Category: Uncategorized

After playing Castlevania, Lament of Innocence on PS2 for like six hours last Saturday, I think I can safely call it an addiction. It has risen to the top of my video game slush pile, (thanks to Nate for purchasing it) and I will not rest until I am safely stuck on some sufficiently difficult boss, and have nothing left to explore. That sad day promises to be at least a week off in the horizon, and it is even remotely possible that I will add this to my relatively short list of games I actually finish for once.

As for old addictions, I am casting off a big one. Get ready for this… sit down if you have to. I am giving up candy.

Yes, you read it correctly. Those who know me will undoubtedly be shitting their pants right about now, or at the very least heartily laughing in disbelief. But I’m going to do it. I’m thinking for at least three months. If I have lost a few pounds at that time (and hopefully feel less sick all the time,) then I’ll probably keep it up, or anyway only return to a very sparse and closely monitored candy diet.

This decision was prompted by the side hand comment my mother made on mother’s day about how sugar is a natural immune system depressant. I did some preliminary “internet research”, and low and behold, it sounds like it’s true! One website (apparently quoting this other one) said:

Eating or drinking 100 grams (8 tbsp.) of sugar, the equivalent of one 12-ounce can of soda, can reduce the ability of white blood cells to kill germs by forty percent. The immune-suppressing effect of sugar starts less than thirty minutes after ingestion and may last for five hours.

Crazy, huh? More Castlevania, less sugar.

I think I disagree with the conclusion of this article, which paints an interesting political light in Iraq, and supposes that we may face defeat after all. But I figure it depends on how you define defeat. Then again, if Bush loses this year, it may well be that we’ll pull out of Iraq entirely, and to many that would seem a defeat. I would guess US victory hinges on the presidential election, but when you put it that way; of course I would prefer to see us defeated.

This reminded me I haven’t kept tabs with delobius lately. It’s hard to read a blog regularly when you really disagree with the way someone is living their life. Anyway, I saw that he’s posted quite a few photo galleries from his “mission”. (I couldn’t find an index.) A lot of his photography is gorgeous, and even the more mundane stuff is interesting (to me) because it’s a) a window into his life/military life, and b) full of places I’ve never been.

I found this photo particularly ironic.

So anyway, here’s wishing delobius well…

In other news, I’m working from home today. Despite (or perhaps in spite of) doing 3 loads of laundry (and counting!), writing this entry, and ripping multitudes of CDs to mp3, I feel I’ve been fairly productive.

Man, Dr. Bombay pointed me over here today, and I’ve been struggling to stay on task ever since! Basically, the UofMN is offering up movable type to all its students and staff… I’m excited to watch as their blog directory expands.

From there, I surfed around, added at least one new blog to my list to read, and read this amazing blog post on google over at another new (to me) blog that I’ve added to my list to read regularly.

Who has time for all this!?!

Tonight I saw Envy, the new Jack Black/Ben Stiller movie with Dr.Bombay. It was great. Don’t let the (supposed) reviewers tell you otherwise! Maybe a little Hollywood and predictable, but otherwise, great. Christopher Walken stole most of the scenes he was in. He had some really great lines.

When I got home, it was the first family gathering with all of us at it in at least a couple months. Dan just got back from Florida (he was doing a renaissance festival down there) and John has been working till 9:30 on Thursdays, so we got together at 10-ish, because John is taking off for LA or something this coming monday. I think he’s going to be gone for a couple of weeks, and has an art show lined up while he’s there.

After most everybody left, John’s girlfriend (Katie) asked if I was going to see Pilobolus while they’re in town. They have a show tomorrow night and Saturday night at the Pantages theater downtown. I’m going to try and get a ticket for Saturday night, I think. You can supposedly get $5 off if you mention Minneapolis Happy Hour.

Man, this is banal.

The last couple of nights I’ve been up late, surfing this forum… I don’t think I’m going to post a link to it, but if you really want to know, I’ll probably tell you where it is…

Anyway, it feels a LOT like the old style BBSing I used to do… back in high school. There are all these “rooms” (forum topics) where people talk openly about different stuff… hiding behind their pseudo anonymity. I found myself in the “love” pages, reading forum after forum, and more than once opening up and really letting out some juicy bits–details of my life that I didn’t even know were bugging me. (or maybe aren’t bugging me, but were somehow rekindled by reading these posts.)

Anyway, as I’m doing this, as I’m typing furiously, and not editing, and really being uninhibited, (things I do not do here, generally speaking), and I realized that I could be writing blog entries… I mean, I could be, but I wasn’t. What’s the difference? Why not blog those things? I certainly have been as open and candid here before… and I certainly don’t feel inhibited… (although a while ago I think my mom may have let slip something that suggested she’s read some stuff here… and although I did just discover the blog of a friend I’ve written about here a couple of times… not from her telling me… but from a link on a mutual friend’s page… And that really doesn’t bug me at all, but I was just writing–over at this forum–about someone she knows who also used to be a friend… this stuck up bitch who I don’t think I would really ever want to read any of the stuff I just wrote over at the forum… not to mention stuff I write about her here.)

Man!!! and it’s stuff like that! Where I can’t even talk without being super vague! Is that how it has to be?

And here’s another thing. I’ve not talked about this before because Laura didn’t want me to say anything to Nate… but now it’s all out in the open anyway, so fuck it. Basically, laura is seeing this guy we all know. Who was dating this girl we all know. (Who had been dating nate, for like two years.) So now Laura is dating this guy, and he’s no longer dating the girl… and Nate and the girl are spending a lot of time together again. Everybody knows I really don’t like this girl all that much. There were times we’ve been cordial, and that’s about the best it’s ever been. She really grates on some nerve I have that hates all stuck up bitches (and no, that’s not a gender slam, guys can be stuck up bitches too). I get so cold and seething every time she’s around (and have for so long now) that I’m sure she also thinks I’m as much of a snob as she is. (without obviously thinking that she is… although who knows, as with the previously mentioned stuck up bitch, it’s entirely possible she gets off on it and thinks she’s a better person or something for it.)

Anyway, so I don’t know how I feel about Laura entangling herself in this whole situation. I know she likes this guy quite a bit… and I guess they have a lot in common… but he sorta ditched her once before when he started dating the other girl… which I felt was pretty shitty. (I guess they’ve talked about this, and it’s cool now, so whatever.) I guess I think what bugs me about it is twofold… first that Laura didn’t want me to tell nate in the first place, (presumably because they didn’t want either nate or girl x to freak out about it, which feels too much like hiding shit, and I’m not cool with that really under any circumstance–at least in a relationship context) and second that Laura seems really awkward when she’s talking about this guy. Sometimes she opens up, and we can discuss it ok, but whenever there is any tension between us at all, maybe I get paranoid, and I feel like she’s not telling me stuff.

Tonight John mentioned he’d seen her with him at the Wedge, and while I’m cool with that, and don’t really care if my family knows I have an open relationship, it sorta compounded also knowing that they had bumped into my sister and mom at John’s art show last saturday while I was out of town. (My sister said something cute like “Who’s this guy!?”)

Maybe I’m just pissed because it’s 12:30 and I’m horny as hell and don’t know when Laura’s going to get home. I think I have a problem about getting pissed off when I’m horny and Laura isn’t around or isn’t interested. Obviously this is not her fault, and she should feel no obligation to do anything about it, but some part of me really wants her to be concerned and rush to “help out”. I think it’s mostly because I feel like I would rush to her “aid” if I knew she were horny, even if I wasn’t. But I can’t ever remember that having been the case, so maybe I’m exaggerating. I think I’ve even posted about this before… I wonder if I can track down that entry…

Wow… I didn’t find it, but surfing around on some other blogs, I just found this link to an awesome animation of scale. (link via scattershot) Scattershot is also hosting this fucking amazing guy playing the super mario theme song on his electric guitaur. I’m going to bed now. Maybe I will dream I am as cool as he is.

Tonight I downloaded Ben Harper live singing Sexual Healing. It’s an awesome rendition, and it reminded me of his live “Waiting on an Angel” from the old REV 105 Archive album. Now I’m going to have to make a live Ben Harper mix. He has a version of “Walk Away” on one of the cities 97 samplers. I’m sure I can dig up some others.

So I had this idea. I was going to write an article for alistapart.com. I love A List Apart. Everyone who works in my industry should read it regularly. Including me. I got all excited because I had this idea that I could write an article about how content management systems are so clearly the wave of the future, but that because they’re so clearly the wave of the future, everyone is making them, and now they are crashing down onto the internet like some kind of tsunami rather than the calm relaxing waves they could be. I got so far as to compose my email to the editors:

I would like to write an article tentatively titled “Content Management: Is it for everyone?” The article will examine the phenomenon of content management systems, explain their benefits (template systems, dynamic content, no-brainer editing) and drawbacks (features not matching function, server requirements, burden of complexity) all from a web developer’s perspective. I will conclude that content management systems are in their “terrible teens” and that unless you’re a web development firm who wants to compete with the big boys, or an ISP trying to give something useful to your customers, custom development is still where it’s at. However, this will not be true in ten years.

I knew it was more than the asked for 2 sentences. And I was going to shorten it… maybe. But then I had a thought. (Probably first one of the day.) What if they already have an article about content management? Now I’m in a pickle. Because the only real article that I could find on content management is pretty old. But it covers a lot of the same ground I’d been proposing. Also, the guy who wrote the article is from madison wisconsin, and he apparently developed this 3D shockwave pong that I found distracting. Damn him and his cheese-eating web-development!

Notes after watching Confessions of a Dangerous Mind:

Nietzsche said: “The man who despises himself still respects himself as he who despises.” I am a man who respects himself for not saying the things he wants to say but can’t. Or perhaps I despise the things I want to say, and therefore just don’t say them.

This movie twisted all my thoughts up around inside themselves, and I loved it.

Simultaneously I feel more alone than ever. Mary Anne Evans said: “What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?” How lonely was she, pretending to be George Elliot so she could publish as a man?

How lonely am I, typing to my friends, through this void, into nothing; not even talking with them; not even talking?

UPDATE: Here is another quote on loneliness: “Man’s loneliness is but his fear of life.” (Eugene O’Neill) This one gives me some small courage.

I read this quote by Robert Harris just now:

It is perfectly legitimate to write novels which are essentially prose poems, but in the end, I think, a novel is like a car, and if you buy a car and grow flowers in it, you’re forgetting that the car is designed to take you somewhere else.

I like cars with flowers in them. But I’d like to write a starship with fireworks inside instead. I guess I don’t really care if it goes anywhere.

Tonight we went to a sneak preview of Mean Girls. It was pretty amusing, and I think I actually enjoyed it more than The Whole Ten Yards, which Nate and I watched last night. It was your above-average teen coming-of-age chick flick.

Apparently the source of most of our tickets is now quitting his job, and we’ll be left without all these free movies in a few weeks. This is quite disturbing, and I almost went up to the Paramount rep. after the movie tonight begging him to take me under his wing or something. In the last few weeks we’ve gone to see Mean Girls, The Whole Ten Yards, Ella Enchanted, Hellboy, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I’m sure there are others that I’m forgetting about.

I’m at a coffee shop with Jason right now. Ahhh the mirracle of technolgy.

Apparently I’m not manly enough when I’m chatting. Laura pointed out the other day (while looking over my shoulder at an ICQ conversation) that I say “hehe” all the time, like a little schoolgirl. Sometimes I’ll interject with a somewhat manly “heh.” But that’s really just for variety; at heart I’m an IM wimp.

For probably the first time in three or four years, I feel like I’m getting enough sleep at night. Also for the first time in at least that amount of time, I’m starting to have problems getting to sleep at night. When I was in high school (and junior high, I’m fairly certain) I had some serious issues with insomnia. I basically had what’s happening to me now–I would fitfully roll around in bed for an hour or more before I fell asleep (and at night when you’re trying to go to sleep, that hour can feel like five) and then I would wake up at some extraordinarily late hour in the morning. Lately, I’ve been struggling to get up by ten.

So it’s the chicken versus egg thing. Do I wake up late because I’m having trouble falling asleep, or do I have trouble falling asleep because I’ve been getting up so late? In the mornings, it’s a supreme effort to even just roll out of bed when I’ve woken up naturally. If I were just living as my body dictated, I would wake up, and spend the next hour or two just deciding whether I should get up or not.

The woman from True Stories comes to mind, the one who was so rich she just decided to stay in bed for her entire life. I’ll bet there are really people like that out there. Thing is, I’d get bored staying in bed all day… even with the internet, I’ll bet. Eventually I’d want to get up and do something.

I decided this weekend that I’m going to start taking Tai-Chi again. The last time I took it was in spring of 1995, nine years ago. I was a senior, and taking classes at the UofMN for college credit. But I still needed to fulfill my high school credits too, and that meant I needed some gym classes. I took racquetball winter quarter, and Tai-Chi in the spring. Strangely enough they were some of my favorite college courses.

Anyway, I found out my friend Neon has taken some Tai-Chi at this place over on University, The Twin Cities T’ai-Chi Ch’uan Studio. We were talking this weekend about how we’d both like to get back “into” it, and she happened to mention that one of the instructors was this guy named Paul. Now, if you’d asked me if I remembered the name of my instructor from nine years ago, I would have laughed at you, and easily said no. But when she said Paul, I knew that was the name of the guy I’d been taking classes from. I didn’t know it was the same Paul, of course, but a trip to the website and we had that figured out. Anyway, I’m excited to start it up again. I won’t remember any of it, but that hardly matters. I’m hoping to get rid of some of the gut I’ve accumulated recently, and perhaps gain back some of the flexibility that I had gained when I took the original class way back when.

I got a spam earlier today that made it through my filter whose first line was a famous quote by Karl Kraus:

Sentimental irony is a dog that bays at the moon while pissing on graves.

Then it said: “Low rates on Software”.

Tomorrow I have a ticket promised to me for the new Hellboy movie. I’m stoked.

Well, I’m hoping to maybe actually sleep now… my eyes aren’t focusing properly, and my throat is all scratchy like it sometimes gets when you’re tired. (Only problem is it’s felt like that pretty much all day. I think I’m coming down with something.)