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mood

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dorky

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( Because LJ is the only place that'll let me hide spoilers behind a cut...Collapse )

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mood

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content

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• Got irradiated at two different airports
• Played Rock Band 3
• Started playing through Link's Awakening again
• Suffered writer's block with the Machine of Death story I thought I would write
• Played new board/card games and showed some of my own to friends
• Visited downtown St. Louis
• Visited downtown Atlanta
• Visited downtown Charleston
• Tried out the FATE roleplaying system
• Went to a drive-in movie theater
• Slid down a ten story spiral slide
• Crawled underneath a miniature city
• Buried a friend with sponges
• Ate Chick-fil-a in three different states
• Experienced thunderstorms in three different states
• Saw captive dolphins frolicking
• Saw wild dolphins frolicking
• Tried 10 beers I had never had before
• Rode through a real covered bridge
• Watched Super 8 (awesome), Green Lantern (blech), Thor (fun), Sucker Punch (meh), and Rio (meh)
• Lounged on a boat on a lake
• Discovered that root beer floats with cinnamon ice cream are awesome
• Survived the dander of four different cats
• Suffered sips from two accidental sweet teas.
• Helped two different 2-year-olds get into their car seats
• Bought two hats
• Rode a bunch of roller coasters at Six Flags Over Georgia
• Went to a meeting at a Spanish-speaking congregation (couldn't understand anything but everyone was very friendly)
• Slept a lot
• Ate a lot of amazing food
• Had a fantastic time with a lot of friends that I wish I could see more often

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mood

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dreaming

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I didn't really know who I was. Everything was kind of fuzzy as my coworker Tom and I picked our way through the city. The backlot segued to a mall which segued to a 1920s jazz casino. It was only when Tom stopped to tickle the ivories of an upright that I noticed the hat on his head. My hat. He had stolen my hat.

That's when it came back to me: the smoke, the burning. I knew who he was, and he knew who I was. I wouldn't exactly call us enemies, or even rivals. But he'd taken my hat. That had to be dealt with.

I picked him up, slammed him against the wall a couple times, and then threw him to the other side of the casino hall. People began to press themselves away from us. As I approached him again, I called out to the crowd as loud as I could, "Hey everybody, you ever heard of the Sandman?"

In proper jazz call-and-response manner, everyone shouted back in unison, "Yeah!" Oh yeah, the Sandman was infamous for burning whole forests and towns. Anyone that wasn't shouting back was screaming and running.

"Well I'm about to beat the crap out of him!" I shouted again. More screaming and running. "And there's gonna be a whooooooooooole heckuvalotta collateral damage!"

See, the only person who knew my power was Tom, A.K.A. the Sandman. Anytime I punched someone, it also made a small grenade drop out of the air onto their head. Tom, standing up in front of me, was still smiling. I picked my hat up off the ground and set it firmly back on my head.

What Tom didn't know is that I could also use MIRVs.

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mood

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crushed

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I don't want to have to be strong. I want to be me. I want that to be enough.

I'm not sure which is more painful: not recognizing people I know I should recognize, or not being recognized by people I know should recognize me.

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mood

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thoughtful

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Warning: this may ramble.

The Individual thinks, "I am strong." The Individual thinks, "I am smart enough to handle Activity A. I am wise enough to handle Situation X. It is my right as an individual to partake of Activity A and involve myself in Situation X as much as I like."

None of those statements may, in and of themselves, be wrong. But often the Individual's choice to indulge that right is socially irresponsible. The Individual projects his (or her) own strength onto those around him. Or the Individual just doesn't care.

While the Individual may be strong, and may be able to handle intellectually or emotionally difficult things, the majority of those observing the Individual probably aren't. Who will tell them, "Don't do what the Individual does"? Who among the weak will accept their weakness in the face of the strong?

In short, the concept is this: Something may be logically right in an ideal world, but it is a responsibility of the strong not to lead the weak into activities and situations they can't handle, even if it's simply by example.

I think this concept may be easier to explain in cultures where the community is placed at a higher value than the individual, but it's a bit difficult here in America. I've encountered a lot of "free thinkers" arguing against stricter moralities based on admirable ideals, and their arguments were logically compelling. Unfortunately, I don't believe any of those ideals can be realized while man himself is so woefully imperfect.

I might also phrase it like this then: A strong moral code isn't about finding a way to live your own life well, rather it is about finding a way to help others live well.

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mood

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tired

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Sometimes I say something to someone about a topic, or some aspect of a topic. Maybe my statement takes the form of "I think X and really Y", or something like that. Then, the other person responds as if I'd said "I think Y and really X", or maybe they think I was talking about W.

At that point, I'm pretty doomed. Even if I don't really care that much about my opinion of X or Y, I care a lot about clear and accurate communication and understanding, and I find I will spend a lot more time and effort debating a point if I think I've been misunderstood than if I just simply feel the other person disagrees with me. I often fear this makes me come across as an argumentative jerk or dramamonger when really I just want to make sure I'm being clear.

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mood

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excited

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On our way to Comic-con!

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mood

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disappointed

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I reread the Chronicles of Narnia this week, due to being excited about the Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie but realizing I hardly remembered anything that happened in it.

They were all a lot shorter than I remember from my childhood, but I suppose that makes them good movie fodder. I was disappointed though that Voyage of the Dawn Treader is basically the climax of the series, and it just goes downhill from there. The few bits I had remembered from The Silver Chair were really the only bits worth remembering: the introduction of Jill and the completion of their quest. Everything else was dullsville, and a rather anticlimactic way to end the stories of Narnia.

Which, of course, is to say it was the last real story of Narnia. I suppose I have a better perspective now to understand that The Last Battle is no true Narnian tale. The other books did have Christian symbolism tossed about here and there, but with The Last Battle it's the exact opposite. It's more or less one great big allegory for the last days, Armageddon, and paradise, with a few bits of Narnian continuity tossed about here and there. As Biblical allegories go, it's probably not terrible, but it sacrificed too much of what made the series great to achieve it's goals. It treated its characters without any of its previously awarded respect (casting aside Susan just to get the symbolic number seven), and beat just about everyone involved about the head with the stupid stick.

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mood

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sleepy

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The princess, strangely dressed in civilian attire, approached me through the crowd with a confused expression on her face. "You seem really familiar..." she commented.

"Well, you're the princess," I answered, to explain why of course we knew each other. But she just laughed.

"I'm not the princess just yet, silly! The contest hasn't started yet to see who gets to be the new princess." That, at least, explained the large crowd that was forming in front of the palace.

I didn't really know what to say, so I decided to just play along. I put out my hand. "Well it was nice meeting you," I said. She took my hand and shook it, smiling and thanking me. Then she made her way forward to take her place with the other 'contestants'. I might have thought she was pranking me, but there was no way every single other person in this crowd could have also failed to recognize her. Someone had made her forget who she was. Someone had made everyone forget who she was, and I needed to find out who, and how.

I trekked a good ways up and down the boulevard as the beginning ceremony was being announced, just to check the audience's reaction, look for any suspicious types, and to see if there really was nobody but me who recognized her.

As I was about to compete my circuit, I spotted my friend and rival for the princess's heart. I didn't know if he had anything to do with this, but I did know I needed to get him out of the picture so that I could help the princess unhindered. As he fell in beside me and put his arm across my shoulder I said, "We need to talk", and I began leading him towards a gap in the chain link fence making off this part of the palace grounds.

The street on the other side was residential, but not overdeveloped. We walked a ways in silence. "So, what did you want to talk about?" he asked, sensing that this meeting was likely to be more rivalry than friendship. I just chuckled and kept walking.

He remained in step, not wanting to make the first move and give me an opening. Finally, as we were stepping down into a ditch I grabbed his arm and did a flip, causing us to land on our backs, with me on top of him. "Ok," he wheezed, "I'll admit, that was a pretty good one." I rolled off and to my feet just as we heard the most terrible noise coming from up the street.

Standing about twenty feet away was a brutish, black skinned creature standing on two legs but making sounds that no human could make. As my friend stood up we looked at each other. There was no discussion, we just ran. The creature screamed again and began its chase.

As I ran, my legs began to fail. It felt like I was running with ten bricks tied to each foot. My friend surged ahead of me, and somehow I found myself aimed for a solid part of the fence, rather than the opening we had come through. I stopped at the fence. "Look, this is just silly," I said, "For one, there is no way that guy is faster than me. Two, I definitely would have run straight for the gap. It's not hard!" I turned around and sat down. "I'm just going to sit here. You can do whatever it is you're gonna do, because this just isn't fair or cool."

For a second, I thought the creature was going to go chasing after my friend, because he had moved, and some predators go for the thing that moves before the thing that's still. But it only swayed a moment and looked back at me. I glared back at it.

It's expression changed to concern. "Hey, don't look at me like that," it said. "I just wanted to show you something!" It backed away a bit to start crossing the street. "Come on, come over here, I want to show you something." Nervously I followed.

When we reached the other side of the street, the beast entered the yard of the house there and strode into the vegetation. It scooped up a giant mass of leaves in each hand and threw them all into its face. "Wheeeeeeee!" it cried. It scooped up another handful and buried its face in it. "Wahoooommmnmnmn" it went.

I stepped back and surveyed the scene, and that's when I realized it. The yard of this house was completely overgrown with monsternip!

And then I woke up.

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mood

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frustrated

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The water seeks. The brook trickles. The creek wanders. The river lays out across a plain of limitless potential.
The banks grow. The soil breaks. The stones give. The prison walls rise and the horizons die.
Into the trench the river runs.
Through the gorge the current flows.
At the bottom of the ravine the water courses.
Down the deep canyon the trap is formed.
Every day along the same path.
Every week without deviation.
Every month ever familiar.
Every year the sky gets smaller.
The storm breaks. The torrent beats. The wind howls. The outside world assaults the chained leviathan.
The river rages. The currents churn. The rapids thunder. The weight of the water pulls it down its inescapable course.

Deeper and deeper.
Farther and farther.
Longer and longer.
Forever and ever.

Stuck.

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mood

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melancholy

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People who value a smug sense of moral superiority over a socially functional community need a brainwipe.

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mood

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accomplished

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So Valve, the makers of Team Fortress 2 and other games, held a contest for faux war propaganda posters. I made four!

Rain of Pain
One Eye in Team
Stick Together!
Bullies