hallucinationsex

When I pull into the parking lot in the morning, and a good song comes on the radio, what do I do? Do I turn the song off and walk inside? No! I continue to listen to the song, bobbing my head, and no doubt looking like an idiot. Many fellow employees (especially the ones I have never seen before,) will walk by and think I am deranged.

This is not so personal. Here is a more personal tidbit. Sometimes in the morning when I’ve looked at porn just before bed the previous evening, I will see flashes of porn just behind my eyes much like I see flashes of some video game I’ve been playing regularly. Lately I’ll close my eyes and see a chess board, but this morning it’s two women smacking each other’s asses — in the corner of the elevator, in the building lobby, and then standing next to my cube like I’m stuck in an episode of girls gone wild meets office space.

I think these “flashes” are as close as I’ve ever come to hallucinations. Even though there’s a pretty clear distinction between them and reality, I’m not consciously willing them into existence. Maybe I’m just sleep deprived, and my brain is still trying to dream, despite the best intentions of my alarm clock.

Weekend like a plastic umbrella

Aside from the rain, I have no idea how plastic umbrellas relate to last weekend. I didn’t even use an umbrella. I did go to unicycling yesterday, and watch The Transporter (crappy action movie), went to Balls on sat, before that watched Two Weeks Notice, and before that went to a Ballet performance, and before that had dinner with KR and S, and before that went to a HS graduation party for someone who is, by many people’s estimation, the best unicyclist in the world.

KR wants me to come up with a short story or something for me to read while she dances at Balls next week. She wants something about beauty. I’m not sure how much beauty I see these days, but I’m going to do my best.

morning learning: snooze statistics

I’ve finally figured out what the number that appears on my alarm clock immediately after I hit the snooze button means. I always look to see what time it is, and there’s always this one digit number there instead. It never hit me until just this morning that the number actually means anything. It’s the number of consecutive times I’ve hit snooze.

This morning’s total was 7.

some days you win…

I was remarkably unproductive today, but I almost feel like I accomplished more than I did yesterday. Yesterday, I played a game of Go, and a game of Chess, and lost both misserably. Today I played two games of chess and one of go, winning all three, then played another game of chess just now, and lost. (I could have probably won if I had been paying closer attention, but don’t tell J that, it was her first win here at work.)

I played a game last night on Yahoo and took most of my opponent’s pieces before he mated me unexpectedly. I was up by so many points that I had assumed it was a foregone conclusion.. but I was wrong.

I think I’m starting to get obsessive. I’ve been fantasizing about years down the road… being ranked and playing in tournaments.

bedroom singularities

I sent out what I hoped would be a humorous message this morning when I knew I was going to be late to work:

I didn’t roll over and notice the time until just now. (alarms have more “accidental turnoffs” in direct proportion to their complexity. Ours is moving daily toward the singularity.)

Then a co-worker (Dave) responded with this:

OK, I’m not Stephen Hawking or anything, but if your alarm clock is becoming a singularity, then I think your problem waking up late might have to do with the time dilation as you approach the event horizon. As you stumble over to the alarm clock to hit snooze, you appear slower and more redshifted to the outside observer, and to their eyes it takes you an infinite amount of time to actually touch the alarm clock (although for you it’s mere moments), to say nothing about the tidal forces exerted on your index finger! This is why I’m never in on time, my alarm clock’s Schwarzschild radius encompasses my entire room!

-Dave

I thought that was really funny, and responded with more attempted mid-morning wit;

Wow… what a coincidence that your alarm clock is a singularity as the term relates to physics, and mine is a singularity as it relates to artificial intelligence!!! (http://www.singinst.org/what-singularity.html)

I guess our alarm clocks are singularly unique. HA!

Who said geeks can’t be funny?

bane of my existence: yahoo games

I have an unhealthy addiction to puzzle games. This applies to all puzzle games, but there are subcategories of puzzle games for which I have particularly strong affections, and which cause me the sharpest pains of longing. Paings especially pointy-feeling when I look up at 4:00AM and realize that I’ve spent most of the time I was suppose to spend sleeping in a near catatonic state of nonetheless genius-level puzzle-busting.

Recently, I started revisiting yahoo games (games.yahoo.com) because I am addled constantly by thoughts of chess and go. Yahoo allows you to play both of these games against opponents who are supposedly “ranked”, but who are somehow always better than you regardless of statistical winnings. I spent a lot of time on yahoo games back when I first discovered it, and thought it was a really cool place to hang out and waste time.

Boy has that not changed.

I found in my recent forrays that yahoo decided to host popcap games‘ genius creation: bookworm. Bookworm is somewhere between boggle and tetris. Thus bridging two of my favorite puzzle game categories: tetris varriations, and word games.

(This post was inspired by irish-girl’s mention of boggle in her recent post.)

Not only does yahoo have some other neat puzzle games, but they actually have a whole sub-game-category of word games… some of which are puzzle-like in nature. I can’t help but be envious of the folks at yahoo games who get to sit around and think of new puzzle games.

live without dead time

Now playing in my iTunes: the CD included in the latest issue of Adbusters. If you don’t have a subscription, go to the store NOW and pick up your copy. Damn this CD is good. It’s all mixed by DJ Spooky, who I have heard of, but never actually heard. I’m going to have to pick up some of his stuff now.

The songs included are a really great selection, but the parts where DJ Spooky shines are mostly shorter in-between tracks that sample weird little political/environmental soundbites and quotes. The first track is sort of the epitome of this, where Spooky mixes on top of a spoken word piece by Saul Williams. There are two of those, actually.

The whole thing is amazing, really.

I particularly like the Negitivland track, called “why is this commercial?”. By an interesting coincidence, I was at a wedding reception on Friday where a friend of mine was wearing a T-shirt I particularly admired. The front read simply: “Christianity is stupid.” I asked him where he got it, and he said it was a negativland shirt. More music to add to my mental wishlist.