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Monday, December 20th, 2004
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It only makes sense to stall some more with a quiz!
....I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. I suppose I can live with "Mangled Menace" o_O and creating illusions is fun but...Naughty Mutants? I couldn't even make the Evil one? And I get lumped with mutants?
Given that I have _yet another exam_ in about 15 hours I should probably be either studying or sleeping. And the last (and most difficult of all!) just 13 hours after that. Bad omens are such a great way to begin the end of the year! >_
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Sunday, November 28th, 2004
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Ngh, tired. I was gonna blog about the weekend, but I'll do it later in favor of getting to sleep sooner. For the last five days a battle has been waged between the forces of histamine, and its mortal foe the anti-histamine. Sometime this morning they finally reached a truce, and a happy equilibrium in my body was found. Naturally it was at this point that I left the house, shattering the newfound balance in a matter of hours.
On the plus side at least I didn't take any form of pill, so while drowsy now it's natural and should work its way out of my system more quickly.
Addendum : AVG has been disappointing of late, with increasing emphasis on their paid version and little sign they will keep any other updated in a timely fashion. While setting the PC up at home (for what is like the third time no less!) I settled on the unknown yet well-reviewed anti-virus app Avast!. The first bonus ; while installing an old game off a cd-rom, my ears were greeted with the sound of "Warning! A virus has been found on your computer!". It then proceeded to halt the installation while giving me a choice of what to do with the suspect file, including a recommended action. Actually that was probably the second bonus..the first is that it's named Avast!. ^^ http://www.avast.com/
Leftover Thanksgiving dinner is good. Sleep is better. I am thankful for the ability to remember. Where would we be without memory?
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Saturday, November 6th, 2004
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| Time: | 2:48 am. |
| Mood: |  awake. |
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Posted this @ Patch and kinda liked how some of it came out..so now everyone gets to suffer. Nyah.
Right. So...there's a lot of unresolved sadness and anger here too. Just two nights ago there was an impromptu gathering, later dubbed 'Mourning the Death of Humanity'. A lot of people trying to find some sense of meaning, and more importantly direction, where to go from here.
The us election has ended, and the greater of evils prevailed. Worrying over the results, over who might have cheated and to what extent, accomplishes nothing. And we do have things to accomplish, now, while the momentum is still strong. George W. Bush is our President, but that in no way means he embodies Us, or Our values. We are still America. We may come from different walks of life, different morals, ideas, and cultures, and at times we will clash and disagree strongly, contradict ourselves, but always we will remain Americans, proud of our country if not some of our peoples.
John Kerry was a better dream for many in this election, but he was still far from a cure for what ails us. At most he represented yet another bandage to an aging system, whose cracks can only detract us from the rot for so long. These cracks are the stress created by our dependence on centuries-old documents, many of whose provisions are no longer applicable or sensible, still used as convoluted justification for our actions. And the rot is the deep-seated core of greed, and especially fear. Fear, the dirty little secret tucked away behind a great wall of intolerance and hate. Fear, whose roots have bound themselves more tightly to our hearts in the past few years, weakening us. Fear, which has been aided and encouraged in this endeavor by those who wish to elevate themselves from our leaders to our masters. Fear, who will always be a part of us but cannot control us in the light of knowledge and hope.
To our friends 'across the pond' and beyond, we apologize for how badly things have gotten out of control. But, don't count us out, not yet.
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Monday, October 11th, 2004
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It happened again while returning home from campus on Saturday. One moment I was walking along, and the next I found myself..'awake'. The shift is hard to describe, for nothing had changed and yet suddenly my thoughts were coming together faster, the world around me became more vibrant, for better or worse. At once I was aware of how filthy everything looked and smelled, and yet there was a certain beauty and vitality that could not be fully masked, and it was as though the road I walked hundreds of times before was suddenly alien to me. I was an observer, not really there unless I reminded myself of where I was, cemented my wandering thoughts.
And there was a sadness too, as I knew this sensation would end, and I would return to being however I was before. And that even then I would only retain a glimpse, a pale echo of what had happened.
Is this how we all live, spending the majority of our lives sleeping only to, for reason or cause I do not know, wake up briefly as if just to be reminded of the stark contrast, of the limited scope we regard as being normal? Maybe that is the 'potential' we were all supposed to strive towards but have forgotten how.
What nags at me again is how removed and distant I felt at points, as though I wasn't really me. Or the me I've come to know was far away and watching, momentarily absolved of responsibility. I was still in control and yet, not all of me. I don't like losing control, ever.
I wonder if anyone else will know what I'm talking about, I'm sure it's happened to others before. Right now it's time to sleep the sleep of lost dreams.
Goodnight.
~Dray
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Friday, September 24th, 2004
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I am not you. I am not like you. I do not wish to be like you.
...because I fear I may not be strong enough to hold on to me.
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Been awhile hasn't it? Certainly doesn't feel that way, time has been passing me by again. Feel like I've gotten a lot done yet haven't moved forward an inch. Or it might be moving so swiftly any accomplishments I believe to have made barely existed.
It continues to grow increasingly unstable. Expected, yet still regretted. They resist the urge to wake into awareness. Yet refuse to rest as well. It is akin to watching the sleeping walk. Restless Ones.
It has spread. Those once at peace have become tainted by this particular oddity. Manifestations rise in all directions. It should be a sign, it goes unacknowledged. Or worse, they perceive it as their own strangeness.
What do they seek. Increasingly this question is posed, without satisfaction. They know it also, driven by it, ultimately distracted into some other means. The vast majority become consumed by the trivialities.
Objectivity's distance is realized. To witness it unfold is interesting, but wearisome.
It is late. Another time.
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Thursday, August 12th, 2004
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| Time: | 1:42 am. |
| Mood: |  annoyed. |
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The Good:
Thanks to a tip from Vess, my seasonal congestion whatever seems to be under control. Let's hear it for breathing normally!
My IT professor re-graded the second exam, and with the extra 6 points I now have a 48/65. My chances of finishing the course with a good grade are looking better.
The Bad:
We have an in-class project tomorrow in Discrete Structures. We've only just touched on the material it covers. He gave us part A at the end of class Tuesday, and I've only just scratched the surface.
Meanwhile the second half of IT's programming project comes due this Sunday. My program is not yet multi-threaded and still has bugs. And I still don't like java (or coffee).
Despite spamming the inboxes of dozens of people with my resume, I have only gotten a handful of replies. The only one I've gotten on the phone recently was worried she wouldn't have enough time to "train" me to use Access in a semester. .........right. She apparently likes the program because it has a mass-mailing "feature". Come to think of it, that may actually belong in the Good catagory.
I spent the better part of two weeks chasing one of my instructors down to get some form of written permission to take his course so I had something to bring to the registration people. He sent a one-line email. Which the registration folks didn't even glance at when I showed it to them. What did happen is my new credit card failed to work, and with my rent only having just passed I didn't have the full $1700 to pay by check. So now I need to scrape up the money and get something to them in, well, days. The fewer the better. Those two weeks sure seem productive now.
The Strange:
I turned in a little later than usual last night, sometime after 4 am. As I laid down, I closed my eyes for what could have only been an instant when I suddenly felt fur rubbing against me. I don't know if I opened my eyes then, but I still saw the muzzle of an animal nudging against my arm, and it was..speaking. I think I panicked, forced myself to wake up, but of course when my eyes adjusted to the dark there was nothing there. The clock hadn't changed much either, it all happened so fast. I can't remember what was said if it even made sense, though I get the feeling it should have. A message I missed and was supposed to get..weirdness.
Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do
When they're all dead
All dead
Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do
When they're all dead
All dead
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| Time: | 8:38 pm. |
| Mood: |  good. |
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Well this was going to be self-indulgent whining about this persistent pain in my back - apparently a force involved in toting around a large bag of laundry resulted in some internal structure being yanked from its happy equilibriuum, bringing about additional stress to the larger structure, which is livable except it's been some 5 days and it still hurts to take a full breath. Maybe I am getting old prematurely? >_>; Other sources indicate that the recent high grass pollen count just might have something to do with the whole lack of breathing-ness as well. Erm..where was I again? Oh yes... - but I just walked out of my second midterm so that takes precidence. Did that all count as one run-on sentence?
Prognosis is good. In contrast to the first exam there were not as many ambiguous questions, and most of those were brought up before the exam started, as opposed to after they were graded. Starting yesterday I had re-read most of the assigned chapters from the book, which turned out to be utterly unnecessary as there were virtually no open-ended questions like the first exam. In fact all of the problems seem to have been taken nearly directly from examples he worked out or from previous exams. Methinks these changes were largely due to performance on the first exam itself, which was somewhat poor. So, I think I did pretty well, though I will also assume that the majority of the class will also do better on this exam than the previous. Time will tell, but apparently it won't get me hired without serious bribery efforts. -_-;
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Wednesday, July 21st, 2004
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I just completed my first midterms, this one was for Discrete Structures. I think I did fairly well, I moved through most of the exam with little hesitation and I understood everything that was asked. Our instructor changed the focus at the last minute, basically he announced at the beginning of class the midterm would not contain any proof by cases, contradiction, or indirect proofs, which sort of wasted about half of what everyone had studied. Other than direct proofs, the exam did contain a good amount of predicate logic and quantifier notation, which had really only been covered the last lecture and a half. Oh well, I still think I did okay, it was just very lengthy; even beyond the alloted 90 minutes he gave a 15 minute extension, and I don't think more than maybe one or two people had left at that point. The only question I never got to finishing was the second half of the last one, a long proof that was made impossible if the english sentences were not first properly converted to predicate logic form, I could see it but I just ran out of time.
The other one I took just last Thursday for Internet Technology. This I did not do so well on. -_- It didn't help that the book I ordered a week before only just arrived, and then turned out to be a much earlier edition (3rd instead of 5th). Curse you Amazon! Furthermore a number of the questions, as he admitted during review, were ambiguous. Long story short I ended up with a grade about 10 points below the mean, with the standard deviation being about 20. Maybe a C? I could've done better, and I probably will on the next exam. Unlike Discrete Structures this class has two midterms and a final along with the big project. On that note the first part of the project is due in a week, and the second midterm about one week after that. Better get back to it soon.
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Wow, lotta posting from me lately. I'll try to keep the ranting/general whining down this time, I promise. This is just going to be a placeholder for certain ideas I'm still developing anyway. At least I feel more active than I have in past weeks.
Booklending System
Ideally this would be de-centralized on a per-campus basis, with possible coordination between two or more locations physically close enough to make book exchanging possible. Each should be self-sufficient and able to cover the costs of day-to-day operation, as well as the semi-annual bulk text buying costs.
Immediate problems: A sizable amount of capital will be needed to open, and quite likely smaller amounts will be needed to cover the first few book-buying seasons. Due to the low-profit nature of such a venture, this could take awhile to make up and pay back.
Short-term solution: Initially cover only introductory and/or large courses. A class which would require say 500+ copies of the same text, as opposed to higher-level courses where only about 40+ copies would be needed. This is in part based on the assumption that intro course textbooks are individually cheaper than higher level textbooks.
The Process: Books are 'lent' to students at a fixed price per the base cost of the book, say 15% for sake of argument. This should be fairly secure if backed by credit (possible problem here, though a growing number of students have their own credit) and considerably cheaper for the student. They are kept for a certain time frame whose end will coincide with approximately the last day of exams. At this time the books are returned, and students given the option of purchasing the book for future reference, or fined for failure to return/damaged books. These returned books can then be put back into the 'pool' for the following semester. Though I may be mangling the numbers badly, this seems to indicate a return of about 25% of the base price of the book each year.
More Problems: As was briefly touched upon in an earlier rant, college text editions have a high turnover, with many books being phased out in two years or less. This could be bad for our proposed system, whose greatest return is seen when a book is constantly in use for several semesters.
Possible Incentives: Keeping a core of students coming back is just a good idea no matter what. For each book returned on time in good condition, a fixed amount of discount should be offered against future 'lends' or purchases. A percentage point system, one that would increase progressively over successful returns, was considered, however this would prove of little use to juniors/seniors, and really benefit only those who stayed with the 'program' from freshman year. Favoritism is NOT the point here.
Final Thoughts (for now): It would be nice if this could be a purely grass-roots sort of thing, i.e. people donate books freely, others can get the books they need for their courses, everyone's happy. AFAIK those fizzle out and die before they ever get off the ground, as do the efforts of students to collaborate and sell books amongst each other. The latter can sometimes last a semester or two with moderate results, but are choked once a whole new breed of books is introduced, as there are no old ones to pass along, and often forgotten or abandoned. It would be really REALLY nice if the college or university would support, through word, wallet, or both, such an endeavour, however this is unlikely for reasons too complicated to get into. And when all else is said and done, I would personally love to see a store like this set up shop near a college bookstore and watch the latter gradually go out of business. Yes, I'm biased, what about it? =P
Query: Religion fulfills a common psychological need.
I intended to expand upon this some weeks ago and was nearly done when Windows decided to gobble it up by crashing on me. >_< Now I'm using the Semagic client (pretty nice features so far) which can save drafts, so this hopefully won't happen again. I shelved it at the time, but I think maybe it's about time to pull it out again and see what's brewed in the interim.
On the Current Developments in Chalkboard Technology
Quoth the instructor, "Erasing sucks." Evermore. Most people have no doubt heard a dust-coated chalk scrawler bemoan this at one point or another, and anyone who has spent excessive time at the board has considered this as well. Can't we do something to improve this? "It would be nice if we could just push a button and have the board erase itself."
Chalk dust is only loosely adhered to the surface of the board. If this dust could be repelled by even a minute factor, say a small surface tension, this dust would have nothing to adhere to.
Cons: A new type of material for chalkboards may be required, and this could be expensive. Just look at how slowly it has taken for the 'reduced streak' chalk and boards to propagate. Also once that dust is 'loosened', what happens? We can't assume it will just drift down nicely, as most real-life scenarios involve air currents that do not act as we would like them to. This is starting so sound like one of those 'minor' engineering problems that has no real solution, much like the oft-proposed, never realized dream of providing internet access to everyone through the existing copper wire electrical system.
Pros: Could this be realized, within a certain affordability, every teacher would want one and many would be quite vocal in getting them. ;) Actually I would probably owe a good dozen past teachers a free one. Ah dreams, how nice you are in that you allow our imaginations to roam. ^_^
Intellect, Domestication, and the Necessities of Life
This will be short as this friggin post has gone on long enough and I need sleep. So much for a placeholder. ;)
Survival, and the oddity we dub Intelligence, appear to lie at roughly opposite ends of the spectrum. A species, or even an individual within a species, that expends the majority of its energy in keeping safe from possible predators and procuring enough food to sustain itself and its offspring or dependents, has little time or energy to spare in order to say admire a sunset and wonder about the changing colors. (Perhaps intelligence is not the right descriptive term for this. Too tired now.)
That's nothing new, in fact it probably isn't even old. We observed this the first time we realized we were standing still in wasteful contemplation while life rushed on about us. Probably about the same time we fell in love with ourselves.
So what's the point? Well what happens when we eliminate or reduce the burdens of survival and gathering? (We get a species so out of touch with its own needs it ends up poisoning itself in mind and body until it dies.)
"But haven't we already done that" one might ask? (Doncha love how this format of writing poses the dumbest hypothetical questions to move the topic along in the direction desired while also making the author appear almost smart, despite the fact they posed the question to begin with? ...No you're right it's pretty immature. -_- )
Ah but now we reach the topic of domestication. By manipulating our environment we can artificially reduce those constraints for others besides ourselves. Unfortunately domestication is the side effect seen in most instances of this 'benevolent' act. For rather than removing those priorities which were an obstacle to free thought, we end up replacing them with new sets of conditional behaviour, learned response, and of course dependence. For us it's all about control; we devise rules by which they must obey which while logical in their own way from our vantage are nonetheless incredibly perplexing from the other side. "Don't let the dog pee on the carpet, Don't let the cat claw up the furniture."
Blah blah blah blah blah....
Wow..if nothing else this is bound to be amusing when I reread it tomorrow, or Saturday. I'm going home for the weekend, and I also have a number of things to do here before I can even go, which means I have about....5 hours of sleep til I have to be up and moving about. ^^; Good thing I'm gonna have a day in between so I don't completely burn out. -_-;
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Ever have one of those situations where, after seemingly endless hassle and obstacles, all the pieces start to fall into place, and for a brief time there's this warm, swelling sense of accomplishment and confidence? And then you start having thoughts about how things will work out, and even begin to make plans for a future past that point?
Only to be drop-kicked by reality, who gets its chuckles even whilst you lie bleeding in the gutter?
Yeah, I thought you might have. Which is exactly why once I hit the afterlife I plan on getting together a posse for a good 'ole beatdown. Feel free to join us as either spectator or participant, blunt beating impliments will be provided.
...especially ESPECIALLY when it's over something as stupid as money. I'm not talking necessity money here, I mean the big, beefy, overpriced chunks of "gotta gouge 'em dry" money. 35 ¢ for a newspaper? Sure. 135 $ for the newest edition of a book that only contains a half-dozen changes since the LAST edition, which is nonetheless invalidated by mere existence of a 'new' edition, which in turn will become virtually worthless via introduction of the 'newer' new edition due out in 3 months? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!? Isn't there some law which states, about as plainly as any law can, that only large governments can rape an individual or select group of individuals with that degree of public bluntness?
...Right. I'm cooling down now, really. Well that or I've moved past anger into resigned helplessness and depression. Or something like that.
I can hear the dark forces calling. Must resist. Must maintain sense of inner balance and peace. Must remember mantra. "I will not turn to Ebay for cheap profit, I will not turn to Ebay for cheap profit, I will NOT turn to Ebay for cheap profit, I will not..."
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| Time: | 3:18 am. |
| Mood: |  tired. |
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Relessed (combination of relaxed and stressed) is such a fitting word. I should find some everyday uses for it.
Today was rather warm, which translated into NJ-ease means temperature and humidity in the 80's. I also spent a fair portion of today walking around campus trying to chase down various departments, as apparently the information I had submitted to them got lost, misplaced, didn't have the requisite t crossed or ass kissed, who knows. Naturally, most of these were closed but in no way made that clear beforehand. Finally I ended up filling out some form for this woman who seemed rather irritated at having her day interrupted by someone requesting something. I hope that fixed things, because I was really starting to lose track of what I was doing at that point. Update: Today was hot.
On the plus side, the plumbers my landlady called, originally for Monday but an emergency came up, were finally free to come here. They arrived at 9am...at 5pm one of them came up and spent the whole 20 minutes it took to replace the flushmaster on the toilet. Now, she asked my roommate and I for one of us to be around for this, as she had to be away and didn't want them wandering the apartment or something I suppose. It would have been nice to mention she had a large project of her own downstairs that would take much of the day to complete. Heck from the way she made such a large fuss over the broken flushmaster, and supposedly immediately called the home maintainence guys, you might even be led to believe it was for the problem at hand. I'm fairly sure that 5 minute lecture on the price of water was not my imagination.
Then again, this is the same person who was informed repeatedly since December about a continuous leaking problem with the shower; the cold water valve would not fully close and so it just dripped away. This was not fixed until a little over a month ago. By contrast, the broken flushmaster was filling the tank as intended, it simply took many hours for it to do so, hissing and sputtering the whole way. The only loss of water involved is thanks to the fact that the toilet cycles about every 30 minutes, which has nothing to do with the flushmaster and everything to do with the flapper (which she replaced herself some many months ago to save on bringing someone out) being the wrong size and not creating a perfect seal, completely screwing up the whole system and probably causing the old flushmaster to break down from overuse.
I just have to keep reminding myself, she's a nice person and she means well. She can't help it that she's a little crazy..and a little too religiously zealous..and that her common sense is riddled with barn-sized blind spots. But she means well.
I saw Vess on today, it seemed a lot longer than it was since we last spoke. Our convo turned into some interesting points, slightly edited version found below. Mebbe I'll crosspost at the Patch later. I forgot to ask permission before she went sleepu and crashed. ^^;
( Sparing my LJ another uberlong entry )
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Most counter and desk tops are about an inch or two above the knee. Sinks are generally several inches below this, making hunching a necessity.
Most mirrors are strategically placed to give you a good view of your chin.
Most shoe stores carry at most three to four pairs in your size.
the same is true for most clothing stores and pants length.
Most public restrooms seem to be designed with an 8 year old in mind. The less said the better.
Most beds will never, ever be long enough. Period.
Most small children will unerringly perceive you as some strange giant. (Or a tree. :P)
Most overhanging tree limbs will be trimmed to 5 1/2 feet, ensuring a facefull should you be foolish enough not to duck.
Most showers are designed with a maximum height of 5 feet. You have no choice but to feel foolish.
Most chairs....well it's just sad. (Sidenote: Why are most college classrooms furnished with gradeschool-esque chair-desk contraptions?)
Hmm..when I started I thought this would turn out to be longer, but I seem to be out of ideas for now. Suggestions anyone? Oh, this also marks my first post using the Semagic LJ update client. It's come a long way since the last version I used...whose build was from 2002...and had only a semi-functioning spellcheck...and no longer even exists for download, nor has it in some time due to the superiority of newer clients. ^^;
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Being rather bored at the moment, and unable to really concentrate on anything in particular, I decided to take a stab at figuring out why one of my email addresses is bombared with hundreds of spam a day, while the others remain relatively clean. I began with the basic, querying various search engines with my email to see if it was still floating around somewhere on the 'net.
Running the gauntlet of google searches, I came across this funny piece I'd posted to a Windows 95 newsgroup back in September of 2000. Rather embarrasing to look on it now, for not only was I somewhat full of myself (the subject line demanded that only experts could figure out what was going on), I went on in a long rambling eyestrain-inducing single paragraph format, yet only barely covered the vital details needed to solve the problem. Of course I was rather at wits end at the time, for recalling the situation my computer had a nervous breakdown of sorts just a day before I first entered college. I was torn between orientation and wanting to get my poor computer back up to speed before classes began, mostly praying that all my files had not just vanished into digital smoke.
To my surprise there were a good number of intelligent, possibly helpful responses - which of course I never saw at the time, being that I had to run across campus to the lab to access the internet, which was time away from actually fixing the problem. I suppose I had hoped that folks would email me directly with any suggestions, not realizing that by putting such a request at the very bottom, most people were not reading that far down, or were no longer in a state of comprehension. Ah well.
Reading through them now, it seems most of them came to the correct, if inevitably wrong, conclusion that the fault lay in physical disk failure. It would be amusing to tell them how I eventually managed to correct the error with minimal loss and armed with only an update disk, but it has been almost 4 years and unfortunately I don't remember exactly how I did get it working again, just that I was up for many hours. If I had to take a stab at it, I would guess that the file system itself became corrupt due to a breakdown in the registry - I seem to recall restoring or remaking that at one point - and that once I was able to fix that I only needed to replace the significant system files that were lost.
Fun trips down memory lane. Next up; finding information on "otherkin" that don't involve loopy hive-esque mindsets or anti-human sentiments. Of course I have no idea what I'm actually looking for. -_- Oh yah, and those reverse phone number sites.
This Star Ocean stuff is so Trek inspired....
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| Time: | 3:10 am. |
| Mood: |  indescribable. |
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Introverted (I) 80.77% Extroverted (E) 19.23%
Intuitive (N) 53.13% Sensing (S) 46.88%
Thinking (T) 57.14% Feeling (F) 42.86%
Judging (J) 57.14% Perceiving (P) 42.86% |
Hrm..same letters as NJIT. Should I be worried about that? Heh, it's funny how they're all sort of borderline except the introvert..that's naturally way over. :/ 2.1% of the total population...lesse, that makes me one in about 133,865,128. Or so. Go individuality!
Enneagram Test Results | Type 1 | Perfectionism | |||||||||||||||| | 63% | | Type 2 | Helpfulness | |||||||||||| | 43% | | Type 3 | Image Awareness | |||||||||| | 36% | | Type 4 | Sensitivity | |||||||||||||||| | 63% | | Type 5 | Detachment | |||||||||||||||||||| | 86% | | Type 6 | Anxiety | |||||||||||||| | 53% | | Type 7 | Adventurousness | |||||| | 26% | | Type 8 | Aggressiveness | |||||||||||| | 43% | | Type 9 | Calmness | |||||||||||||| | 56% | Your Conscious-Surface type is 5w4
Your Unconscious-Overall type is 4w5 | Take Free Enneagram Personality Testpersonality tests by similarminds.com
These look about right I suppose...aggressiveness might need to be a little higher depending on what it's standing for, and sensitivity could stand to be somewhat lower. I have no idea what image awareness is all about, though if it has anything to do with facial recognition or artistic stuff then it's probably on the right track at half that value. Detachment..86%. I'm such a cold bastard. ^^;;
Heh, I saw the word artistic and did a "wtf?", an influence I blame Vess for entirely, til I read on. Absent-minded professor, woohoo! I can so see myself in that role...too easily actually. ^^;
As for the other..hey, I have plenty of self-control! I think. Sure. Just not much in the motivation department... Close-minded..er...I don't think I like this one. -_-
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| Time: | 12:14 am. |
| Mood: |  cold. |
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Yeeeah...I have no idea what was going on with that last post. Seems I turned in sometime after 5 and was up again at around 8ish. I remember focusing on the clock more than a few times between whenever and 10 when I decided to try and get out of bed. Though when the door multiplied and started moving on its own I quickly gave up on that idea. >_< My sore throat of last night fetched a few friends while I was out, who had apparently made a game of jumping on me in my few hours of unbroken rest.
Enter the present, where I am just now relearning that today is, or was, in fact Friday, making it now the weekend, meaning every other store and office is now closed til Monday. I think I've lost at least a day in there somewhere.
Blegh...I do not have the focus to try and figure out what I was on last time. Where are my vintage coughdrops? >.>
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| Time: | 5:06 am. |
| Mood: | groggy. |
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I'm not sure when this cough drop was supposed to be cherry flavored, but it definately isn't now. Oh well..it probably can't be that harmful, right? Even after a few years...or so....
Hrm...the rest of this was going to be some rambling incoherence loosely based around time travel through relativity and flying whales, fortunately for the sake of mankind that was before the addictive clicking of solitare helped me zone out long enough for the raw lump in my throat to numb. I'm strangely feeling dizzy and lightheaded though.
There was something else, about fate intervention and not having a defined future. Or past. There's not much difference between 'em when you think about it. Yet people dont seem to get quite so anxious about the things that happen in the past as they do about the future. Aboot. Hehe.
God is often praised for the good He brings into peoples lives. Where I ask is the line between the act of goodwill of a benevolent God, and the act which creates the situation that necessitates either intervention or futher suffering? Is this a God 'testing', playing favoritism, or the God within the chaos?
We don't know whats coming next, for it will only come so long as we lack that knowledge. We cant know the people who affect our lives, for if we did they would not have the power to alter our fates so. We can only maintain ourselves, and we can only do this will the help of others. ~This is the truth, this is my belief. At least, for now.~
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I think. Not sure yet. It sort of feels that way, but I'd rather not put too much into that lest it turn to disappointment. Whatever.
Of late I've found my thoughts turning increasingly to the future. So many potential paths lay before us, though some have grown so fragile as to be nearly gone. And while it is probably my pessimism many darker possiblities have emerged as front-runners. Make no mistake of this however; we are a far more terrifying enemy to ourselves than any God or Demon our cultures have presented us. Why that alone does not make the divinity issue clear I may never understand.
Then again, gods also tend to represent the unknown things that science and knowledge have not or can not explain, as does magic. By all apperances, you cannot have one without the other; thus claimeth the dragon.(Yes I'm putting the blame squarely on you for that one)
Simple things can teach us important lessons however. Sitting here playing with a slinky, I'm fascinated with the way it stretches out and bounces back to its' original shape.
Yes, I'm easily amused, now hush. =p
It's also an important reminder that things move in unexpected ways. Physics tells us now that energies move in waves rather than from point to point as a simple observation might lead one to believe. Waves can grow and fade, they can collide and destroy. Realizing this we can grasp the emergence of a larger pattern; that all waves interact with each other in subtle ways. That the flapping wings of a butterfly in South America, on the surface meaning nothing there, will result in tipping a vase in Georgia. Or worse. Or nothing at all. Life thrives because it is little different from the apparent chaos that exists everywhere else.
*continues playing with the slinky*
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To rely on the strength of others, is this necessary or the folly of the weak?
Of course, we know the answer to that question. Still, it's something to ponder. I'm rather interested to see how Guild Wars (http://www.guildwars.com/) will turn out. Not without a certain doubt about their claims of course..well actually they don't seem to claim much from what I can see, but the screenshots are certain to be misleading. The client graphics so far resemble Diablo, no surprise there. It appeared deceptively small at first, but now I see it just downloads content whenever there is bandwidth to do so - just sitting on the login screen I watched it download about 8 more megs worth (the music changed slightly during this) bringing the total size to about 40 before I stopped it. So while it's technically meant to be accessible for dialup, it's not likely to be anywhere near the same experience.
While I sometimes find myself in envy of those with such active, vivid imaginations, it also helps to note those that go too far. This recent gem is just one such example (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/6583/et023.html) of person or persons who really need a hobby to occupy themselves. I haven't read it all yet and I don't think I can - it's just about too far gone to even be funny at that. The rest of the site looks like it's just more of the same.
My second gem of the day came in the form of (http://www.soulinvitation.com/) This is by all appearances one of many sites which preys on the scientific ignorant to make grandiose claims with no actual standing behind the long-winded fluffy words. I'm still undecided as to whether people are actually becoming more deluded, or just bolder.
Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, is both fun and funny, and I highly recommend it to anyone seeking a good plot. Complaints about predictability are far overrated; certain games which should not be named have easily demonstrated that sudden random plot twists with no buildup or logic are easily worse than following a known cliche but doing it right.
I want to say more as the game really is a kick to play, but it's really time to turn in. Maybe tomorrow I'll try to figure out the point I was trying to reach in my chat with Vess last night (at least i can be a source of amusement to someone in my late night ramblings) and also the thing about universal entropy I was starting on almost a week ago. Was it really that long?
p.s. The dragon-feline thing is way off. I mean really, there has to be more than ego and vanity, right? ........something tells me I'd better think of more... c_c;;
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dhadrkdray's journal
listless.
thoughtful.