention that I need the money reallyreally bad.

My computer here tried to die on me, but I casted a spell of resurrection on it and it seems happy now.

I also am trying out Trillian Astra. Not a bad little program so far, though there are things like Pidgin and Digsby? that I should try out I'm told.

Going to go finish up writing thank you for interview letters, then get my mom the digicam pics of some stuff she's trying to sell at the house for when they have to move...then maybe waste time playing WoW. Or working on my server. Maybe doing both at once for sng.

i can do css. look ma!

daimones — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 21:40:57 GMT

IF you happen to read my journal in my style, you may notice a change. IE8 handles CSS 'better' than previous versions, and I finally got around to fixing my link style so that it would properly render in the browser I use the most, IE8. It -should- also render properly in FF, but hell if I know.

Anyways, if you care, and it doesn't look right on your screen (it should be pretty obvious - if it's not, then yer worrying about the display issue i know is there, but is pretty minor. ;) let me know what browser you use (and a ss would be uber helpful). A good post of mine to check it on is: http://daimones.livejournal.com/142058.html.

Thanks. =)

Scam-tastic.

daimones — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:54:11 GMT

Someone tried to scam my mom/g'rents out of thousands of dollars to get me out of jail in toronto canada for drunk driving (bond money).

They tried this this morning.

I don't even have words for how bizarre the whole thing is on so many different levels.

/yawn

daimones — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:22:18 GMT

Why am I dreaming of Nicholai? Hai Nox.

I used to be pretty good about writing down dreams here, not so much anymore. I should get back to that.

Etiquette and protocool.

daimones — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:23:39 GMT

Ah C3PO. Wherefore art tho.

So I'm up to 9 recruiters now. I need to draft me a letter that says, 'Thank you. The position fits me! But at this time, I am unable. Think of me in the future for all your IT needs.' And then start replying, because I don't want to give these people the impression that I don't exist. :) I plan to ask Tina's help, she's a wizard like that. (That reminds me. My mom saw my new resume, says she needs one that spiffy. ;) It's a shame that this position can't be in Seattle. I'd run for it in a hot minute.

The phone interview - it seemed to go well. Of course as soon as it was over, I thought of things I should have said different, blah blah. It was with the general HR person. The not so general IT manager and flunkies are calling me tomorrow. HR person says that pending the results of that, I should hear something back for scheduling face to face stuff friday/monday (and they'll of course let me know if they decided to go with anyone else).

(10 recruiters). This one called. Oi vey.

Collision in marketplace enviroments.

daimones — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:40:53 GMT

3, or maybe 4? recruiters contacted me all about the same job. I say 3 because I know those 3 for sure, the 4th could be coincidence but I doubt it.

It's a 2 month contract job with a company (I actually know someone who works for them but they didn't know anything about the job or why there's an immediate need - I get the impression someone quit) doing desktop support...it pays pretty good, honestly. It's in Fort Wayne.

I need to stay up here though for at least a few more days, I can't afford to fly back and forth for interviews and psych evals, so I may lose out on it. Chance at long term, full time job > contact job, I think. Need for monetary influx high on the other hand...

But oh, am I torn. I miss my lady very much and this is like a bandage to that. But tomorrow, I have my general phase 1 call/interview (wtf do you call it!) for full time job in fort wayne, so I'm going to see how that goes.

Also, what's the etiquette on which recruiter to accept if I do?! :)

P.S. Glasses, where the fuck did you go.
P.S.S. 5 recruiters now.

I am a goofball.

daimones — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:48:16 GMT

So this week has really went well for me in the job department. I go in spurts. I'll hear nothing for a while, then bamf, everything at once. I don't mind the wait...hurry up...and wait stuff, but I would like it if something real falls out of the mix.

I am on p3? of the job process for a 911 operator/dispatcher. This is the one that I've spent the most time with and am fairly hopeful about. The fact that they keep speeding me along in the process doesn't hurt at all for my hopeful factor. Good times, this government stuff. I get to go in for a psych eval! This job, unless they change their tune, even if I got it, I wouldn't start till end of July at the earliest, so I'm booking through with other stuff in the meantime.

I had a prelim interview at a temp place for a network admin job. I hope to hear back from them next week. It too is a government job, actually. :) I am somewhat thinking that if I get the above job, depending on hours, I could still work this one at the same time. It might be brutal for a while, but I could really use the money. But it is a 'temp' job and not necessarily full time, so. Either way, keeping this going until I know about the above. I also found out something weird, apparently a lot of companies out here will only work you for 910 hours as a temp, then cycle you out till 910 hours falls off and then rehire (if they intend to do so). For those playing at home, 910 hours works out to be almost 23 weeks (at 40 hours a week), or six months. :P Weird system.

I also got asked to set up a phone interview to talk about my qualifications for a Systems Analyst. (helpdesk *cough*) That would send me back to Indiana if I had to do a real interview, but again...options are good. And staying in Indiana has some benefits...

But I really do want to come out here, if I can manage it. I love the area. Even if I ended up back in Indiana, I will come back for vacation or something. I should have done this sooner!

*prod Tina* :) She's been very kind about me temporarily living here. I don't know how I managed to get on her good side, but I am grateful she's my friend. =) I will repay her back somehow or another! She's put up with me gibbering in glee about stuff I'm sure she takes for granted (parks, pretty city stuff, lakes/oceans), she's taken me to a MLB (Mariner's) baseball game (which I enjoyed, oddly enough. Much more fun at the stadium than TV), she helps me find my way home when I go randomly out and then get myself someplace and I don't know how to get back, she appreciates my cooking, she lets me see her family, and in general has been a bestest host. She puts up with me as we discuss things like doctors and how to raise children, and where does the change jar go?!, and all sorts of opinionated topics. I'm sure she didn't sign up for that when she thought I'd show up! But she hasn't kicked me out yet!

Odd site note: some of the vistas out here are nice. I really liked wandering in Seattle the brief times I've done it, even if I don't like being lost much. :) Some of the bus rides are beautiful. Bellvue is a really nice place, for example. Not only do I get to see some nice city stuff, but I see residential, parks, shopping areas (there's a neat shopping street in Renton that I want to prod at, and I've been told there's a bigger awesome version with more stuff in Seattle like a farmer's market, etc)...I think I like a well run bus transit system as much as I like airport stuff for similar reasons.

Anyways, this is all a different sort of stress, but I much prefer this stress to the other. By other I mean running out of money, feeling like I'm taking other people with me, and in general watching my life fall apart. Motion of any sort feels very good. Especially when it is positive motion.

Right now I'm listening to music and crap I'm finding on YouTube while I fill out the paperwork for the 911 that they sent me. Yay forms. Tina is out with her grandchildren and her friend (don't know if daughter et. al. came along) to see the movie Up. I may go see a later showing of it when it's not peopled by screaming children. The movie looks cute. =0

You have no idea.

daimones — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:21:20 GMT

Okay life. You can stop anytime now. Give me a break maybe? I'm nearly destitute, I've had no luck in getting a job (but I do have an awesome new resume - here's hoping that'll generate some good churn), my love life is shaky, my confidence is shot, I don't much feel like I've been the best friend or communicator I could be to the people who've needed me to be, but do I really deserve to find out...

I envy you, readers. I can promise you with a 99% certainty that this isn't a problem you've ever even thought of as an outside possibility. I'm sorry to be so vague, I know it's been cited as a reason to not read my journal (sorry Cheryl. :( ) but this is very personal (I will likely write a very private entry about it - not something I do often, actually). I wrote it down, at first, but then deleted it. There are people who do not want to know. :)

I've tried to talk to Lisa, my mother, and Darryl about this today so far..(in that order) and I'm not having much luck, but that's mostly because I'm not entirely sure how I should feel..

Life is brutal. I know this. It isn't a 'feeling' entity. Things happen, and sometimes they happen 'just because'. Life isn't some protagonist in a novel being written by someone trying to teach a lesson. We try to attribute reason (karma, destiny, religion) to it, but there's just nobody at the helm. I feel so very matrix (hai2u Merovingian) including the, 'you do not truly know someone(thing) until you've fought with it'.

All that being said, I know I feel like I've pissed off Karma. I try and treat those around me in a way I want to be treated...I try and be respectful, mindful of my actions, my influence. I try and get other people I trust to look at my situations and get their input before I go off and do whatever. I know I fail, and I try to make amends for that. I know that I can not always succeed and that not doing so is what makes us human and how we learn. But then why do I feel like I have to get it right every time?

Why is it I keep getting smacked upside the head? Why can't the things that matter to me, matter to the things I define as my world. I don't need bob down the block to give a crap, but I do expect my family to care if i get kneecapped (for example). Do I fail some internal respect-o-meter? Did my weird childhood home break my delicate soul in some way that causes me to push others away, or not react in an appropriate manner?

Did I not succeed in middle school so now I'm acting out now, but instead of playing with middleschoolers, real life plays for keeps yo. :P

I don't know whatever it is, but I do know that I don't feel very equipped to handle it. I feel flabbergasted, let down, and somehow....like my reaction to it, including my completely baffledness means I'm obviously not where I should be.

But if this isn't where I should be, how do I get to where i should? There are so few decisions, looking back, that I would unmake. And obviously if you do the same things, you'll end up in the same place.

I need a new paradigm. I thought I was finding one, but I think I need new set.

P.S. It's interesting to read this entry and the entry 2 below about coincidences. Especially as the situation that sparked it is very relevant still, both situationally and emotionally. More to think about. Who knew journaling could be USEFUL. Feel free to contrast and compare. ;P

Star Trekking across the Universe!

daimones — Sat, 09 May 2009 22:45:00 GMT

The movie paid homage to it's ancestry and did not mock it along the way. That being said, I didn't understand the whole car scene, I thought the bar fight was a much better way to show his nature. I get the feeling I missed something (the guy on the side of the road, was he relevant?) but I dunno. Apparently 200 years in the future, they still have the same rock we do. I am perturbed. But still, the contrast between Sleek and The Future and The Past, Rough and Bucolic, was interesting.

The designer part of me was interested in some of the choices they made too. The more industrial design of the ships was nice..what baffled me is that they went to that effort, then had the pointless tubing. Contrast the more 'advanced' ships. One was very sleek and shiny and indicative of both the culture and its mission the other was sinister while somehow remaining very gritty despite supposedly being advanced. Of course, I'm curious what a ship of its supposed designation needed with some of it's bits and pieces, but I can get over that. Its meant to convey an image. As a fan, however, I'm not particularly sure I like what they're doing with the Romulan race from a story point of view, but enh.

I liked how they made transporter tech still pretty rough compared to say, TNG type transporter stuff where it happened in the blink of an eye. I even liked how they managed to convey the way the interfaces were going, without well, going there. They even managed to fit in a bit about how warp 4 was zomg amazing.

I had hoped to maybe find some of the actors from the original ST, or even the spinoffs in cameos, but didn't catch any (other than the obvious, of course). Speaking of which, when Mr. Nimoy voiced over the STNG intro speech at the end of the movie? Chills down my back.

The new actors? Okay, let's just get this out of the way. I liked them all. They gave their respective characters their particular flavour (Uhura was just this side of whiplash, Spock had humanity - Live Long and Prosper, and by that I mean Fuck Off and Die, Kirk was a bright kid with nothing to lose except to prove to himself, Chekov - I can do that!, etc) while evoking the references we all expected them to do. I even liked the preponderance of extras going about doing their thing. They took that bit from STNG obviously, but it made everything seem more real.

I think if I had to pick a character I enjoyed most, portrayal wise, I'd pick Bones. I loved the reason they gave for calling him Bones, as well as the way he supported and tolerated Kirk. Spock was fantastic though, it's a hard decision. Scotty was youthful exuberance, and obviously the actor was just thrilled beyond measure to be able to portray that role, because it had so much elan.

I was sad the sword scene had this really cool flip, but then was else wise very light on any actual real sword work. They boffed that. Kirk could fight, but was a brawler (I approve!) while Spock was all surgical precision. I do think Kirk deserved to win a fight.

The Pike story line had to be changed for the movie of course, as did details of Kirks life (as far as I'm aware, since they didn't bother focusing on anyone other than say Spock, which they got pretty spot on, the other characters they more or less inducted with non fanfare), and of course as I stated, not sure that I enjoy the 'let's change the Romulans' thing that the scriptwriters seem hell bent on, but I don't mind it either. The inclusion of the mind control theme was, I suppose something that shows up a lot in Star Trek in lots of various ways, but I wasn't too pleased by it. Other than those caveats (well the red matter stuff was random, given ST's usual we try to pull from reality shtick), I don't mind any of the history rewrites they did. I'm willing to let them spin their story arc and see how it goes. After all, I'm hoping they do a sequel since they neatly left themselves open.

Oh and I did not like the constant and needless lens flaring. But the special effects were quite neat.

Something I should also mention is just how much presence Mr. Nimoy can have on screen. I don't know if it's just because he epitomizes all that is Star Trek when he plays the role, or if it's because he believes in the message that Mr. Roddenberry was trying to convey (or perhaps because we, the audience, or I the watcher WANT to believe), or if it's just because he's that Damned Good of an Actor, but whatever it is, he was riveting every time he opened his mouth. The weight of history both as the character Spock, in the universe that contains him, and a role that defined him as much as he defined it, give us a context for the message he as a character was trying to give to the movie.

Perhaps I'm just shocked by how much that world and that message still mean to the little boy who was inspired by them to strive to be better and to know that reaching out for the unknown is its own reward.

On the subject of coincidence.

daimones — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:25:05 GMT

It's interesting, I feel, how themes seem to arise in our life.

Like...I was randomly curious so I began to toss in names and emails from my yahoo account into facebook to see who'd pop up. (Sorry Licentia, I don't know if that email is still good, but I didn't really meant to send you that invite. stupid button clicking.) And while very few people actually popped up under names I had or email it was interesting searching through. I found mashups of names...like Melissa Eastes and Elizabeth Melville and other such amusements. Even one Darryl Wakefield, which is disturbing for a variety of reasons. All these names are people I know...but then some of the names and locations (like M's exact name, in Australia, but that bubbly blond? Not her!) just...I dunno. I found it intriguing. A testament to the variety of humankind, while somehow still being 'the same'.

Maybe it's just because I'm in a thoughtful mood. I've had some good discussions about some of my behaviors lately, and feeling like I might be growing past and through them, or at least recognizing them in a way that's not defensive...which is both good for me, and the person whose bringing it to my attention. Sometimes in order to build up, you have to tear it down first...

Where it says behaviors, I wrote failings first, but I'm beginning to realize that I'm overly critical and need to redefine some of my thought patterns to not be so full of negative connotation. You'd think, given my penchant for using words precisely because of their nuance that I'd be more aware of this behavior in myself, but I'm not. And until recently, with the guidance of a few wonderful women who care for me very much (and one gentleman who doesn't really deserve to be in that crowd, but who does deserve some props for his effort) I didn't realize I came off the way I did. And I don't know that it became such a problem until I began to feel that I was failing my 'duties' as a human being to those around me. This job thing, and the recent relationship troubles I've been through, with all their precursors and resultants has really shaken me. I built myself up to a standard, and when I didn't live up to it, I didn't realize that it was okay.

But anyways..it's odd, because I'll have a conversation about point a with one person, then in a completely unrelated conversation with another person, the same path will begin to develop, though obviously with another view and these varying different glimpses can be both assuring and revealing. I know that rationally it's because you are perhaps in a receptive frame of mind, and these things come to the forefront, but its still an interesting phenomenon. Like suddenly realizing that you have a cough and oh wow there's all this talk about the flu on tv. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN and now you can't not hear about how everyone's sick, blah blah.

/rambly