Month: June 2005

Rather than comment in your LJ, I am writing my whole thoughts out here, because I will have more room.

I dunno how much faith i put in internet tarot… an alternative reading to your sequence though:

Central issue — Wheel of Fortune, reversed
Due to a failure or reluctance to exert free will, a great change (which cannot be taken back) is required to break the pattern of your life. The changes will be bad for someone. The central issue being reversed means that you must not only look at how this cycle change affects you, but the other major and minor influences. This portent underlies the dangers of prescience – it reminds us that though we can play the odds, we do not have a choice at what comes of life, only how we can react to life as it comes at us. Making different decisions at any point down the tree will drastically change the outcome of the revolution of the wheel. The unity of the wheel’s circumference is enhanced in this reading by the full cycle of elemental presences within the cross.

Obstacle — King of Wands
I agree that this card probably represents Andrew. Given the circumstance, it fits too well. It could, however, stand for another family member, or, perhaps a co-worker of authority.

Goal — Page of Coins
This represents the ideal you are reaching for, that path to which is impeded by your Obstacle. The focus of this strong earth card is to remain true to the course you set out on (or were perhaps put on by the wheel) in order to attain those ideals, which are most probably rooted in material things (though not necessarily material in the consumer sense). You have had two strong elemental presences at important points in the cross, a pattern to watch for.

Foundation of the situation — Four of Wands (Completion)
This card is tied to your Goal in complimenting form. Perhaps your goal is an offshoot of having a restful emotional state, or perhaps the prosperity of an emotionally secure situation will only be recognizable when the path to your goals are in place. Wither way, the positive outcomes of the linked natures of these cards tie back to the wheel, and your ability to circumnavigate not only what life has thrown you into, but what you have chosen to do as a result of that change in fortune.

Passing influence — Ten of Cups (Satiety), reversed
These all appear to be ramifications of the Central issue, as they relate to the Central issue. This card is significant in it’s transient nature not only because of its strong elemental ties (last low suit of water) but because it’s elemental nature is tied to the position in the read. Passing states of fluid discontent and stagnation offset by lack of fulfillment that have become part of the cycle being presented elementally, and broken by the wheel.

Approaching influence — The Empress
While the recurring elements of success and productivity could again be self-reflection in an approaching influence (perhaps a new manifestation of yourself as you change to meet the path of the wheel), this card could also suggest an increased female presence or influence in your world. These individuals could be represented by this card (your mother or sister perhaps, or people you haven’t met yet), or it could be the ultimate destination you find for yourself visa vie the influence of strong feminine presence in the path ahead of you, particularly someone with Venutian influence in their astrological makeup.

My role/attitude — Eight of Coins (Prudence), reversed
This earth presence is more rooted in the habits being broken by Passing influences and your central issue. It is the reaction to going from a very strong fire presence with a fire based path when ultimately, the root of your goals and hopes lies in earth and water. Perhaps as a result of the longstanding in congruency between the two, you have become imprudent in your habits, seeking retreat and repeated mistakes rather than facing the steepness of the path to your goals.

Surroundings — Strength, reversed
This card accurately depicts the aftermath of the flash point of the central issue in the face of actions and influences. You are at the mercy of the Obstacle, defenseless despite an act of unmitigated strength, but weak against the repetition of the pattern set forth by your attitudes of the past, and passing influences. This card is tied directly to Leo, which chains it inexorably to your Obstacle, and the majority of the conflict in the reading, which seems to be based in fire, and it’s conflict with the elements of your hopeful outcomes in life.

The Unexpected element — Ace of Swords
The elemental cycle is locked down with another poignant elemental presence, in a significantly placed location! The singular presence of strength and air represented by the naked solitary blade is somehow tied to your path (weal or woe). It suggests a hopeful outcome from a hidden location. Ten swords can stand against any obstacle, but with only one sword, wit, planning, intelligence, and allies must be brought into play. This card highlights the suspicion that external influences are going to be significant not only in succeeding in attaining your goals, but that some of these influences are probably, as of yet, unrevealed to you at this time.

Outcome — Three of Swords (Sorrow)
Contextually, the outcome was predetermined before you “flipped” the first card – Andrew’s heart will be broken no matter whether or not you succeed in attempting to attain your goals. Subjectively, the Outcome is tied most strongly to the Central Issue and the Obstacle. In this case, the outcome is born of the Central Issue, and affects not only you, but your obstacle in a central way. Perhaps the secondary significance of the obstacle is not only an impedance towards you attaining the goals you have the potential of succeeding gaining, but how that obstacle will relate to the new patterns which appear to be emerging. The key to preventing a repetition of your passing influences relies on your wits and will, as well as strong feminine influences in your future, and how those influences will mold you, or how you will mold yourself to meeting them.

I wrote a paper for the First International Conference on the Future of the Book in 2003. It was published in some of the conference apocrypha, and I used to have a link to a copy online, but it appears to be one. If I can dig up the proof later, I will repost it.

In that paper, I vigorously defended the need to ensure total portability and maintainability of a digital library. Countless of times over the course of history thought has been pooled by the destruction of a single tome which contained unique thought of the time. When the physical book was gone, the thought was erased, or obscured until rediscovered. Recent work on some of Archimedes’ texts have shown that the ancient Greeks (or at least one of them) knew a whole lot more than we give them credit for. Digital libraries need to have universal form and function, so they can be integrated into a greater collective of knowledge.

My paper argued that the meat of the book, the words, could be captured electronically and flawlessly. This process would preempt the happenstantial destruction of a work, and allow for simple and fast replication and dissemination. Further, with all works eventually becoming digital, cross referencing, indexing, and knowledge slicing would become streamlined to the point where you literally could find the connections between anything.

In Matthew Woodring Stover’s Heroes Die, we are given a fantastic view of what things may become (albeit with an incredible fantastic twist). The idea of purely electronic documents allows for the control of the text, and the ideas behind it. Books are tactile things, and hard to edit seamlessly. Electronic documents are susceptible to revisions without it ever being obvious to the reader, and in certain scenarios, even real time. The use of editions in large-scale publications address this somewhat in terms of being able to track changes across the history of a body of work in paper, but no such device exists for electronic documents in eprint.

The father of the protagonist in the book points out that if you have a printed copy of a book, nobody can twist or change the knowledge in that book without you knowing it. It is a particularly poignant point in the face of the big-brother information control environment, but one which I ultimately threw by the wayside as alarmist claptrap. After all, couldn’t people have been doing such things for years with conventional printing? From what I know about the bookmaking industry, enough things get into works gone to press that are _not_ supposed to be there that it wouldn’t surprise me if someone wanted to play big brother with a white pen, they could do so with relative ease. Perhaps naively, I assume that there will be no one single controlling interest overseeing the entire digital library process. That was why I was so adamant about open standards, so everyone is doing everything the same way, despite the fact that it was not all being done by the same people.

Many of the detracting arguments against eprint are aesthetic. Typeset, font, paper’s tactile value and color. The power of good binding and strong cover (not to mention cover art). All these things, to me, are secondary to the actual work – the words which capture the writer’s intent and pass them on to the reader. Some people can’t get past the actual process of flipping pages and holding a sheaf of paper. To them, I usually say, get over it.

Today was the first time, however, that something occurred to me which was a spot-on argument against eprint.

Steganography.

Not the new fangled hard core digital pixel manipulation encoding we all know and love thanks to media mongers after 9/11. I’m talking about the old school stuff. The stuff of the 14th and 15th century, which _I_ know and love.

All old textual stegnographic works that I have ever done any work on are all contextually based. That means that font type and placement, graphic placement and where that graphic related to the page count, chapter breaks etc, as well as the spacing of columns and tabs were absolutely integral to the ability to decode ANYTHING. Granted, some works (like Trithemius’ stuff, and Wolfgang Heidel’s writings) can be brute forced mathematically if you have the sequences and apply the correct pattern.

But, for true textual steganography, there is too much contextual nuance to be captured digitally, unless you do image scans. Image scans are something I am totally against, because of quality control issues, storage size, and the inability to tag them in a reliable manner with minimal human interaction (and therefore chance of error).

What this has made me realize is that most books are soulless things. They are little more than sentences and paragraphs of sinew and meat slapped over a skeletons of chapters and sections. However, in certain cases, the actual artifice of the book gives a physical work a soul. This is particularly the case in pre-printing press works, but there are clear exceptions to that generalization.

When the soul of such a book is to encapsulate a hidden meaning or message, the translation to electronic media in an elegant format seems too daunting a task to contemplate. Combined with the actual loss of the artifact itself as the de-facto source of experience (see the Archimides link above), I am now beginning to wonder if perhaps I need to revise my outlook on the significance of implementing true digital collections.

All this on less than three hours sleep! What have you done with your morning?

yesterday was a rough day. got the first coat of paint on my old room, got clothes unpacked, as well as 90% of kitchen goods.
must set up freshdirect order.

today, i had a presentation at 9am. however, unbeknown to me, some people going offsite snagged the usual laptop. neither of the fallback laptops would let someone who didn’t have admin privs run outlook, which is what the presentation was about. now i am writing documentation with screenshots.

don’t they teach email archiving in second grade these days? jesus of nazereth!

so i got an okcupid account a while back to take quizzes. then i had the stumble with the profile search thing, so i stayed away from it. later, i found out that since they have my email, whenever someone “mails” me in the system, i get a mail link in my inbox. i had a rule written to autotrash that shit in outlook, but, since my server was on and off during the move, most of the mail from this weekend didn’t get filtered. some of the non spam stuff was actually important. one item was kinda horrible.

sunday i got a “woo”. i guess that means “you are hot”? kidna like hotornot, without the number to hurt your feelings? i dunno. while i was sweating my balls off moving, worried that my movers had stolen all my worldly goods, i get a woo from this person. what the fuck?

no, seriously, what the fuck?!

i think i need to bathe in acid. can you delete okcupid profiles?

in other news, is hitting the town this weekend. we are going to do some of the silly touristy stuff, and hopefully some bbq going, drink drinking, and fireworks watching. possibly some movies in the mix if anyone missed any recent releases and is looking to catch up. i am definitely going to be looking forward to it after the week the way this week is shaping up.

go watch the king kong trailer! after a summer of childhood memory train wreck movies, it looks like there will be some hope before the year ends.

a tuesday that feels like a monday. 17 voice mails, and untold calamity. my assistant took yesterday off. surprise!

EDIT: the pink eye has hit the office! run for the hills. also, our card printer is broken, and, of course, it is card printing week. anyone have a high caliber firearm not currently in use?

i feel like i am made of bruised silly putty.
i managed to get enough of the kitchen unpacked to make a decent supper. i have enough of my bedroom unpacked that i should be able to make it to work on time.

so tired.

so sore.

goodnight moon.

so going to be up with the sun tomorrow. too tired to install venitian blinds.
hope everyone has a good monday, i’m gonna be digging out.
im me if you want – looks like all my web stuff is worked out – just gotta find a new monitor =/

moved.
monitor broken.
tired.
hot.
need to install a/c.
need to get another monitor.
for about 3 hours, i was very concerned that my movers were making off with all my worldly possesions.
life goes on.

i’m goin offline for the now – if you need me, hit the cell. website and non gmail email will be down until tomorrow probably.
movers should be here in an hour.
praise the lord, and pass the ammunition.

if anyone wants to gimme a hand/hang out tomorrw while i move, the company would be greatly appreciated. no actual moving is needed, as i have hired movers, but i would love to have extra sets of eyes to keep an eye on the truck/movers and gimme thoughts on my new place.

tomorrow is going to be a beautiful day, and i am sure y’all have way better things to do, but i thought i’d put it out there.

moving time is between 1-2pm. i’ll update if anything changes.

island alert!

as said, my pack-fu is strong. i am well on the way to complete, though i had to ditch my plans for the day to get there. usually i just pack through the night, because my movers are usually scheduled for crack of dawn. this time though, no movers until midday, so if i pull my old tricks, i’ll be outta crazy juice by the time i get moved.

last night i went and saw land of the dead with , after having a lovely dinner with . korean bbq’d cow lounge is good stuff folks! the movie was o.k. we got there a little too late for the nerd storm, so we had to sit in the front row. that, in and of itself, was not so bad a thing, but it put us three rows up from a totally stoned out urban gentleman who kinda fucked the movie. i mean, this was not an artistic experience, but i felt like we were trapped in a chapelle show skit. imagine the scene from scary movie, but with a guy, and about 1000 times worse. ultimately, everyone shouted him down, which cut most of his running dialouge. he still shouted something every time someone ganked or was ganked by a zombie – usually “yo, that was some gangsta shit!”

the only other thing i know about him is that john leguzamo is apparently his “nigga”, or so he said about 200 times throughout the movie.

after the movie, i hung out for a bit w/ , then met some friends of his roommate down in the village. ultimately, i ended up at ‘s place playing drunken jade empire and eating middle eastern food. i did manage to get home before the sun came up, about 10 minutes before got home.

sorry i missed out on the fun today and .rain checks for everyone!

6 years ago, when i was living with an ex, i had a fight with her about a dream that i had, which was not tumultuous, but had a lot of knowledge/context to it. i used to talk to her about my dreams sometimes. what was in that dream came to pass about 2 minutes ago. my freaking hands are shaking from the intensity of the deja vu.

the dream’s details made absolutely no sense then. i can’t say they make that much more sense now, but at least they fit.

everything, down to the lid/label of the coke bottle being black, which is ultimately what let me know it was a dream, cuz coke always has red caps and labels. except for this new coke zero crap.

Based on the lj interests lists of those who share my more unusual interests, the interests suggestion meme thinks I might be interested in
1. descartes score: 5
2. good design score: 5
3. stinkweeds score: 4
4. small boobies score: 4
5. any deep elm band score: 4
6. Θελημα score: 4
7. clark score: 4
8. sigils score: 4
9. dakini score: 4
10. ace cider score: 4
11. blaise pascal score: 4
12. babalon score: 4
13. four peaks score: 4
14. amber ales score: 4
15. locke score: 4
16. yoni score: 4
17. revelations score: 4
18. pan score: 4
19. new media score: 4
20. emotional strength score: 3

Type your username here to find out what interests it suggests for you.
Popularity Ceiling: (Please be patient!)

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Also, , scope this article.

help!
i just paid all my bills. my movers cannot possibly cost more than 500$ (if they try _really_ hard). even budgeting that, i have a decent cash surplus at the moment due to several well timed things.

give me guidance as to what path to take. i have been starving for my Sony F828 for over a year, and camera less for almost 6 months! i am camera hungry dammit!

looks like was dead on, semagic has tag support now. looks like i am getting absolutely nothing done today!
i was debating about seeing mc frontalot tonight, but as soon as i sat down at my computer this song came on, which was one of the first i heard by him. i think i have to go.

MC Frontalot w/ full band
Thursday, June 23rd
10 PM (confirmed)
The Bitter End
147 Bleecker Street
(between Thompson and LaGuardia)
seven dollar cover

I have 37 ties. I have much disassembled furniture, and a packed kitchen (except for fridge). I will try not to buy any ties on my way way to the parking lot.

And now, for my exhausted non-sequitor, I present Homer Simpson in Several Languages:

Armenian: Հոմր Սիմպսոն
Arabic: هومر سمسون
Chinese:荷馬辛普森
Georgian: ჰომეპ სიმპსონ
Greek: Χόμερ Σίμπσον
Hebrew: הומר סימפסון
Hindi: होमर सिम्पसन
Korean: 호머 심슨
Japanese: ホーマー・シンプソン
Russian: Гомер Симпсон
Tamil: ஹோமர் சிம்சொந்
Thai: โฮเมอร์ ซิมพ์สัน

if we lose this motherfucking game to the rain gods, i am not going to be a happy puppy.

edit: ruben sierra, i hope you get the clap from unprotected drunken sex with an infected transvestite, and the ny post is there to take pictures.

looks like we didn’t need the rain to drop the fucking ball.

after two hours sleep, i am looking back on the last 10 hours. i am counting my lucky stars. the fuckin kids were definitely green, the more i think of it. they can’t have tailed me for long, cuz i used my phone about 5 minutes before all this went down. they woulda gone for the phone too.

overall, i think my pride is hurt more than anything else. the guy barely clipped my nose, and it was from the side, so it wasn’t like i ended up with a shattered schnoz or anything – light discoloration by the nostril, that’s about it. i’m actually chuckling about how i musta looked wandering through wtc and to the poor cabby who carried my ass northward.

the lump on my head is mostly gone, though the fuzzy ache remains.

my hand hurts. the buttons on the kid’s shirt or jacket musta clipped me. i think it was a jean jacket, with those fucking big ass brass buttons.

like i said, pride hurt worst of all. i am goddamned tired. i fell asleep in my chair around 8ish, and david bowie screaming about changes woke my ass up. while i was not consciously thanking him at the time, i think my neck is.

thanks for everyone who wished well.

so i left ‘s place around 1:20 in the a.m. I walk to the PATH no problemo. get there, and i am the only one on the platform. wait about 5 minutes, mp3 player going. two persons approach me from down the stairs. they come right up to me, and appear to be asking me something. one is about two/three inches shorter, black, with dreadlocks. the other is probably 6 inches shorter, hispanic. i assume they are asking directions. i slip one earphone off my ear to answer. i get:

“yo white bread, lemme see your wallet”

“excuse me?”

“my buddy and i wanna see your wallet”

“how about no?”

“yo, i don’t think you heard me straight. if you don’t want trouble, my boy and i wanna see your fuckin wallet.”

at this point, i am trying to determine if either of them has a weapon. if not, i probably weigh close to what both of them combined do. if they have a weapon, i can get really fucking dead fast. before i can put my hand to my knife, dreadlocks puts his hand on my suit, and makes a grab for my pants pocket. i went into the train using the metrocard in my bag, so he assumed i kept my wallet in my pants i guess, if they were smart enough to fucking tail me.

i grab dreadlocks by the hair with my left hand, and suck the air out of him with my right fist via his gut. i am either getting shot or walking away clean. he folds like a lawn chair. while he is gasping like a waterless carp, jerking in my fist as such, his hispanic buddy starts backing off.

“yo, we don’t want no trouble.”

“step the fuck off before i call some cops.”

“no fucking need ese, we are gone.”

as soon as he says this, dreadlocks, who i still have a hand on by the hair, catches his breath. he pops me one in the nose, and when i am seeing white stars, starts hammering me on the right side of the head. i end up half crouched over. i remember seeing my bag by my feet as it slipped off my shoulder. luckily, my grip on his greasy locks did not let go. i slam his head into my knee. he re-folds, and the only thing keeping his face off the pavement is a fistful of his hair. hispanic boy, the wondrous mugging sidekick, has yet to move.

i drop dredsy on his face.

“get the fuck outta here man, before i fucking call some cops.”

“yo word, there must have been a misunderstanding.”

“fucking get lost asshole!”

he grabs dredsy and runs. it is at this point that i realize that i am bleeding from the nose. i am seeing red, yet i manage to get my handkerchief out of my pocket, instead of my knife. i ruined my white shirt in the process.

i sit the ride all the way to fucking wtc, applying direct pressure to my geyser nostril. my head feels like a brazilian conga band.

i get out, and hop a cab. ‘s house is the nearest safe haven i know. i must have looked a fright when i showed up. i spent about 10 minutes in the bathroom cleaning myself up, and getting the bleeding to stop.

i’m not overly fucked up. i didn’t get my nose broken- the pop, it just loosened a blood vessel.

i spent the rest of the eve with either ice or a cold drink on my pate. the lump is maybe 1/4 inch from the crack in my skull from my long ago fight in woodlawn. why couldn’t i have gotten a matching lump? motherfucker had to wail on me on the weak side of my skull.

i am scared to sleep until at least 8. 6 hours after a concussion is 1/4 chances of not waking up. 8 hours is 1/10. 12 hours is supposedly aok. i don’t know, after the week i’ve had, if i can make it to 2pm.

water and ice are my friends right now. advil is on the way to my gut. hopefully, the sunrise will give me some piece of mind.

my hands were shaking until at least 4.

i fucking hate the state of the dammned.

happy motherfucking satruday all.


A Picture Share!, originally uploaded by Murkatos.

The greatest crime is that there is no more howard johnsons for me to affordably drink my concussion away!

i made a post in . i completely blame .

there is a new , for any who care.

my day is teh suck, but my weekend looks good. finally confirmed movers – 4 guys, 24′ truck, 75$ an hour. this is probably going to be the cheapest move evar.

happy friday kids

since sunday, i have not had a good night’s sleep. my sleep margins are not what one would call copious, but this is not a new thing for me. i have been a sufferer of insomnia of greater or lesser acuteness since i was about 15. however, since sunday, i’m experiencing a slate of dreaming cycles which are wholly frustrating all the coping mechanisms i have built to date.

a big part of my insomnia is falling asleep – i have a hard time doing it. once i get to sleep, staying there is the next challenge. while better now than in previous years (17-19, i thought i really was going to go crazy), i very often have nightmares. not night terrors, just horribly disturbing dreams that create enough physical stress to pretty much negate any benefits of the sleep i was getting. this would normally last for one or two sleep cycles, then i would get up, only to crash four hours later for a cycle, then start my day. when i started with insomnia, i was averaging 4 hours, skipping some nights, getting more others, and living on coffee and tobacco. it was not a pleasant time.

a lot of the work i have done on lucid dreaming helped change this cycle. i can honestly say i average about 5 hours a night now, still skipping occasionally, but occasionally pulling a 6 hour night here and there, which is pretty tremendous!

the way that lucid dreaming helps is that i have been able to get to the point where, once i realize something is a dream, i can usually twist it into my grip, then either end it, or change it. while this is not 100% effective, it is, i’d say, probably 80% on spot. my thoughts are that if i can ever regularly attain the sleep-within-sleep stage of control, i will have complete mastery over my dreams. to date, i have only accomplished this three times, and never with “conscious” input on the matter.

most of the exceptions come in two forms – dreams born out of emotional issues currently plaguing me, featuring me as the protagonist, and dream chains. the emotional stuff is my brain trying to catch up with my psyche, so i don’t really think i will ever be able to control those 100%, but they are a very small fraction of the 1/5th of the dreams i can’t control. dream chains are a real kick in the pants.

a dream chain is where you have several dreams, either back to back, or in between wakeups, all of which surround the same central plot, idea, and oftentimes characters. sometimes links in the chain countermand previous links, sometimes they strengthen them. in either case, what happens is you get a chain of dream echoes, which reinforce the walls of reality surrounding the dream you are currently in. the longer the chain, the harder it is to realize the dream as a dream, and, beyond that, it is about 10 times harder to wrest control of the dream.

i was a devout onieromancer for a time, keeping copious dream journals, and cross-hashing imagery and symbols. my dream chains always bespoke of another reality inside my head, one which i cannot say i am wholly comfortable providing housing for. between mystical and plain old psychological analysis, i can definitely say that dream chains are the bane of my conscious and unconscious life.

the reason is that i rarely get a solid chunk of sleep at all. i went to bed at around 12:30 this morning, and i got a good gander at my clock ticking by every 37-49 minutes for about 30 minutes or so until i finally couldn’t take it any more.

recent dream chains include:
-a mutant spore which was capable of infesting people’s brains through the ear canal, resulting in eventual death, but a whole lot of PCP-esque insanity prior to death
-a serial killer who was capable of turning blood to slush by touch, which resulted in the agonizing explosion of one’s heart. i got to alternate between victims, the killer, and the persons hunting him
-a starship freight liner carrying cruise passengers to a faraway resort. the liner’s suspension systems are discovered to have been contaminated by a horrible disease, which has infected everyone but the crew. we have to awaken each passenger, extract vital information about where they were staying, who they were visiting, set up a will, etc, then kill them. the crew is awake, and becomes a cult over generations of awakening and killing.
-a horrible repetition of warping the events of the past few years, so much so that i woke up from the last dream almost in tears at a possible twist in the pattern.
-an entire series of antichrist origins, surrounding all manners of cults and demons/devils/angels. i did not figure out the link until the second to last dream. the devil was using “survival of the fittest” to determine who would carry his mantle into this world – essentially unleashing dozens of potential antichrists into the soup to duke it out.

as awesome as these sound as horror/scifi novels, comic books, or scifi channel series, i assure you, that when you re being subjected to the chapters of them in between small spates of sleep, which end up being not at all restful, they get increasingly disturbing as things progress.

the worst part is that i am now scared to try and induce chemically-assisted sleep, since that precludes my ability to wake myself up, and often creates some very vivid dreams. that combitation, at this point, would probably snap my brain stem or something.

it is hot!
work has been a real bear lately. i did not sleep hardly at all last night, which left me getting to work later than i wanted to today (but still about an hour earlier than everyone else). broke down and bought jade empire. it is everything i hoped it would be. i am actually having trouble with some of the battles and the difficulty cranked up all the way.

i packed up pantry and pots and pans today – maybe dishes later, if i can muster the energy. outlook hazy on that one.

i am continuing the audience participation trend with . if you don’t know what this is, start at the beginning before catching up – even if you don’t read, you should fill out the poll – it will make it more entertaining. i just realized that started the day after my birthday. that is pretty funny – i have no recolection of when i started it, only that i was bouncing off of a post made.

in cleaning out shit, i came across a stash of chocolate stuff i kept on hand for . it seemed a pity to toss it all, so i made some brownies for my co-workers. it is funny, how making brownies always stresses me out. i’ve never made a “bad” batch (where nobody liked them), but i have tried some pretty experimental mixes in my day. the biggest thing is that i don’t like chocolate, so i don’t taste what i am making – i am cooking with straight theory – it is funny to see how the results turn out.

i have several combinations which work pretty well – which ones would you want?

i need to sleep tonight. i had some really disturbing dreams all night, which kept me up until about quarter to six this morning with no continuous sleep greater than about 30 minutes from 2am on.

i’d love a drink right now, but i packed all my booze away 0_o

So, all the work i did between 5:20 and 6:30 last night was eradicated by a dropped HD. That drive was swapped with master that hadn’t synched yet with the drive I was working off of. You would think that Raid 5 would be fast enough to synch up over an hour. But what is this? We are not using Raid 5?! What do you mean help desk? Wait, you are using fucking SOFTWARE RAID 2 on an enterprise system?! Did I miss e fucking memo? Does that mean that when the systems are seeing undue load (like when everyone’s mail accounts are syncing at end of day) that the software raid driver craps out, and doesn’t get restarted until the service monitor rolls over once an hour? Oh, well, I’m glad you run that service monitor. If you didn’t, someone might lose, like, AN HOUR OF FUCKING WORK.

I didn’t actually find all this out from the help desk. I imagine they don’t even know what Raid is.

Needless to say, I am a bit toasted over this development.

Sunday is the accursed Puerto Rican day Parade. Between the fireworks in my neighborhood, and everything that can be draped with a flag being draped with a flag, I’ve already had enough, and it is not yet parade day. I find it humorous that the mayor is trying to keep pulling for the hispanic vote by encouraging people to stay open along 5th avenue. Tolerance and smarts have nothing to do with each other in this situation – lots of these places do the same thing for Patty’s day, and all that happens then is 5th ave gets painted with green puke. Mayor Mike doesn’t chime in then.

So, in a bid to avoid the whole thing, anyone want to do anything Sunday? I have to be in the W. Village about 4pm to pick up some keys, but other than that, I have no serious agenda. Movies, Bars, Food – all of the above? Ideas people, ideas. I don’t want to end up listening to a bunch of gang-gropers brag to each other in spanish from my 5th floor window.


A Picture Share!, originally uploaded by Murkatos.

A lot of packing and a glassful of jellyfish! I’m with you loco folks in spirit, and liver.

damn you

6 fav songs at the moment, in no particular order:

Dresden Dolls – Coin Operated Boy
Indeep – Last Night A DJ Saved My Life
Tom Waits – Ol’55
Daft Punk – Around the World
A3 – Woke Up This Morning
Rachmaninov – Prelude Op.23 no.5 in G minor

the buck ends here – i hate these memes that spread

i made some statements earlier in the week in someone else’s lj about the significance of forgiveness, and how my outlook concerning forgiveness and negative energy tends to govern my actions.

what i did not mention in that conversation is that my rules on reciprocal karma always come into play when i am the one being transgressed against, but do not always come into play in every situation.

you fuck with one of mine? it is up to them to determine forgiveness for the transgression. they give the green light on retaliation/remuneration, you better watch your fuckin life, your job, and anything you hold dear. my rage, much like my forgiveness, knows very few bounds.

Sixty one years ago, over 150,000 men took Normandy. .43% of them died before the day was done.

My grandfather was the same age I am now. He was stationed in the Pacific at the time.

My grandmother was 21. She was a nurse in Anzio, which saw more death than any other concentrated front in WW2.

How can anything I accomplish in this world stand tall in the shadow of those people, who, so young, had faced so much death and hardship for ideals they truly believed in?

There isin’t a government around I’d lay my life down for, short of the fight coming to my back door. I’d defend my home and country then, but only because the latter was in the former. My personal ideologies fall far afield of anything I’ve heard any politics espouse.

Who knows, perhaps if it were a different time, I would be another person? My cynicism seems fairly straightforward – I wonder if it would be as strong in an age where you didn’t have access to the data to arise suspicions and confirm doubts.

In my view, we have spent the last 200+change years in a downward and outward spiral of the ideals behind the document our government is supported by. At the same time, we have increased in prosperity, quality of life, global power, and corruption. The ratio’s rates are not constant, but the climb of one and the decline of another seem so self-evident.

Ideals are so contextual. Politics are extrapolations of ideals meant to cement a group of disparate people together into one body, to accomplish something greater than the individuals could accomplish themselves. I am a person who feels they cannot accurately judge the nature of the people around them. How can I subscribe to ANY larger political ideology?

I don’t know where all this is going. I spent a good amount of time today thinking about happiness. What makes a person happy? What sustains it? What is it in human nature that gets jealous or frustrated at other peoples’ happiness? I personally don’t begrudge anyone something that makes them happy, no matter how weird it may seem to me. I do, on occasion, throw in my two cents when asked for a direct opinion or advice, but I always spend as much time, if not more, trying to see an issue from all angles. It is hard to begrudge someone happiness for me, even if their angle on it seems inane to me, or, if it irks me in some way.

Why does it most people though? I mean, I personally subscribe to the Dennis Leary School of happiness (I’m actually born again, I gave it up to try something with , and that didn’t work so good). I find it hard to believe that someone could be happy always, in all ways. Yet, my belief does not stop these people from existing. One good observation was that it stems to the competitive aspect of our biological roots. Happiness is having all your needs filled and then some. If someone has that, then, ultimately, you want it too – despite the fact that you might have completely different needs.

We are weird little monkies dammit. We’ll die for ideas, and hate because of happiness. We’ll sacrifice plans for whims, and discount instincts to logic. We build walls around ourselves to hide our emotions from others, when the whole point of emotions in the first place is to allow communal bonds to form,and deeper senses of understanding. We will belittle those who are too aloof in the same way we ridicule those who are too open. Who determines the zeitgeist of “appropriate”?

I’m not sure where the road between strengths and weaknesses in this melange lies, if there even is a road.

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