next is satan’s entry

That last entry’s poem was written back in November of 2002. I don’t really remember writing it at all. I only vaguely remember feeling dissatisfied with something about the prose, which explains why I just saved it as a draft and never looked at it again. The only reason I re-discovered it just now was that I noticed I had exactly 666 blog posts in livingtech. (So technically this is the 667th.) But I realized that there were no doubt one or two entries I’d saved as drafts and never actually published. Monitor this, was one of three, so that meant there were 663 live entries. It became the 664th, this is 665, and next up it’s a tribute to satan time… if I feel like it.

Anyway, the poem/entry was originally titled cosmic incapacitation, I actually cleaned it up quite a bit before changing the post status to “Publish”.

Monitor this,

god comes bundled with spyware,
and just like every other self-proclaimed “freeware”,
is no more open source
than Microsoft’s latest OS.

(Never mind the guiltware, nagware
adware and/or crippleware
climbing over the pews
clutching at the spines of
Earth’s first virus.)

That old tome is precompiled
to hide its true architecture.
They want you to run it without inspection
close to your firmware: “Click here
to always trust software from…”

We’re all just spinning
what our motherboards were spinning.
Garbage in, garbage out.

I don’t believe it’s in our bios
to just blindly run
every little command-line commandment
because ‘It’s from the source itself!’

We were meant to edit our own code,
tweak all those jumper settings and
replace a chip or two when they’re cracked.
We just have to take that first step,
open up, and show everyone what we’re made of.

links and psychotic tendencies

Here’s an intriguing idea conceived by one of my more or less intriguing friends over at Book this Blog (.com). I wonder what it would feel like to have a bound copy of livingtech in my hands. It’s so contrary to the whole blog concept that I really want to do it for some reason. Lets print the web!

I’ve been posting over at Tech Evangelists, which is a sort of communication experiment for the company I work for. Many of us believe in blogs the way I refuse to believe in deities, and so we’re trying to put our mouths where our money comes from… on the web. I can’t say much about it, cause I still haven’t read the bio I was supposed to add to the sidebar earlier today, (somehow that got lost in the list of things I had on the proverbial “plate”,) but so far it’s just been a free-for-all.

My friend KR has finally started posting regularly on the blog I set up for her back in October. It’s fun to see someone new pick up the blogging bug. I hope she keeps at it.

In not so pleasant news, Laura and I have been fighting like an old married couple the last few nights, and I feel like I’m totally raining on her parade. I don’t know why, but every time we get into these miniscule squabbles I feel angrier and angrier when they’re not resolved right away. The dentist told me I’ve been grinding my teeth in my sleep and said that I might need to wear some kind of mouth guard if I notice myself doing it during the day. (Apparently people who grind their teeth during the day almost always do so involuntarily at night.) So today I tried to pay close attention to whether I was grinding, and didn’t really notice myself grinding, but did notice myself biting the skin in my mouth, and my nails, and around my nails… constantly. So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m probably wound up so tight that one of these days I’ll find myself holding an Uzi I don’t remember purchasing, looking down on the bloodied corpses of all the people I know and love.

…maybe then I can stop chewing my nails.

oral woes

I just gave $150 to the dentist… (and that was after insurance!) I have another TWO HOUR appointment next thursday. I guess I need to floss every day. Who knew?

successful game party

My friend Derik and I had a board game party yesterday, and I completely forgot to take any pictures for the moblog.

We played two of the three new games I bought for the occassion on Friday, Gloom, and Zertz. (Cosmic encounter will be played later this week, if I have anything to say about it!) Gloom is another card game with transparent cards. (I bought Cranium Zigity from target only a few weeks ago and it’s ok, nothing terribly special.) Gloom is a little spendy, but the cards are AWESOME, and quite funny. We only played one game, so I’ll have to wait and see how it holds up to multiple playings.

Zertz is one of those GIPF project games, and I’ve decided that I really liked it, (after, again, only one playing.) I have to find someone to play it with me regularly, as there are obviously lots of intricate strategies.

I have to go now… I’m going to go learn to snowboard.

my blog is boring.

I have it on good authority that I have been “boring” lately. I realize this is fairly self evident.

I appologize.

That having been said, I never agreed to entertain you. ;)

I demand oral pleasure in equal amounts of that pleasure you have derived from me in the course of the reading of this blog! This pleasure should commense immediately!!! (Note: relatives and unattractive people are excluded from this demand, and are neither required nor expected nor allowed to comply with the above demand.)

I have no shame.

Tomorrow nate is going to teach me to snowboard.

the entry I intended to write

I had intended to write an entry about how I got accepted into the fringe festival. I’m producing (and directing?) a show called Unicycle Theater, or maybe Unicycle Showcase. The show was originally conceived as a venue for some of the local world-champion unicyclists to showcase their nationals and international routines at the fringe. That, and I think fringe audiences would love a show with unicycling routines. They involve coreography and skills and as far as I know, nobody really even knows they exist. I mean, nobody outside the uniccycling community.

Anyway, I’d intended to link to the fringe festival website, but it appears to be down. I’d intended to check that website for the press release that supposedly was going to mention the unicycle show. (The emphasis oin the release was on diversity, I guess.)

Then I got all caught up in reading other people’s blogs, and had some other thing I was going to write instead. But when I got writing, what came out whas pretty much what I’d intended to write in the first place. Despite my intentions.

board game geek

I’ve recently discovered board game geek, and while there are aspects of it that I wish were different (I think you have to be logged in to do most stuff, for instance to view my profile, which is the main reason I’m writing this post) overall, it’s a great site with lots of compelling information about board games.

Here’s a link to my “collection”, which is one of the cooler aspects of the site. I have yet to really compulsively add all my games to it, but the ones I’ve played most recently are all on there. Again, unfortunately, I think you have to log in to see it.

new year cheer

Happy new year’s folks!

I have been neglecting this thing, I’ll admit. Laura’s post this evening (yesterday now) convinced me that I should share my new year’s resolution with everyone. Wait for it… I’m going to finish my novel!

Yes, I know, I said I was going to do that last November. It’s hard to believe that December is already gone, and not only that, but in the whole month I wrote a total of less than what I had to write in one day for November. I haven’t done any writing to speak of recently, but since new year’s I’ve thought about it a lot, and I have some new ideas to bring to the last chapter(s) that I’m hoping will make things worth the wait. I had a small eureka moment after staying up too late last night reading one of the few Rucker novels that I haven’t yet finished, Spacetime Donuts.

So once I’ve finished the novel, I’d like to edit it sometime this year too. But I’ll waive that lofty goal if I’m instead in the middle of another novel.

Nate’s entry about the balloon fencing tournament that he and I took part in last sunday is already the third result on google for balloon fencing. If you misspell balloon (baloon) the photo Nate took and I sent to my moblog comes up.

Anyway, I took sixth place in the tournament! I’ve maybe balloon fenced out at fest a total of two or three times before this. There were less than 20 participants total, so I’m not sure how good that really makes me, but I did beat Fisch during the tournament, which probably made him regret he’d ever brought me. I wonder if anyone has ever used more than the two balloons attached to the face masks? I think it would be cool to make a sort of balloon suit (maybe out of those long balloons you use to make balloon animals and stuff). Then you’d know wherever you hit your opponent. As nate mentioned, my forearm is pretty bruised after the tournament. He neglected to mention that it was my bout with him that landed me the only wound I actually felt later that day on the knuckle of my right thumb. Fisch already has a couple of fencing masks, and I’m going to see to it that he (or I) end up buying a couple of foils in the coming months so we can practice outside of tournaments.

As happened last year around this time, I have gotten really into board games the last few weeks. Fisch and I had been playing go on an almost daily basis, and at least once a week for the last few weeks I’ve had people over to play new games. Fisch is in Texas for the week, and I’ve been missing the Go playing, but tonight my friend Derik and I went over to DrBombay’s place and played Puerto Rico for the first time. It was a pretty cool game, and I’m looking forward to playing it again sometime when I know more what to expect. (more players might be fun too.)

I set up my board game geek profile tonight and started adding games to my collection. (username: grid) I’ve also decided I want all the games on this list at abstractstrategy.com.