Month: January 2006

Friday night, after a long week, decided to stay in, drink wine, and eat junk food. Had some friends show up, and more-or-less had a great time.
Saturday, I bummed around way too long before meeting up with Team Asses of Fire for their Idiotarod debut. While the afterparty was great, I missed the spectacle proper, which was too bad. I ran into some co-workers at the afterparty, which was very interesting. I also missed meeting up with and . I really want to see you guys! I need to make that a priority for next week, hopefully Sunday!

L.’s dad was in town, so I ended up splitting the Idiotarod scene early to head back uptown, and ended up spending the whole night up there! It was a really nice dinner (we had sushi) and drinks at the Marriott in Times Square (sweet pics here). I am really enjoying my new camera, and a flickr pro account.

Yesterday I was up early, and out the door before 10. Went to the UES to meet a friend who was in from Boston for the weekend. Had brunch in Chinatown, coffee in Little Italy, then walked down to the Fung Wah bus terminal, which was a spit away from the festivities for the year of the Dog. Lots of happy people, colored paper, and children in red. It took me almost an hour to get back across to a northbound west-side train. Met up with L. and we saw James Levine at Carnegie Hall. There was a piece from Bartok, an act from a German opera (I don’t remember it, and L. has my program), and the entirety of Stravinsky’s “Rites of Spring”. Until listening to the piece performed live last night, I never realized how much John Williams was influenced by Stravinsky. I could almost pick some of his themes from Jaws and Star Wars out of the air in front of me. Very enlightening. The afternoon was incredibly enjoyable, but, unfortunately, I was not built for the balcony seating at Carnagie Hall. I was more-or-less hobbled for the remainder of the day with fairly intense knee pain, but despite that I pressed on.

We didn’t meet up with L.’s father, who got pulled into some business, so instead we wandered up to 51st street, took the train home, and had english muffin pizzas and watched Family Guy, American dad and the Simpsons. Walking through Times Square , L. and I bumped in to Mike Starr at 48th street. It was wierd, didn’t even stop to say high, I just recognized him from The Last Dragon, and he boogied off. He has apparently done a lot since then.

The only other things of note are that I think I have my server/harddrive/backup situations plotted out and set on the road to recovery. It took 38 hours to re-merge my MBR for my server. I am thinking of re-formatting, re-installing, and simply adding the data back in. I am intimidated by the time commitment.

Speaking of time commitments, I got an invite to the beta for Battle for Middle-Earth II. I downloaded and installed no problem. Part of the Beta is evaluating the install process. It blows. EA has hired a company to add DRM to the game (which probably drives up the cost of the game, while doing nothing but frustrate honest users), which is just plain stupid. The requiremens include disabling antivirus, firewalls, routers, as well as any “non standard” browsers (meaning, anything but IE). When a game forces that amount of shit to prove you are not a thief, the game does not get my business. According to the forums for the beta, hundreds of users have been locked out of the beta due to crappy coding on the part of the DRM group. Way to go guys, nothing like killing enjoyment and creativity with shit-spwan lockdown tech. I’ll lump EA and Safecast in the same category as Itunes and Audible – that is to say, corporate thugs who I will not finance.

This week I have a fairly manic pace set, and I am hoping I can make it through to the Super Bowl. I have two invites conflicting already (go fig) with more doubtless cropping up as the week moves on.

I haven’t slept well in four days. I was having anxiety attacks about moving at 4am today. What the fuck is that about? I don’t ahve to move for months yet. I need to turn off my brain.

I had a revelation last night.

For years I have been searching for meaning, understanding, a sense of community and wholesomeness which I once had, when I had unwavering faith, but lost when that fell to the floor and shattered.

Last night, Jesus picked up the pieces. The devil’s plan of muddying my world with fact, with science, with philsophy, and history, and antrhopology has failed.

I realized the brilliance of Jesus’ plan. I had known for years how his message of messianic millitarism had been twisted by persecuted Christians when the Romans pushed the cult underground. Not everyone realizes that Jesus was an asskicker. He loves us, sure, but he wants us to save ourselves, and others, through force of arms. Drive out the corruption. Drive out the wrongdoers. Drive the blight of the sickled moon and the scar of the braided star from the Holy Land. Salvation comes with a scourge and some pain. It took centuries of a message of love to turn to a message of hatred, intolerance, and war. Jesus planted a seed on Golgotha, and it has sprouted in this day and age, birthing the new Crusade in preparation for the Rapture. It is not for the weak of heart. It is not for the wicked. Not everyone will be saved. You have to find Jesus in your heart, and tell him you believe, and that you will be his soldier. Being a soldier for Jesus means being willing to die for what you believe in, for what He teaches. It means being willing to kill for what you believe in, for what He teaches. It means saving as many as you can, and being able to condemn those who will not see the light, despite you reaching out with the hope of Jesus’ love. Being a solder of Christ means fighting the evils around the world and at home. It means stopping the abomonations of same-sex relationships, abortion, unwed pregnancy, drinking, and drugs. It means you devote yourself to a cause which will offer you redemption when the Rapture comes.

Jesus found me last night, and you guys are screwed. Most of you on my friends list are heathens, nonbelievers, or worse. Convert or die. I don’t have to preach it, the President is (God bless him), Middle America is (God bless them), and the rest of the world who embraces the truth and sanctity of the pureness of Jesus’ message. Accept Jesus’ love in your hearts, or die and burn forever in torment. Expect a friends list cut later this afternoon, after I get back from my Baptism.

I would like to thank this man for opening this door for me. Next to Jesus, he will always be one of my favorite people.

i have a hunch that we got served some bad seafood on friday.
lets play sherlock holmes, wut wut?

we all enjoy a wonderful dinner friday, wherein most of the table enjoys some scrumptious oysters. over the course of the weekend, we all get sick. this doesn’t fit with food poisioning, which usually has a much faster onset. the only thing most people at the table shared were the oysters. late onset bacterological or parasitic stuff does hold with a 24-36 hour onset.

, , and myself all suffer from major gastrointestinal distress, onset yesterday morning for primary syptoms, secondary assplosion occuring early am today.

puked that night, probably before too much digestion. puked twice yesterday, possibly preventing the onset of secondary symptoms. i chewed back puking all day yesterday, as did , and we got nailed by secondaries.

, did you have oysters? if so, did you end up yakking that night?

dysenteric inquiring minds want to know.

Monkey’s Paw from Oddities and
Curiosities

Owner: Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: [worried] Ooooh, that’s bad.
Owner: But it comes with a free Frogurt!
Homer: [relieved] That’s good.
Owner: The Frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: [worried] That’s bad.
Owner: But you get your choice of topping!
Homer: [relieved] That’s good.
Owner: The toppings contain Potassium Benzoate.
Homer: [stares]
Owner: That’s bad.
Homer: Can I go now?

been going through some notable quoteables lately, but i think that quiz will have to wait until next week.
this week will be all about first timers (not those kind, get your minds out of the gutter).

i posted pics from my trip. most are from the portland zoo, but a couple are from this bar in portland that had an intersting gimmick. you donate a buck fifty, and they roll a dollar around the quarters then toss it on the ceiling. it sticks. apparently via irish magic (aka a palmed thumb tack or a bit of sticky tape). at the end of the year, they scrape the ceiling, and the bar matches whatever was thrown up, and donates it to a charity.

cute gimmick.

realize that the pics i took are all sized down, lest i blow my flikr account. the origs are all 3-5 meg apiece, and are lovely resolution. also realize, for some of the shots (like my favs of the polar bears) i was pretty damn far away, on the other side of a pane of glass.

enjoy!

my network blew up while i was away. the primary hard drive on my server is going. jack is not a happy puppy about these things. i managed to get a fast image of the hard drive, and will swap it out tonight. i need to get a new router, and am considering upgrading to a gigabit backbone for the wired portion, now that i can use the 54 megabit for the wireless.

the tech shit never ends dammit.

what did y’all do with your long weekends? I know it is practically the end of the week, and they may have seemed like yesterday’s dreams, but there is no way in hell i can possibly backread as many entries as i missed while i was gone. let me know if i missed any signifigant developments.

this post was brought to you by the letter ‘p’ and little thirty second spurts of typing spread out over the whole day. sorry if it comes across as non-linear. it probably isin’t.

i went to a part of the country that is experiencing record floods and rainfall. go me. it was a lot of flying, and a bit of learning about how differently L and i travel.

had a decent time with L’s mom/stepdad. went to a zoo, took some great pictures with my new camera (working on them now). my flikr account is definitely going to be getting a workout from this badboy. a freakin 8 megapixel image is about 3 meg! i love being able to go about 500x in on a pic and still have it keep clarity.

i’m back, tired, and in the same weather i have been in for almost a week!

i need some zz’s. i am behind in both my professional work and some personal stuff.

today is just a fuzz day.

after months and months of some of you listening to me bitch and moan about maybe getting this goddamn camera, it has finally arrived.

i am buying it lightly used for half of what i would have paid four months ago, the last time i was considering buying it. it is roughly 1/3 of the orig list price. i am going to get some big mofo mem cards, and a case for it. i will by the pro shooter pack when i get back next week.

holyfuckingshitiampsyched!

now i just need to be conservative with the greenbacks until, say, april.

i’m gettin an office in the next coupla weeks.
not a huge one, nor a particularly nicely placed one, but it is still an office, and i will finally have a goddamned door!

many years ago (6, i believe) bought me this mug tankard as an xmas present. my romate’s devil cat broke it today by knocking it off the kitchen table. it is was, quite literally, my solo drinking vessel, aside from a backup JD mug and a drinking horn. i have never seen another like it anywhere. there are pictures below the cut. it was a 22 oz mug tankard. the metal is pewter and the glass is blue.


there was no manufacturer or stamp ANYWHERE on the item

it held 22 ozes of goodness

the cat broke it by knocking it off the table – the glass inside is totally busted up

but as you can see in the pics, it was really more of a 22oz glass cylendar encased in a pewter shell /mug handle

i need a new mug tankard. i don’t want to get a straight pewter one, because they flavor drinks slightly IMO. so, what i am looking for is something of heavy glass or pewter/glass that i can use to replace my fallen warror.

fuckin cats.

EDIT:


this appears to be the lead contender for a replacement

I was horribly unimpressed. There were definitely things I liked about it, but overall I was horribly disappointed. They tried to do too much. Disney should have either made it a children’s movie, or a more adult film (a la LOTR). Too much in-between made me feel like I watched a two-hour long WB11 scifi/fant thing. It hurts. Aside from the professor, and the visuals of the ice queen, nothing remarkable, aside from yet another battle scene. After the ride of the Rohirrim though, really, who can do something like that better? Once again, I am haunted by the spirit of the stories, as opposed to what was created in their image. Lewis never wanted any film representations of his work to be anything but animated. Many of the people I have read defending Disney in their decision to countermand the author’s own preferences have said something along these lines: “Aslan was cgi, everything is O.K., no animal buggery or mockery”. I couldn’t disagree more. Like with the redux of Star Wars, the CGI adds an element of realism unattainable via any other medium, but, when mixed with traditional hollywood costuming, you end up with a mess. Many of the costumes for the Narnians were beautiful in their own right, but when you put a quasi-anamatronic minotaur in the same context as a mostly CGI centaur (or some unbelievably well rendered griffins), it creates a conflict. How can one move so fluidly, with the physics of its form matching so well with it’s enviornment, and the other bounce and jostle, with completely unrealistic physics. This becomes even more confounding when you mix scenes that have a CGI rendered version of the creature that also has a costume. Why does it look like something Henson studios put out 20 years ago in one scene, and something that Lucasarts did this year in another? This was particularly evident in the scene at the broken table at Aslan’s sacrifice.

Frustrating. The byproduct of having a love of the literature, and too-high expectations when it comes to putting them to film. Such is life, I guess. They did manage to not mangle too much of the storyline. The professor, as I said, was exemplary, though I was disappointed that you had to wait until credits to get the spoiler he reveals to Lucy in the end. All I can hope is that the kids who are getting this eye candy and the stupid happy meal toys that go along with it will actually sit and read the book.

I fucking doubt it, but I can hope.


Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches : The Riddles of Culture

When researching anthropological discourse on The Witches Hammer, I came across Harris, and an excerpt from CPWW. L.’s dad picked it up for me for xmas, and I devoured it all last week (when i was not sick). What I got was a light scholarly read with an entirely enjoyable pace, and a rather unique storytelling path. Harris builds section by section to support the theories he espouses on the varied subjects he has chosen to discuss. The only anticlimactic aspect of this, for me, was the closing chapter on “counter culture”, which seemed to be the reason he spent all the time supporting all these lines of reason? The book is definitely a class guide, much as I have heard. Cannibals and Kings is. Aside from a bit about phantom cargo cult history, and a VERY well summarized two chapters on the Messianic image, and how Jesus the image fits into all of it, I didn’t learn a whole lot new. I did, however, find some interesting meat for a short story I may work on, if I can ever bring myself to work on it.

I am hoping C&K may be more poignant, since I would not be reading it more than twenty years after its publication.

Overall, as I said, impressive vision, unfortunate denoumont.

This week, I have some frantic financial issues to shoot down, then I am off to Washington (the state, not the city) for a long-weekend. I don’t know what my accessibility to the itnerwebs (phone or otherwise) will be whilst I am out there. I REALLY want to buy a camera before now and then, but I am just so fucking torn on the expense. Damn my frugal genes.

I plan on reading A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down as well as Knife of Dreams by the end of next week.

you would think, what with dragging my feverish self into the office to do work, that i would do another plague-related queez. instead, I offer you double meanings. since my brainpower is about that of a bowl of microwaved oatmeal at the moment, enjoy some softballs.

i am definitely sick. fever, chills, the whiole nine. if you are looking for me, i will not be in the places that i usually am, for i am the evil midnight cougher what coughs at midnight.

getting sick. sore, scratchy throat. fighting it with everything i have. damn exhaustion to hell. i was horribly sick a year ago over new years, now this. maybe my immune system has an expiration date?

Yep, I don’t believe in them. Mostly because, I really don’t have many things in my life that have spiraled out of control so far that I need to make a promise to myself to get them back under control. As I lay in bed this morning pondering (as I often do) it occurred to me that resolutions are not all of the limiting flavor, some can be of the bettering variety as well.

One of the many things I haven’t really done yet is try to establish what the purpose of this space is. A few other people I know have decided to do that (establish or re-establish what their space is about), and it got me thinking. My own user info uses the phrase “verbal meanderings”. That is what it is, really. Links, chatter, emotional knee-jerk to news and events. Photos, circumspect philosophy, and inappropriate wastes of time.

I want to try and accomplish something with my writing this year.

This may not seem like a big deal to you. I am trying to be constructive by setting a goal, and I am hoping that the first step to success in the process of meeting that goal is open declaration.

We’ll see where things go.