Samy Merchi

Thor (2014) #1 Review

samy — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 19:02:39 GMT

Some months ago there was a big hubbub about how Marvel was "changing Thor into a woman", by which I mean they are replacing the title character in the comic book series. That is, we would ostensibly be following the adventures of a different (female) character, rather than Thor himself being physically changed into a woman somehow. So, today, the first issue of this new direction found its way into my hands, and I felt compelled to write a few words.

My first reaction is disappointment. Marvel pushes this big significant new thing, and then the whole issue ends up being about the original male Thor in the end. Only on the very last few instants of the issue does the new female Thor show up and does nothing more than pick up the hammer, and that's the end of this month's episode. She has all of one speech bubble, "There must always be a Thor." I for one came here to see the new Thor, and I felt cheated reading so much about old Thor.

On the other hand, writer Jason Aaron presents us with an interesting premise in that the leadership of the Asgardians is now contested between the traditional leader, male Odin, and his wife Frigga. The latter has been taking care of business while the former was gone, and now that Odin has returned, Frigga isn't easily pushed out of the driver's seat, thus setting up a husband/wife conflict. I felt that was a far more compellingly introduced subplot than anything else in the issue.

The villain and/or villains of the issue were paper-thin and written like typical cackling comic book evil. Wantonly murdering without any sort of remotely sympathetic or understandable angle, they're just one-dimensional bad guys that are due for a smacking down. No shades of Magneto's tragic past or Doctor Doom's nobility here, just boring cardboard cruelty and sadism.

Interestingly, there's a development on male Thor towards the end of the issue that is painfully reminiscent of what DC did to Aquaman in the early 1990s relaunch of that character's series. I mean for gosh sakes, two blond, bearded royals, and the exact same thing happens to them. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I can't shake the Aquaman vibes right now. Maybe it'll grow into its own thing over time.

So pulling that all together: Too much male Thor, too little female Thor. Uninspired villains. Aquaman retread. But nice Odin/Frigga conflict, which was more or less the best thing about the issue. I'll give this a couple more issues, but I'm not hopeful.

Grade: Two stars out of five.

All-New X-Men

samy — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 02:49:22 GMT

So today I caught up on some comic reading, including some of the recent issues of Brian Bendis' ALL-NEW X-MEN. And I'm excited enough that I needed to rant somewhere, so I came to my Livejournal for the first time in like years.

It's really bizarre how much I like ANXM, because for years and years, during his time helming the Avengers franchise, Bendis was one of my most hated Marvel Comics writers. And now, he may be my favorite. It's that radical a change. I'm not going to get into why I hated his Avengers material because that's somewhat beside the point. But his X-Men...damn.

It just feels *RIGHT*.

For me, consistency in fiction is very important. 1960s TV Captain Kirk should have the same personality quirks and speech mannerisms as the 1980s movie Kirk. (Unless it's a clearly intentional change in the character over time, of course.) I mean, I don't have a cow when there's a minor contradiction like, "Hey, in episode 106 Spock stated his favorite cereal was Froot Loops, but here in episode 318 he's having Captain Crunch!" But when those small details *do* click, and the writer actually has Spock eating the same cereal in two different episodes two years apart -- those little things are what elevate fiction from just a story to living, breathing characters. When a character sounds the same and acts the same under different writers 30, 40 years apart, that's when you can connect with a character. They're no longer just a storytelling tool, but something that you can feel like you know them as if they were a real person, something that you can consequently empathize with.

And that's what I feel Bendis has really knocked out of the park here, in ALL-NEW X-MEN. His Scott Summers feels, acts and sounds like the "real" Scott that I haven't seen in comics for quite a few years. And the same holds for many other characters as well. It's like coming back home to old friends. New plotlines, but the same characters. I think Bendis is probably the writer who has gotten the closest to what I personally feel are the definitive "voices" of the various X-Men characters.

So, when there was this scene in ALL-NEW X-MEN #26, I could barely contain my excitement. Scott crushed on Jean for like 10 years (our time), then dated her for like 20 years, then was married to her for like another 10 years, and now most recently she's been dead for like 10 years (still, our time). And then, Jean's younger teenage incarnation is hanging out with the X-Men due to some time travel shenanigans that are not important right now. So, you've been messing around with this girl for like 40 years, then she's been dead, and now she's right there in front of you, except she's like 16 and you're like 30.

FUCKED UP, MAN.

And then she's coming on to you.

You could cut the tension with a goddamned knife.

I feel like this is the first time there's been any real tension between Scott and Jean since like the mid-eighties. Since then, it's more or less been, "okay we're together", end of story. (Aside from the brief Morrison diversion just before she died.) Scott and Jean had become such a bland, default couple over the years that even their names got aggregated into just being called a compound "JeanScott". They were like yawn. And now...the couple that was always "meant to be together" is more than a little bit morally questionable because of a) age difference and b) teacher/student relationship. Suddenly Jean is Scott's Lolita.

It's like agh I can't stand it because they're Jean and Scott they're supposed to be together but agh they can't because!!

One of the main reasons why X-Men was the most popular comic book of the eighties was its heavy emphasis on soap opera.

So, under Bendis, it's not only the characters who have regained their familiar voice, but the series as well.

Biggest Mistake I Ever Made Was Not Committing Murder

samy — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 06:33:25 GMT

So I just got done with my 36th birthday, and as -- I suppose -- is common, birthdays are one of those points in time when one looks back and thinks about their life. What's different this year, compared to all previous years, is that now I'm in therapy. So, even moreso than all other previous years, I think about things, and specifically the sort of things that go back a long ways and had a big effect on me a long time ago. And as I've gone over my life, I keep coming back to one thing. "If you could change one thing, what would it be?" And I find that, if there were only one thing I could change, one single thing I would have done differently, I should have committed murder.

Let me open that up for you.

When I was fifteen, my father killed my mother. This was preceded by, well, about fifteen years of growing up under a violent and physically abusive father. Fifteen years of watching my mother chased out of the house with an axe, him yelling that he's going to kill her for whatever the offense was that day. Living under a constant fear of death -- not for myself so much, I just received beatings but not so much death threats, but for my mother. Every day is a day that your -- a child's -- most important person could die. There was no safety, not even in your own home. And in that regard, there are some similarities to growing up in a war zone. I'm not saying it was "as bad as" -- there was always food and electricity and all the comforts of the modern world. But in the aspect of personal safety, growing up in a household where death threats were just a normal part of the daily routine, there are some similarities to being in the middle of a war. For fifteen years.

So after fifteen years, you start to sort of think, "well, it's not going to happen for real". You start convincing yourself that, "It's just talk." You start to develop a sort of a feeling of security in the insecurity persisting and not blowing up in your face. And then, it does. And you're left without a mother *and* a father, put in a foster family for a year, can't get along, and finally moving out to live on your own. And at the age of sixteen, your only support network is a social worker. Then after high school you move to a different city for university, and since, at nineteen, you're technically an adult on paper, you lose contact with even the social worker.

At nineteen years old, you've lost both parents, you have no close relatives, you've lost contact with high school friends because you moved to a different city, you don't even have any contact with the authorities. You have zero contact with any adults. On top of that, you have a ton of trust issues from an insecure home, so you have trouble approaching people and making new friends. So you have nobody to give you advice with bureaucratic jungles, nobody to lend you a bit of money if your washing machine breaks down, nobody to lean on emotionally when you have trouble your studies, or with your future direction, or with anything really.

You can't read text longer than a sheet of paper because your ability to concentrate is basically nonexistent because of what you now understand was probably post-traumatic stress disorder. You have similar problems producing text or doing any sort of independent work. You have trouble motivating yourself for any kind of long term projects because you're not sure you can even survive to the end of the month. And you're in university.

What could possibly go wrong?

Your life remains kind of on hold, treading water as you try to do things, but can't complete anything. You try to crawl forward, and you do get some things done, but it feels like you're managing an inch a year and the goal is a mile away. This continues for fourteen more years without reaching any significant goals.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I have no personal responsibility in how things turned out. I could have, at least in theory, done a lot of things to improve my situation that I ended up never doing. I'm not writing this to say, "I'm fucked up but it's not my fault, it's everybody else's fault."

I'm writing this to show what kind of pretty bad place one alternative is.

Then let's look at the other alternative. If I *had* committed murder, ideally before I turned fifteen because that's when criminal liability starts in this country, then --

1) My mother would have lived. Granted, she might have died in a car accident or gotten cancer the next year anyway, but let's assume a fairly average set of circumstances. I would have had a home -- instead of just an apartment where I slept alone -- through my high school years. After moving off to university, I would have had someone to visit at school holidays, someone to call every week, someone who would have noticed how messed up I was and pressured me to go to mental health services, someone who would have helped me with all the bureaucracy and what my rights as a citizen were. I would have had smaller mental trauma to deal with, and I would have ended up in therapy sooner.

2) My father would have died. The element that created fear (and in some ways, still does) would have been eliminated from my life. I would, from that point onward, felt the sort of safety in the world that even still, today, eludes me. I would have, from age 13-14-15, whenever I committed murder, onward have felt much safer than I have ever felt in my life, to date. Additionally, I would have felt a sense of justice in the world, that bad things happen to bad people instead of to good people. I would have had less fear, more safety, more sense of justice, more faith in society and less cynicism.

3) I would have had to deal with the consequences of taking a life, both legal and psychological. Had I done it before age 15, I'm given to understand that I wouldn't have been criminally liable. Now, I might have been taken away from my mother and been put in an institution of some kind maybe, but I probably would have been able to stay in contact with her and reunite with her when I eventually got out anyway. Let's go with the worst case scenario and consider what if I did it after my 15th birthday. The maximum sentence in this country is 15 years, so absolute worst case scenario, I would've been out for at least 6 years by now. You can do high school in prison, so I could have been in university for six years by now, with a much healthier mind than I have now. And I could have prepared for university by studying in advance, with full board provided so I didn't have to be distracted with work to support myself. Even in the worst case scenario, I would be willing to bet that I would have graduated by now if I had committed murder. And things get even better when you consider that I probably wouldn't have gotten the maximum sentence.

4) But then there is the psychological aspect. How would I have dealt with having committed murder? It's impossible to tell without trying, of course. But the criminal justice system in this country is aimed at rehabilitating more than punishing, so at least in theory the authorities would be trying to provide some kind of psychiatric help. It would probably also be helpful that I would mostly feel that I did it for the right reasons, to save the life of a good person. Although I would probably wrestle quite a lot with second-guessing myself. Was it necessary? Or did I overreact? Would it have turned out okay if I hadn't done anything? I now know it wouldn't have, but the me who chose a different path couldn't know. I have no hard facts here so I have to go with my gut feeling and say that I would deal better with having killed a bad person than I do deal with having allowed a good person to die.

5) There's also the social aspect. Making friends could be difficult after having been to jail for murder. Of course, I could always change my name and never bring up the incident myself, which would make it fairly tough (but not impossible) for any regular person to find out what happened. I would say that it would probably not be a factor in 90% or more of potential friendships. But the real problem is with employment, since some employers want to check your criminal record. I don't think every workplace can or does check your criminal record though, so there would have to be options still. I'd have to live with not being able to get to certain kinds of jobs though. I think that's a fair price to pay for having a parent.

Taking into account all of the above, I think it can be argued that it is possible my life would be better if I had committed murder as a 14-15 year old. The main cons are jail time (if done at 15) -- but I feel like I've been in a mental jail anyway for longer than a maximum sentence would have been -- and having to carry the psychological responsibility for the crime. But in return, I would have progressed further in my life, would have a parent, a support network and better mental health overall. I'd be a more functional human being. I'd have committed a pretty severe crime, but I think it's very likely that I'd have a much better life in all the years after that.

And that is why the biggest mistake I ever made was not committing murder.

Animation

samy — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 09:16:21 GMT

Learning to make animated gifs.

I'm alive

samy — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 03:31:52 GMT

It's funny, the things that can inspire you to write. Over the past two years I've made a total of three posts. Then you run into someone who's been a commenter here and he spontaneously brings up appreciation for this long-dormant journal, and bam, here I am.

It's not that I've lacked things to say, there has been lots of interesting things going on, but somehow it tends to feel like there's never time to write. Not books, not this journal. This is a subjective opinion but to me personally it feels pretty sad in retrospect when my main writing outlet is two-liners on Facebook.

One of the main reasons for the perceived lack of time is that I'm still happily in that relationship I started a few posts back (in other words, little over two years ago). Relationships take a hell of a lot of time, energy and focus to cultivate, and when you're living with someone there's always that constant buzz at the back of your head being vaguely aware of the other person somewhere in the apartment. It's much tougher to sink into a state of deep concentration when you have one ear constantly listening if she's speaking to you from the other side of the apartment. There's this perpetual readiness mode, as if your mouse pointer was constantly moving and preventing the screen saver from activating, if you know what I mean.

Which isn't to be taken as a complaint, mind you. I'm definitely enjoying not living alone (I should, after having bitched about it for nearly ten years on this journal) but it isn't without its challenges, having to adjust to a lot of changes. One would think two years would be enough time to adjust, but, well. In my defense, I *had* been living completely alone for 16.5 years. Isolation of that magnitude gives habits a lot of time to settle in and fortify their positions.

But let's put philosophical introspection aside for a moment. If there's still somebody reading this after such a prolonged silence, let me catch you up on the highlights of my 2010-2011. Still working at a hotel, although I really want to put that to rest more and more each year. Studies are progressing, I finally scraped together 180 study credits which would be enough for a Bachelor's if I wasn't splitting my studies between two subjects. As it is, this time next year I should finally have a BA English or be very close to one. I'm still a little unsure where exactly I'll go after that, but I think I'm going to aim for an MSc Physics or Astronomy with teacher training, and maybe try to land a job as a math/physics teacher, if somebody will hire a nearly 40 year old raw graduate in this economy. Hobbywise I'm running a regular Dungeons & Dragons campaign and holding biweekly Star Trek video nights, both of which are a lot of fun but also a little exhausting.

On the health side things haven't been going terribly well. I finally got an official on-paper diagnosis of severe depression. I feel exhausted and completely worn down a lot of the time, which I guess is understandable when you're juggling a relationship, work, university, a roleplaying game and video nights all at the same time. I'm sure there are people out there who can do that much without major problems and I wish I had their energy levels because I sure am being run ragged. Speaking of which, energy levels are the main symptom I'm complaining about to various doctors and one of the treatments being tried is CPAP which is a breathing mask while sleeping -- alas I've been using that for about a year now and better breathing during sleep doesn't seem to have helped. I've tried three different antidepressants: escitalopram (Cipralex), venlafaxine (Efexor) and currently bupropion (Voxra) but none of them have had much of a noticeable effect. I also suspected ADHD for a while and managed to talk my doctor into trying out methylphenidate (Concerta) for that, but it also failed to produce a response. Overall it seems like the most likely chemical solutions aren't doing me much if any good.

Because medication doesn't seem to be useful to me, the plan now is to find a therapist and enter cognitive psychotherapy, and see if that can help me, either alone or combined with medication. I'm personally more than a little skeptical about the power of therapy, but just about everyone involved is strongly recommending it so I'm going to give it a try.

On the plus side, I may still be struggling with depression, but I'm nowhere as bad as I was after the bad breakup in 2008. 2009 was a hell of suicidal thoughts, feeling absolutely worthless and a ton of loneliness anxiety. All three of those have been 100% absent for the past two years. I still have a lot of dark moods, general sadness and the aforementioned constant feeling of exhaustion, but even so, there's a lot of weight I've shed from my shoulders.

Overall I sort of wish I could just become a rural hermit, away from the fast-paced life. Most of the time it just feels like my head is filled with unintelligible whispering and murmuring and mumbling and all sorts of background noise that is driving me crazy. What I feel I really need is a couple of years of raking a zen pebble garden and having no obligations in any direction whatsoever. No thinking about work, no thinking about school, no thinking about anything except finding a quiet place inside my head. If I was independently wealthy I would totally take one or two sabbatical years and just go somewhere really quiet, peaceful and non-Western. I'm becoming really disillusioned with the Western "work hard so you can pay the bills and do the exact same thing again next month, rinse and repeat until death" world. I know "downshifting" is supposed to be the trendy thing right now, but damned if it isn't exactly what I do need.

Anyway, I've rambled a while now and I think I'll wrap for today, but I really hope it won't be another year until my next update. I'll try to be back here more often again.

School

samy — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 02:43:22 GMT

Back in the game. Just received the first study credits since my breakdown in late 2008. Once they're done awarding I should get at least 18 credits for this semester, 23 if I complete the one final assignment left on the programming course.

School

samy — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 03:14:57 GMT

Haven't written in a while. Everything is great, except too busy. Too many things to do. Work, school, scifi club, roleplaying games, relationship, and trying to find some scarce moments of self time in-between all of that. Writing has been more or less out of the question. This would be nanowrimo month but. Ah well. I didn't come here to complain about too few hours in a day, I came here to think about my studies.

So I'm working on a Bachelor of Arts (English) and Bachelor of Science (Astronomy). English consists of English studies (which I should have done by spring) plus a sizable bunch of pretty freely selectable minors (which I haven't picked yet). Astronomy consists of bunches of courses in math, physics, astronomy and freely selectable stuff. But now I'm thinking of dropping the astronomy part out of the BSc and stuffing it into the BA as a minor. The void left in the BSc would be replaced by more physics courses, so the BSc (Astronomy) would become a BSc (Physics).

This would have the benefit of allowing me to, in a way, extend my physics studies (astronomy being a subfield of physics) into the minors space of the BA, and focus my BSc on just the non-astronomy physics. This might be good in the sense of the job market, as a physics BSc is a lot more marketable than an astronomy BSc. And English is useless in the job market. So basically I'd stuff all my non-marketable studies (English + astronomy) under the BA umbrella and try to focus the BSc on more marketable skills and proficiencies.

If I did this, I have enough English and astro studies done that I could have the BA knocked off in as little as a year. That's pretty damn soon for somebody who feels like they've been slaving away for a decade+. Lots would still be left on the BSc though, but whichever way I decide to go, completing both degrees will take several more years anyway.

In any case this is mostly academic (no pun intended) rumination. By the time I get the BSc I'll be too old to be hired at any entry level positions anyway. Not to mention how many places require a minimum of Master's. Sometimes it feels like I don't know why I bother to study. I can do 360 study credits and as far as the job market goes have accomplished nothing. :b But then I remind myself, when they write my obituary someday, I damn well want it to have some degrees on it, whether they ever got me a job or not.

Update

samy — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:24:39 GMT

So, I'm still here.

I see that since my relationship started in the first week of February, I've made a total of three longer posts here on LJ. One about some weird dream, another about the closing of the comic book fan fiction community IRC channel, and a third one about the Alice movie.

It's been hellabusy. (That's busy*10^27) We're closing in on five months together and we're in the process of moving in together. Most of our stuff got moved in with a van two weeks ago but there's still some minor stuff left. My old apartment (where I've lived pretty much all the while that I've known all of you who are reading this -- hanneloore has known me longer since we go way back to high school and lostkun and cyriael met me online in '96 so they just sneak in before I moved here in '97) has the last rent day on Monday, so I need to do some end cleaning to it this week and make sure it's in a condition to be released. (I'll probably fail because cleaning isn't exactly my forté but ah well.) It feels a little nostalgic to leave a place that's been your home for thirteen years, but like I've been saying for years now, "I grew out of that place five years ago". Meaning it was way too small for me and I really should have moved out before now, but -- well, inertia. Because of the amount of material things I possess (which I'm both proud and not-proud of, in various contexts) moving is hell, and I've half tongue-in-cheek hoped that I would only move two more times over the rest of my life: 1) when I move in together with someone and 2) when we need a bigger place to raise kids. Well, I managed to hang in there and not move until I could synergize it with number one.

I can tell you, it's a pretty big change to move from 23 square meters to 79 square meters. Our new living room is pretty much the size of the single-room apartment where I slept, cooked and worked before. And in addition to that I now have a separate room for kitchen, separate room for sleeping, separate room for a study. And a sauna. It feels like I'm living in an apartment for real humans now, as opposed to a place for students which are some kind of subhuman creatures who don't need a human-rights-compatible living arrangement. :D I'll try to get you people some pictures soon, once all the boxes are unpacked and/or cleared out.

I haven't gotten a lot of other stuff done over the past months than work and relationship stuff. It's still that early phase where we spend every moment together so I haven't gotten a lot of gaming or reading or hobbies done. My comics reading backlog is like three meters high or something, for not having read any of the stuff that's come in the mail for almost half a year. I had a shot at being in the local comics anthology this year with an eight-page story drawn by a current Marvel artist (whom I'd hired to draw the story for me a couple of years back before he broke into the business) but I didn't have time to letter the story so fail. :( None of my novels have moved forward this year so far. I'm only getting this LJ post written because she's on a trip to Belgium with her dad. :D But it's still awesome to be together with her -- some things are more important than reading and writing -- and I'm sure things will even out over time and I'll make some more time for myself and my hobbies.

Some pictures behind the cut.

Outi and me.

In March we went on a 24h Baltic cruise, and the ice was so bad that we actually got stuck in the middle of the Baltic for an unintended 60h cruise with free food the whole time. The staff said they hadn't seen a winter this bad in 20 years. It was awesome.

In April we went to the local fair.

She takes me outdoors, which is good.

The first thing to set up in a new home is a home network. Outside, the weather is typical Finnish dreary. On the windowsill, symbolic important things to bring to a new apartment. Knight Rider, Star Trek and MacGyver. :D And in the closet, X-Men comics. :)

Update

samy — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 21:58:11 GMT

Eight weeks and everything is still awesome.

Alice

samy — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 22:07:48 GMT

3d movies are starting to annoy me a little. The glasses make my eyes hurt, probably because I spend a lot of time focusing on subtitles and they are too close and my eyes are not used to focusing to that distance or something. Also, they tend to feel like Viewmaster reels where each actor or set or prop is a flat cardboard at different levels of depth. You get a sense of their relative depths but the things themselves don't have depth to them and often end up looking like flat cardboards against a background.

The Alice movie itself, it was such a typical well executed Burton movie and if you know what his movies are like you can probably make a pretty educated guess on whether you'd like this or not. I was kind of hoping for a twist of some kind, something that would have made the story a little more interesting than the basic black and white (red and white) good and evil, it would've been cool if the white queen would have turned out to be a bad guy manipulating Alice. Alice did look totally super-hot in the armor though! :D

The real world segment was sort of polarizing for me. For one I thought it was lame how the suitor was made to be such a dweeb, because that made Alice's choice way too easy and predictable. It would've been much more interesting to me if the suitor had been (Brad Pitt / Hugh Grant / Tom Cruise / insert whoever you think is super-hot) played hotly instead of as a schmuck, because then there would have been a real difficult choice involved instead of a lame no-brainer. It would have made Alice's ultimate choice much more meaningful if she chose to pursue a career of adventure instead of a hot guy. Now, her choice is basically something everyone agrees with and that's just dull. It doesn't say anything about her character because any personality type would have picked her choice. It only says something about her character if it's a choice where certain personality types would have picked one way and other types another way. But I did love how she did pick the adventurer's career in the end, I think it's really nice to see female archetypes in fiction who aren't all about the goal of finding the right guy and getting married but wanting something else out of life. I think they're pretty rare and it's really nice to see one of those.

Overall I think it's a perfectly serviceable Burton movie but nothing particularly special except for maybe the special effects. For example I'd definitely rate Chocolate Factory over this.

Anniversary

samy — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:57:33 GMT

About ten years ago the comic book fan fiction community was a huge part of my life. I even met ex1 in it. Today the community closed its IRC channel because things have been dead for a long time. I'm glad I heard about it so I could drop in and attend the vigil. It's not like I had much of anything to say to anyone, but I've always believed in the importance of symbolism, and I was pleased to be there at the closing of something that meant so much to me once upon a time.

It also drives home how fast time goes by. Many of these names I haven't even seen in 7-8 years but it felt like only weeks had passed since I was chatting with them on a daily basis. I remembered all sorts of things about them. It was a curious sensation, like hopping on a time machine and visiting 2002 and realizing, damn, it's been eight years? It felt like my people -- yet, at the same time, it also felt like I'm not with these people anymore and haven't been for a long long time. It must be what class reunions are like.

Seeing ex1 was interesting, and rubs in my face the fact that I have absolutely no problems holding grudges for a decade. I wish more people understood the importance of good closure. With both ex1 and ex2 there wasn't good closure and I wonder if I'll still be angry at ex2 in the year 2016 for that. Conversely with ex3 I'm not angry at all since that one was closed well.

On a happier but still topical note, approaching the one month anniversary with current SO. Everything seems to be awesome. Taking her on a Baltic cruise next week for a quick 24h getaway. Spending way too much time (some would say, although I don't feel that way) at her place, which makes me a little jittery because I don't want to ruin this one with too much intensity like I feel happened with ex2. I worry that like ex2, *anybody* can just flick like a light switch from "everything's great" to "never again" in the space of about five seconds. But I guess that's just a survival skill that any human must eventually learn -- that nothing is guaranteed in life, and no matter how great things might seem, it can all be taken away in the blink of an eye.

And that certainly doesn't make me want to rein in my intensity. If there's any risk of the sky falling tomorrow, even just theoretically, I want to at least remember that I enjoyed the hell out of today.

I'm very glad I have her, and I'm going to enjoy every single moment I get with her.

samy — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:01:25 GMT

No news is good news.

Dream

samy — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:29:36 GMT

In less than two hours' naptime, I dreamt the following:

I was in an apartment that had the layout of my gf's apartment (probably signifying nothing more than the fact that I've spent a lot of time there recently). It was apparently my father's apartment and I was visiting him for some reason that wasn't clear. At one point the doorbell rang and my father opened the door for an asian woman who appeared to be his neighbor. Or more, it soon turned out as he and this woman kissed. At this point, I kicked him in the head, knocking him back, and told the woman that my father had killed his previous wife -- my mother -- and strongly recommended that she walk away and never look back. (There are many of my psychological aspects in play here. One, my fear that the world is so unjust that he'll have another chance at happiness when my mother never can. Two, my pent-up desire to do violence upon him to compensate for the perceived lack of punishment he has gotten. Three, my protective streak in not wanting anyone to have to go through what our family had to go through. Four, my arrogant streak in thinking I know what is best for everyone better than they know themselves.)

After I revealed what my father had done, the woman seemed to be surprised as if she had not known, and she heeded my suggestion and walked away. I continued to perpetrate severe physical abuse onto my father, the kind that you see in Schwarzenegger movie end boss fights, except one-sided. (Catharsis.) It eventually zoomed out to overland map level and the audio track became a phone call from me to the police department where I said I was going to kill him and I was hidden and barricaded and nobody could stop me in time. (Fiction cliches.) I had blocked the entrance road to my Evil Lair (TM) with big logs on the road and the fire department was called in to clear them out.

At this point the perspective shifted to one of the firefighters as the call came in, a female one with a noticeable but not absolute resemblance to my mother, and she became the point of view character through whose eyes I was experiencing the dream. She was tired after too many hours awake but hopped behind the wheel of one of the fire trucks going to the roadblock. At one steep curve she lost control of the vehicle and it ran off road and flipped over multiple times before coming to a halt. None of the firefighters in the vehicle died or were seriously but she was in hysterical tears over how close it had been that she might have gotten someone crippled or dead and she blamed herself for driving with too little sleep and kept saying she was never going to drive again.

At that point the protagonist melted from the female firefighter back to me, although a teenage incarnation of myself, the hysterical tears continuing. Of all people, Obama showed up at the scene to comfort me and went into this big speech about how he was going to open an elementary school that was shaped like two upside down L-letters with four boxes hanging under each crossbeam representing a classroom. He was going to call it "Starfleet Academy" (representing my Star Trek addiction, duh) but it had nothing to do with spaceflight but instead about teaching children utopistic and idealistic ethical principles after (Star Trek creator) Gene Roddenberry's dreams. Basically, an elementary school where 24th century Star Trek utopia ethics were part of the curriculum. That's actually kind of cool. :D The teenage version of me ended up teaching at that school. (I think the teenage version of me represented my purer, more idealistic core still remaining inside me but these days buried under all the realism and cynicism that has taken me over during the past 20 years.)

It ended with teen-me teaching eight year old kids at the school about how to be better leaders for a humanistic, anticorporate future and how to believe in the innate goodness of human race.

Maybe that represents that I still have some hope for the future. :)

Maybe that's because of a certain someone. ;)

But stepping away from the psychoanalysis for a second, I sure don't have dull dreams. :D Considering all the negative things I described, one might think it might have been a nightmare, but although I was very tense when I woke up, I wouldn't characterize it that way. More like a tense thriller or action movie, but not a scary flick. I'm lucky in that I almost never have nightmares.

But now I have to finish up here so I can start getting ready to escort my certain someone to an eighties party. :) Later. :)

samy — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:31:03 GMT

As per Facebook,

"is in a relationship"

So there. :)

And yes, she's awesome. :)

samy — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:30:19 GMT

Outlook very bright. :) :) :)

Hot

samy — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:10:20 GMT

A woman who is so into science that she has the DNA helix tattooed around her arm. :) :)

Existence

samy — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:10:28 GMT

While linking on from Wikipedia's existential crisis article, I chanced upon this webpage:

Existential depression in gifted individuals

which had some interesting things to say. I wouldn't consider myself "gifted" [in fact considering my scholastic success I'm probably below average (although one could always take the argumentative route that sometimes gifted people do poorly in school because they get bored, but I won't take that route because it's egotistically self-serving)] but I think the same thoughts can occur in non-gifted individuals as well.

"Because gifted children are able to consider the possibilities of how things might be, they tend to be idealists. However, they are simultaneously able to see that the world is falling short of how it might be. Because they are intense, gifted children feel keenly the disappointment and frustration which occurs when ideals are not reached. Similarly, these youngsters quickly spot the inconsistencies, arbitrariness and absurdities in society and in the behaviors of those around them. Traditions are questioned or challenged. For example, why do we put such tight sex-role or age-role restrictions on people? Why do people engage in hypocritical behaviors in which they say one thing and then do another? Why do people say things they really do not mean at all? Why are so many people so unthinking and uncaring in their dealings with others? How much difference in the world can one person's life make?"

"When gifted children try to share these concerns with others, they are usually met with reactions ranging from puzzlement to hostility."

"When their intensity is combined with multi-potentiality, these youngsters become particularly frustrated with the existential limitations of space and time. There simply aren't enough hours in the day to develop all of the talents that many of these children have. Making choices among the possibilities is indeed arbitrary; there is no "ultimately right" choice. Even choosing a vocation can be difficult if one is trying to make a career decision between essentially equal passion, talents and potential in violin, neurology, theoretical mathematics and international relations."

"The reaction of gifted youngsters (again with intensity) to these frustrations is often one of anger. But they quickly discover that their anger is futile, for it is really directed at "fate" or at other matters which they are not able to control. Anger that is powerless evolves quickly into depression."

"Such existential depressions deserve careful attention, since they can be precursors to suicide."

"However, we can help youngsters learn to feel that they are understood and not so alone and that there are ways to manage their freedom and their sense of isolation."

"The isolation is helped to a degree by simply communicating to the youngster that someone else understands the issues that he/she is grappling with. Even though your experience is not exactly the same as mine, I feel far less alone if I know that you have had experiences that are reasonably similar. This is why relationships are so extremely important in the long-term adjustment of gifted children"

"A particular way of breaking through the sense of isolation is through touch. In the same way that infants need to be held and touched, so do persons who are experiencing existential aloneness. Touch seems to be a fundamental and instinctual aspect of existence"

(And among Finnish male society especially, touching isn't especially an encouraged or valued method of interaction. I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times in a month that I am physically touched by another human.)

"It is such existential issues that lead many of our gifted individuals to bury themselves so intensively in "causes" (whether these causes are academics, political or social causes, or cults). Unfortunately, these existential issues can also prompt periods of depression, often mixed with desperate, thrashing attempts to "belong." Helping these individuals to recognize the basic existential issues may help, but only if done in a kind and accepting way."

Bipolar

samy — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:13:52 GMT

I think I'm definitely starting to think I have bipolar rather than depression. It's like my heart is making a sine wave. I get these waves of "life is great" and waves of "I wish I were dead". I think the amplitude (the intensity of the peaks and troughs) is lessening gradually though and maybe in a couple of years I could see the waves settling to a more level ocean. It's also a little reassuring to know that if I feel like crap, I can wait a couple of hours and distract myself with some webpage, and the feeling will usually go away with time. It'll return eventually of course, but at least I'm not at a constant bottom anymore. It's easier to endure the bottoms of the sea when I know I'll come up for air periodically. I've also noticed that there are definite triggers for the bottoms, like when I see particularly sad fates, I empathize and it starts a bottom for me (like the mummy thing yesterday), or -- unfortunately -- when I see particularly good fates, which makes me feel jealous and rub in everything that I'm missing myself, which also triggers bottom episodes. I'd probably be best off if I focused on hanging out with people who are kind of average-ish and don't have either big tragedies that I'd empathize with, nor things I would become jealous about. That would eliminate a lot of the bottom triggers and maybe help smooth out the waves.

iPad

samy — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:42:43 GMT

Well they finally unveiled it. My initial thoughts are rather underwhelmed. It's got barely better resolution than my current phone (800x480 vs 1024x768) so I don't know carrying around that huge screen gives me that much more advantage in screen real estate compared to something I can put in my pocket. What's more, it seems it *still* doesn't have *multitasking*. For god's sakes, my Amiga 500 back in 1987 could multitask, have a music player and a chat program and a text editor open at the same time, and Apple still can't make that work 23 years later? (OMG, has it really been 23 years??)

Another of my chief concerns is durability. That's a pretty big plate of glass (or whatever it's made of) to be carrying around constantly, it better be pretty friggin' durable and rugged. Now, the same accusation can be levelled against laptops too of course, but laptops at least have the advantage of having a closable lid which protects the screen so that it's not on the outer damage-prone surface of the device. Phones are small enough that they can be put out of harm's way, and laptops have a protective lid. I imagine we'll probably see some nice carry bags for the iPad with a hard shell and padding inside, which would negate a lot of the concern. Such a carry bag would IMO be practically a must for the device. I really worry about that screen, it scares me to think of hundreds of those in subway traffic et al.

And for me personally of course, as a writer, the lack of a keyboard is pretty much a deal breaker.

All in all, I don't really think I, at least, have enough need for a device between the phone and the laptop. It's true that I could use a better portable device for web browsing and other activities than my phone, but at the end of the day, the very minor jump in resolution and screen real estate really isn't worth losing multitasking and a keyboard. So I think I'll just stick with my phone for small web browsing and pull out my laptop when I need to do the big browsing.

Mummy

samy — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:45:17 GMT

Ah, wonderful. The evening papers today are again writing about another case where a mummified body was found in an apartment, having been dead for approximately 2.5 years. In a sidebar the article listed five other similar cases in recent years.

I just know I'm going to end up like that. I'm gonna end up like that and I warned people many times and nobody cares. :b Well, not completely nobody. A couple people introduced me to their friends. Those were rare highlights and much appreciated. :)

I think I'll rather just take my chances trekking the jungles. I'd rather be eaten by a tiger and disappear without a trace into the jungle, than die alone and sit at home mummifying for three years. I'd rather die active than passive. I refuse to die at home if a home is just an empty shell without love. Things would be different if home had love. If I had family to be with, I'd be happy to die at home with them. But I don't, and home is just a shell of rock and plaster and I have no desire to die in an inhuman box.

I'm going to go somewhere out there and have adventures and die with my boots on and be shot dead by Burmese soldiers or eaten by cannibals or murdered by robbers or whatever, I'll much rather take that than just sit at home and die and mummify there for years until somebody stumbles in by accident. Fuck home. Home is nothing without love in it. I'd rather die hopelessly fighting a tiger or even contracting goddamned malaria than sitting in a damn recliner alone.

I hate that whole concept of mummified death so much, it's the ultimate expression of nobody cared about you, that you were so valueless to society that your passing didn't leave a single ripple. I'd rather be beheaded by terrorists than be mummified. At least that way some people thought that your passing might affect somebody somewhere, which is a compliment compared to the complete non-relevance and non-existence of mummified death. I hate it so much and I refuse to go like that. I'd rather go any other way in the world but that.

Route

samy — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:52:11 GMT

I spent the entire day reading Thailand sights and now I've got a rough draft of a route.

Link

Biking straight through Thailand from the north border to the south border would have been "only" 1800km. This route only gets halfway down the country and runs up to 2500km. There's way too much to see. Heck, even 1800 might be too much, I'll have to see. The good thing about cycling is that you're not tied to any itinerary and you can change everything at a moment's notice depending on how you feel every morning. For all I know, I'll end up starting in Chiang Rai, biking 50 km, then finding a beautiful place and feeling lazy and renting a place and just sitting there stationary for three months, writing a book. :b That would definitely be a less than impressive performance, but it is very relieving to know that I could do that if I felt like it, that there's no obligation on my back.

On the other hand, without an obligation, that only makes it more likely that I'll become lazy if I don't have to fulfill some mandate to bike two thousand km.

On the third hand, the stuff I've been researching is so interesting and I've managed to pace it frequently enough that it's always just "only 50km to the next one..." that their magnetism might actually manage to pull my lethargic self onwards through this journey.

Drink

samy — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 13:31:16 GMT

If I'm going to do 6-10 hours of biking a day, I need to have a hydration system. One part of that is the hydration pack, but I'll address that another day. The second part is the contents of the pack, i.e. the liquid to drink. As many know, drinking just plain water while exercising for lengthy periods of time is going to result in bad things -- hence the invention "sports drinks" which replenish the nutrients lost with sweating so the exercise can go on.

Alas, purchasing a gallon of sports drinks per day for three months running would probably double my daily expenses. Therefore, an alternative must be formulated. There's many instructions on the Internet for "make your own sports drink", but most of them seem to rely on access to a home fridge, since they list a whole bunch of perishable or otherwise difficult to carry goods. What I need, on the road, is compact dry goods. Salt and sugar are easy dry goods to carry along fairly compactly and mix in with water, so that would make a good base, but there are other micronutrients also that need replenishing, such as potassium. So I need to figure out an easy, cheap and *consistently available practically everywhere* source of various micronutrients to get a good balance.

Lots

samy — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:58:22 GMT

Man, I am so overwhelmed by everything I need to do and buy. I have a year before I'm planning to go on my Southeast Asia trip and I feel like it's not going to be enough.

And I may have to cut down on the route ambitions. North Thailand to Singapore would be totally doable in three months if I just biked it straight through but if I want to stop to enjoy the ambience of certain places and smell the roses, as it were, I don't think it's doable. Maybe just plain Thailand north border to south border would suffice if I want to actually stop to see things.

Going just straight through would be about 1800km. Now that's only three weeks of cycling. But add in all the detours to see cool things, that can easily double that to six weeks. Then add rest days and chilling walking around days to take in the locales and double again to about 12 weeks and that's the three months there already.

So maybe Chiang Rai - Krabi would suffice for three months. I could do all the way to Singapore if I didn't stop to see anything, easy. But what's the point of traveling if you don't stop to see anything. I don't see value in cycling just for the sake of cycling.

On the other hand, the eastern coast of Thailand is interesting too. Less developed, less touristy than Phuket et al. Maybe I should head east from Bangkok.

samy — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:50:13 GMT

LOL! "Pedalphiles Cycling Club"? I'm sorry but I would not join a club named that if you paid me. :D It's FAR too easy for the tongue to slip there. :D

World Trek: TNG

samy — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:42:05 GMT

After positive experiences with last year's pilot miniseries set in Florida, the budgetary division has given preliminary approval to commissioning a whole new season of exploratory journeys.

The year 2010 will be spent preparing the logistics for the first season, and in January 2011 filming is expected to begin in the city of Bangkok, Thailand. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the season is expected to run until March or April of that year and follow the protagonist's cycling journey through Thailand, and depending on the pace that will be established, may go further south to peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, and/or the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

Required preparations checklist for future reference:

Visas
Vaccines
Travel insurance
Maps
Phrasebooks
Better camera
New bicycle (poss. from Bangkok)
Bicycle helmet
Hydration backpack (Camelbak, Osprey et al)
Bicycle toolkit
Hub dynamos to generate electricity while cycling
Design/build or obtain unit that converts 6VAC to 12VDC for laptop charging
Research good anti-insect clothing (malaria defense et al)
Research defense against larger beasts (feral dog packs reported in some areas)
Research points of interest to visit for episodes
Plan routes to meet up with episodes

Possible episodes:

Golden Triangle, point where Thailand, Laos and Burma/Myanmar connect, opium history and museum
Thailand's highest mountains, going from North to South
- Loi Un in Chiang Rai
- Doi Inthanon in Chiang Mai
- Khao Mokochu in Nakhon Sawan (prob. too challenging to climb, maybe just photograph)
Kayan people (neck elongation tradition) in Mae Hong Son
Poss. other hill tribes in the north
More to come...

Any advice, recommendations, or requests are entertained.