| Chicago Meetup |
[04 Oct 2009|11:06pm] |
Well I don't talk about it much if ever (because who wants to read about it?) but I am a member of Metafilter. I don't post much there, I mainly read it. But sometimes some cities host meetups for members and friends/family of members. Chicago has meetups basically every first Wednesday of the month. They did something this weekend instead because one of the moderators for the website went to Chicago. So like many other people I decided to go to Chicago to hang out with relative strangers to talk about extraordinarily geeky things. I'll try to keep what happened relatively short.
I arrived around 6:30 and took the bus with another website member who lived in the area. We went to a restaurant/bar and chatted with each other, ate, drank, and generally tried to get to know one another. After that we went to a gay bar because we thought there was a mechanical bull there. There was no mechanical bull when we arrived. The place was mostly empty except for our group of nerds and nerdettes so we just danced around and chatted and acted foolish. Did not catch The Gay. Sorry Gay Agenda.
The next thing we did was try to see Too Much Light(Makes the Baby Go Blind), a set of 30 short plays performed randomly by a group calling themselves the Neo-Futurists. The show has been going on 20 years. New plays are written weekly as, in addition to being performed randomly, plays are randomly eliminated from the show every week based upon the roll of a die after every (two) performance. The cost of the show is random as well $9 plus the number of pips you roll on a die. The show will often change because of audience participation. I would definitely recommend the show. Some of the plays are political in nature--in an anti-bush way more than anything. One play was about how the actors felt they were better than Obama. But really only two or three plays got political and they are short so it shouldn't be an issue.
After that the festivities moved to a Korean dive bar with karaoke machine. It went about as well as to be expected. The novelty of THIS place was the karaoke machine could switch to a 'soft-core porn background'. It got old for me pretty fast, but I still had a good time. Eventually I got a ride back to my car and stayed in a hotel by O'hare as it was too late to drive back to Rockford. Especially since I planned on coming back the next day.
Saturday the events began anew with a noon brunch which then segway'd into a trip to Chicago's Navy pier to do a balloon ride. No balloon ride happened due to inclement weather. The Ferris wheel was out of commission as well. So we just chilled at the pier for awhile and then went to the stain-glass museum on the pier. This was enjoyable, but I'd rather have gone on a Ferris wheel or a balloon. From there we went to the house of one of the website members to chill until the second-to-last event at the Billy Goat Tavern. We had a picture taken of the group as a version of the last supper due to one of the people looking kind of like how Jesus is oft-depicted. From *there* we took the train back at the website members' house to watch Lawrence of Arabia. Which stopped working about 30-45 minutes into the film. So we switched to Nancy Drew... Detective! and made fun of it. Then I got a ride back to my car and went home.
|
|
| Thoughts on flashforward |
[04 Oct 2009|10:19pm] |
|
Well, I saw on The Hulu last week the synopsis of the show flashforward and decided to watch it based on the premise alone. Then tonight I watched the second episode. They were both mostly entertaining, but there seem to be some major plot holes. The plot holes can be covered, but it had better be covered soon or I will not watch the show any more. More on that in a bit.
If the visions of the future (assuming they ARE of the future or at least one of a series of futures) cannot be changed then it makes no sense that no one in their visions had stared at a piece of paper of a message to their past selves. Or that no one was looking at their watch thinking something like "ok this is when the event happened". Or that no one was having an event party in their visions. So the future MUST be changeable if you know when the vision occurs and you aren't doing anything related to knowing you have had a vision. This means the future MUST be changeable. The plot hole is that no one on the show realizes this. The hole *can* be covered when someone in the show realizes this, at which point you can say "it is implausible no one realized it until now" and then either stop watching or suspend your level of disbelief. I decided to basically not watch the show any more until I find out which way they are going.
There is still a show if people realize the the future is changeable of course. The way I would do it is there would be multiple flashforwards over the course of the show. Each flashforward essentially causes the future to change when the people change their behavior from having seen their original futures. The show itself would be about how the FBI people track down those responsible for the flashforwards using the knowledge they gain from the 'old' futures and the actions people take to avoid the bad futures they are seeing. That show I can get behind.
But I am not convinced that is the show that is being made.
|
|
| Idea |
[20 Sep 2009|02:30am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 tired |
] |
I was about to go to sleep when I had a concept for a hand-held video game device that... probably isn't possible with today's technology and maybe never will be possible... but seems like it has potential to be fun or at least very interesting. Even if it were technologically possible there are some potential legal problems though. Anyway, here's the idea:
You hold on to a controller with an LCD display, audio output and maybe input, a few buttons for input, and a camera facing the opposite of the display. The camera takes the images from the camera and feeds them as additional input into the device. The device uses these images to superimpose 'fake' images onto the screen. For example, some 'enemies' can be added so it seems like there are enemies all around you, but you can only see them if they are in front of the device. It would be like someone gave you a camera that could take video of normally invisible creatures.
In fact, the device could switch to, say, infrared and you could use the device to hunt the invisible man as he hides in your house. You could be fed audio information as well, breathing noises that get louder the closer you get to the thing you are looking for. Or maybe the device acts like a weapon and you can use it to aim and 'shoot' enemies that try to come after you.
I'm imagining you 'seeing' an alien laying on the ground and as you get closer to where the game says the alien is you hear the alien speak to you, advancing the story you find yourself becoming involved in. I assume by the time such a device could exist that you could even talk to the device and therefore the creatures that the device allows you to see, enabling you to have somewhat scripted conversations.
You could even integrate it with GPS, having the device suggest you go to a nearby museum for further instructions from your 'invisible' superior officer.
So yeah, a few ideas that seem a little interesting to me. I think such a game opens up the creator to heck of liability though. I mean, if you're looking at the screen you aren't paying attention to the real world too much and you could get hurt. It also creates an even fuzzier line between game and reality as well. You just know someone would play outside by a road and jump in front of a car because the game and therefore the person playing wasn't aware it was barreling down the road.
|
|
| Tropical Storm DANNY |
[26 Aug 2009|08:29pm] |
...POORLY ORGANIZED DANNY MOVING WEST-NORTHWESTWARD AT A SLOWER FORWARD SPEED...
AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT DANNY IS VERY DISORGANIZED AT THIS TIME.
THIS PATTERN SHOULD STEER DANNY GENERALLY NORTHWESTWARD
THIS EVOLUTION SHOULD CAUSE DANNY TO TURN NORTHWARD
THERE IS STILL SIGNIFICANT UNCERTAINTY AS TO WHAT [...] DANNY MAY AFFECT
WHAT AREAS GET IMPACTED BY DANNY.
DANNY CONNECTED BY A CYCLONIC SHEAR AXIS
COULD START BEFORE DANNY REACHES [...] NEW ENGLAND.
I'm loving this way too much.
|
|
| Upcoming Movie Roundup |
[16 Aug 2009|10:52am] |
Every now and then I cruise movie trailers on the internet to get a feel for what's coming. I use the apple trailer site because they have a wide range of trailers, many of which are in very high definition. Here are some that seem interesting to me:
'Ponyo' looks pretty crazy in just about any metric you can come up with.
'Inglourious Basterds' could either be terrible or brilliant at this point I can't tell. Of course, I bet there are like a billion ads for this on tv which will probably annoy some people. But Quentin Tarantino has a tremendous track record in my book so even if everyone says the movie sucks I'll still probably see it.
'District 9' is good old fashioned social commentary wrapped up in sci-fi. The concept seems pretty solid I hope the implementation is decent.
'I Sell the Dead' seems to aim to make grave robbing cool again. It has Dominic Monaghan as the lead which makes it cool. Presumably a dark comedy, but I disliked the way the trailer was cut even though I didn't really have a problem with the content.
'9' looks beautiful but I have no idea what it's really about except vague descriptions of apocalyptic and machines. Some sort of adventure I gather.
That's all that's coming out soon that interests me. Share your interests, why-don't-cha?
|
|
| Movie Roundup |
[15 Aug 2009|03:13pm] |
'Let the Right One In' is a Swedish film about the relationship that develops between a bullied 12 year old boy named Oskar and his new neighbor: a vampire child named Eli. Oskar dreams of revenge against his bullies during the evenings. He first meets Eli watching him stab at a tree in anger. So begins an unlikely friendship between the two lonely characters. The movie is both beautiful and haunting in its portrayal of bullying, love, hate, and murder. While there is blood I wouldn't call the movie 'gory' in any way. It's still a pretty intense movie though.
'Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist' is the tale of two music loving teenagers who meet during their quest to see their favorite band "Where's Fluffy?" in New York City. Nick was recently dumped by his girlfriend Tris so is feeling down in the dumps even taking the day off school, making mix-cd after mix-cd for Tris. He is in a band with several gay guys who want him to play in a show with them. After the radio announces a 'secret' show by Fluffy (their show being before the Where's Fluffy? show) Nick decides to go. Meanwhile, Nora and Caroline are at their own school with their 'acquaintance'... Tris who mocks her ex bf Nick for making her mix-tapes, dumping them in the garbage where Nora rescues them. What follows is a long night of meetings, music, and finding incredibly drunk Caroline lost in NYC like that one girl from Adventures in Babysitting.
I enjoyed both movies.
|
|
| Butter me I'm on a roll! No wait biscuit. I get those confused |
[13 Aug 2009|08:39pm] |
I've been updating far more frequently than usual. Go me?
Tonight I shall describe whatever the hell it is I do for a living. I may have done this before, I can't remember. Anyway, I test software used in the aviation industry to ensure that everything is as safe as possible. But that's not a very good explanation.
See, aviation software has 3 components in order to become certified for flight by the FAA.
First, you need requirements that describe the behavior of the software and how it interacts with external components. Stuff like "when the altitude is greater than 5,000 ft and available power is greater than 300 Watts then increase the cabin pressure by 20 psi". There's a billion things like this in large complex aircraft. Although the requirements would usually be much more vague than this.
So, after awhile you get all the requirements for how the plane should work. Next, you need the 2nd component: written software. The programmers look at the requirements and figure out how to have a computer do the stuff the designers want it to do. All software is just a collection of actions and conditions needed to be true to perform the actions. The 'requirement' I mentioned in the last paragraph might end up being written a little like this:
Retrieve ALTITUDE from DEVICE THAT MEASURES ALTITUDE and store result into variable named 'alt'
Retrieve AVAILABLE POWER from DEVICE THAT MEASURES POWER and store result into variable named 'power'
if 'alt' > 5000 AND power > 300 then
increase DEVICE THAT REGULATES CABIN PRESSURE by 20 psi
Anyway, that's all well and good, but after we have requirements and software we have to prove to the FAA that the plane won't crash if the pilot flips 3 switches into just the wrong combination because the programmer didn't think anyone would ever do something like that. To accomplish this testers do two things. First, they look at every requirement and write a test to see if the software does in fact accomplish what the requirement set out to do. So the tester, in the above case, would simulate all aspects of the requirement. The altitude being above and below 5000 (ft) and the power being greater than and less than 300 then see whether or not the cabin pressure goes up by 20 psi. And we have to test all 4 possible conditions.
But that's not all. It's possible to tell if the software executed every line of code and whether every combination of a condition was encountered. So if after you check every requirement you find out that some parts of the software weren't executed that means either a requirement should exist that WOULD cover the executed functionality or the functionality shouldn't exist in the first place. At this point either the requirement will change or the code and then there would be more testing, ad infinitum, until after testing everything checks out.
In this case I'm working on some stuff for an as yet unreleased airplane from a well-known airplane manufacturer.
You can now enjoy your regularly scheduled broadcast.
|
|
| I wouldn't believe in anything anymore if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch |
[11 Aug 2009|10:14pm] |
|
I was looking around for information on Health Care and found a pretty good report. It doesn't really advise policy decisions just a good bit of information with pretty graphics about where health care spending in the USA goes. It was a report written for congress in ought 7 made available through OpenCRS <a href="http://opencrs.com/document/RL34175>here</a>. Click either "Wikileaks" or "Open CRS (User submitted)" (I clicked Wikileaks) to get to the report proper.
Amid all the noise over the 'debate' it helps to have good old fashioned information. Enjoy!
|
|
| I don't know WHY I admit stuff like this... |
[10 Aug 2009|09:27pm] |
I had been meaning to change something about how I sleep for awhile now as what I'd been doing was feeling more and more childish. See, until I left Ft. Lauderdale I've always had my bed shoved into the corner (always, but always, so that when facing left with my head at the front of the bed my head was in the corner area) instead of just the head of the bed against one wall. Well no longer! After spending about 4 nights in a hotel where bed-against-one-wall was de rigueur I decided when I got my new place to finally switch to another aspect of 'adult hood'.
Speaking of adulthood, I'm even planning on getting a couch! I'm keeping my eye out on craigslist for a relatively cheap non-shitty couch. I'm not gonna get a ratty 20 year old couch for $150, no-thank-you-very much. Though that red 1800s fainting couch was intriguing, I would like something a little more modern please and thanks.
I'm not adult enough for a coffee table though. Or coffee for that matter...
|
|
| New State, New Battery, New Tires, New Age |
[09 Aug 2009|10:02pm] |
I haven't been to Illinois in awhile. I think the last time I was here it was with my brother Matthew where we decided to spend a few days in Chicago for some reason. Brother bonding I suppose. Of course we were idiots about sight-seeing and probably should have made a list of activities and planned some things out instead of just walking around downtown for two days and leaving fairly early. Not having much money doesn't help much either.
So, I made it to Rockford, IL 2 weeks ago and I am not so impressed with the town yet. But for now *I* will take the blame for that as I haven't actually driven around much. In fact, after I arrived my car almost immediately died on me. I shan't keep you in suspense: it was the battery which had committed suicide. I wasn't able to get it fixed until last weekend which sucked. I ended up just staying in all weekend because without internet I had no idea what I'd even do outside the apartment. Instead I read e-books on my computer. Yay eye strain!
I finally got internet on Thursday though which rocked. I came up with a list of just about every conceivable activity I could think of that I would need to leave my apartment for. Not a whole heck of a lot, but not absolutely nothing either. I checked out everything from bookstores and coffee shops to amusement parks to concert venues. Turns out Rockford can get some fairly large acts as Bare Naked Ladies are coming in September. I know Adrianne K. is a big fan of theirs. I like a few of their songs but I wouldn't consider myself a big enough fan to get tickets for it.
Another thing I found was a record store which was perfect as my mom got a new record player a few months ago and I had been wanting to get her some new records. I got Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense and The Decemberists: Her Majesty The Decemberists. A little old and new, something she's heard and something she probably hasn't heard. As I'm visiting G-rap in a few weeks it works out great.
I also did some much needed laundry. I put that off too long. Next weekend I'll try and plan a little somethin' somethin'.
Breaking News: Chase Oganowski doesn't like Illinois. Experts describe this as "baffling".
|
|
| The Rockford, Illinois Files |
[01 Jul 2009|09:05pm] |
I was accosted this afternoon by the head of my department (for lack of a better term) to spend some of July, and all of August, September, October, November, and at least part of December in Rockford, IL for project verification purposes. I would get paid pretty decently for this, I'd live much closer to where my family is, and I don't have much holding me here so I said "sure".
I don't have exact details yet, but I was told to plan on it being July 20th and I was told the per diem rate would be very generous. I debated my apartment situation and decided I should keep it. I don't want to have to break my lease, find a place to store my stuff and move it there, come back and have to find a new place and move my stuff back to it unless I have to. And given the fact that you can't technically accept per diem unless you are holding down a permanent address somewhere other than where you are going to work I figure I should just play it safe.
That said, maybe I can get someone to sublease while I'm away. I'd be worried about doing that given I don't have a lot of time or knowledge of how to vet a stranger to live here and be sure they'll leave. Not to mention it might not be allowed by my landlord. And I'd STILL need to stash most of my stuff somewhere.
Any suggestions are welcome.
|
|
| Florida Supercon Cont. |
[14 Jun 2009|01:42pm] |
I totally forgot I was going to talk about my first convention experience!
The convention ran from Friday at 4pm-ish to Sunday at 6pm-ish. I missed Friday entirely because I had worked fairly late and didn't want the hassle of having to find the place at night. Instead I went and bought my brother's birthday present Saturday morning and used that birthday present to a)try it out and make sure it wasn't crap and b)find the convention center. In case you didn't guess, I got him a car GPS. I would have had a hell of a time getting to the convention without it so I give it 2 thumbs up. After that I headed to Miami. Unfortunately, Florida is currently in its rainy season and that day was no exception. It started raining immediately after I got on the highway and pretty soon traffic ground to a standstill. I won't go into gory details, but it takes about 45 minutes to get to the convention center on normal whether conditions. It took me like 2 to 2.5 hours that day.
So I got there around 2:30 I'd say and walked around awhile checking out the various stalls and outfits. I'd say the 4 most common things being sold were (in no particular order) comic books, swords, t-shirts, and artists hawking their own drawings. The costumes were quite varied from each other. A lot of them I just couldn't figure out who they were supposed to be, probably because anime is a huge genre and I am only familiar with a small subset of it. Some of the costumes were very well made though. Ok, one amendment I think the most common thing I saw was a bunch of people wearing a piece of cloth covering their mouth like some kind of weird surgical mask. I was thoroughly confused and I should have asked what the hell was up with that. Another common thing I saw was people dressed as the character Rorschach from the Watchman film/comic book. Finally, several guys had really big fake swords.
at 3:15ish actor Ted Raimi(, brother of director Sam Raimi (Evil Dead series creator, Spider-man series director, and most recently Drag Me To Hell) took the stage where he did a Q&A for a bit and also used audience participation to make a sketch about the movie making business. So audience members pitched movie ideas, then audience members tried out for parts, and then the people picked acted out a scene. The pitch: Zombie Strippers On Acid. The actors: one guy as zombie stripper 1 and one girl as zombie stripper 2. The scene: two zombie strippers wake up alone in a dessert and must strip to get a plane to notice them when it flies overhead.
It was exactly as weird as it sounds.
At 4ish actor Bruce Campbell took the stage for Q&A. Funny guy. Made fun of Ted Raimi constantly. I'm sure it was all in good fun. Told storied about his career. It was interesting and fun to watch, but it was all random questions so I don't really remember any of them.
After that I walked around for awhile again before realizing there was stuff going on above the main convention floor. They had several open game rooms you could play for free at. Well, sort of. They rented controllers out in one room but if you had your own you could use it for free. They also had another room with Rock Band in it so I ended up playing around with strangers. I even sang a little. It's a fact: I suck at singing solo. Rock Band said so!
Sunday wasn't as fun, but I still enjoyed myself. There was some type of wrestling thing going on followed by the cosplay tournament. The wrestling was fun to watch, but I really didn't enjoy the cosplay very much. It was a talent show with costumes basically. But the contestants looked like they had a good time so I'm happy for them and of course there was a prize of some sort so if you're going to make a costume might as well try to win something.
I also met Dana Snyder, probably most well-known for his work on Aqua Teen Hunger Force as the voice of Master Shake, but of course many other shows and some live-action work as well. I wanted to meet him because of his work on The Venture Bros. He was selling autographs and personalized art work. That he drew on the spot. It was very good too so I splurged and got him to draw me something.
Finally there was something called The Match Game which I'm not going to find a short pithy way to describe if you don't know what that is. That was kinda boring because the contestants weren't very on the ball.
After walking around a bit and goofing off I took off and went back home
|
|
| Florida Supercon |
[07 Jun 2009|11:45pm] |
Well, I went to my first convention. This one was described as "South Florida's Comic Book, Anime, Animation, Cosplay, Fantasy & Video Game Festival". Which is a very accurate description of the event. I didn't get many pictures as I didn't like just taking pictures of strangers without getting permission, but there were many costumed people. There was a lot of people there of all ages dressed as their favorite characters from various media. Some of the costumes were very well made. But hey, why does Halloween need to be once a year? At least here some people will actually know what the hell you're dressed up as without asking. Quite a few girls were there too. Almost 50% I'd say.
I'll go into more depth about what I did and saw next post tomorrow. Right now I'm heading to bed.
|
|
| First New Livejournal Icon In Years |
[17 May 2009|06:03pm] |
|
Just wondering, what do my readers (Are there 0 or 1 of you? I can't recall) think of my Lost inspired icon. It's homemade! I'm wondering if I couldn't have picked a better color, but oh well.
|
|
| Friggin' Automobiles |
[02 May 2009|03:37pm] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps by Cake |
] |
There are two things in my car that I definitely need to do: change my oil and change my windshield wipers. I'm pretty certain I need to change my tires as well. Because I don't have any plans tonight so I'm just going to drop off my car and take the bus back home and do unspeakable acts of evil on IRC until around 1am. Good times.
I enjoyed the most recent episode quite a lot. More than Bryan certainly. I felt that it was very nicely paced, had a very nice way to knock off a character, and I even enjoyed the acting. Also, not really related, but Bryan really doesn't seem to like the mentally challenged. If life were a movie then his first born child would be mentally challenged, of course, but statistically speaking it probably won't happen.
I was thinking about going to an Art and Music festival about an hour north of me in West Palm Beach today, but my car takes priority so I'll consider doing it tomorrow.
|
|
| Friends Florida Visit |
[24 Apr 2009|06:26pm] |
Last week my old college buddies Peter and Adrianne visited Orlando for the day so I bought a very cheap ticket (probably only a little more expensive than driving) to Orlando to meet and hang out with them.
It was an early as heck morning, up before 5am for a 7am flight. When I landed I gave Peter a ring and eventually got a hold of him to find out that it was apparently a longer drive from north of Tampa to Orlando than they had originally supposed. Around 10am they picked me up. Hugs were had, and we went off to get some breakfast. We went to Cracker Barrel which was a new experience for me being a Cracker Barrel virgin. I almost enjoyed my meal, except it had a LOT of onions and peppers. Crazy amounts of them. So that sucked, but the rest was good.
After that, to the Magic Kingdom. I had meant to bring the Da Vinci's Notebook song Magic Kingdom in the Sky, but forgot. I would later learn that I also forgot my camera so I have no pictures to show for my trip. I'm sure Adrianne will share hers eventually. Anyway, we entered the park around noon and got our butts in line.
I'm sure I'll leave stuff out, but the quick summary of stuff we did was: the Stitch ride, which was mainly about how bad Stitch smells (very); Buzz Lightyear ride, which involved shooting things and I somehow got a huge score through no talent of my own; some train thing around the area; various shoppes; space mountain (hands down best ride); thunder mountain; splash mountain (hands down the wettest ride); and the Carousal of Progress. A brief interlude for lunch at some fish place occurred at one point as well as my usual daily screw-up manifesting itself in the form of losing my ticket and thus the ability to get a 'fast pass' to cut through lines. That was toward the end of the day though and we still did a fair amount, but we might have done a little more otherwise. Adrianne and Peter got some poor sap (ie, me) to take a picture of them making out in front of feudal fortress otherwise known as a castle.
We went to the hotel where we tried to get room service only to find the kitchen was closed and instead went to get fast food. Notable elevator event: some chick dressed up a lot walked in with us. Peter's theory: escort. Adrianne and myself are not 100% convinced, but I will concede it is possible and maybe even likely. I flew back early in the morning and then played video games all day.
|
|
| Yay wireless! |
[25 Mar 2009|12:56am] |
|
Man, setting up wireless is a pain. Took me long enough to set up over an hour. That is all.
|
|
| I think I can blow my savings now |
[01 Mar 2009|09:17pm] |
I've been saving up stuff to talk about on this here online journal device to give you, my loyal imaginary readership, something to mentally chew over. So chew away, my hearties!
It appears my last update was New Years Day. Most things since then were the usual day-to-day drudgery I've come to associate with being an adult (going to work, buying groceries, showering, etc.). Startling, however, a few Actual Events happened.
I got a gym membership. I've even been pretty good about going as well. Not much to say about it though. Moving on!
Through the website Match I met a girl. Literally. I'd chatted with a few other people on Match, but she was the first person I met in person. We actually went on 2 dates and 1 train-wreck thing that I won't get into as it's just too embarrassing to immortalize on the web. I mostly liked her which may have been my downfall. I was too nervous around her. It's a sad truth for me that the more I like you the less I can really interact around you. If you and I get along very well, I probably just hate your guts!
In this case while I liked her I wasn't infatuated with her. I recognized after talking to her on the phone for a week that there were some fairly major things about her that I didn't really like, but figured weren't necessary components for an enjoyable relationship. She didn't read and she wasn't too interested in movies. And video-games? Fuhgeddaboudit (I googled that, btw). From my point of view I was thinking "what the hell else is there?" So I wasn't too surprised that we didn't click.
While I wasn't terribly upset that SHE wasn't interested in me, it still burned being rejected and I got depressed for a day or so and being all 'poor me'. There was an interesting side-effect of this though.
A now-former coworker had encouraged me to join Match in the first place. I kept him up-to-date on my experience as a form of professional courtesy. When I mentioned the nervousness issue he suddenly exclaimed "I'm not the one in the family that you should be talking to about this." That statement was as cryptic for me as it is for you, until I realized he must have been talking about his wife who was in the brain business. That is, she recently graduated school for I think neural psychology.
I've met her a few times including a very interesting Easter dinner/party filled with games, drinking, and laughter.. She recommended therapy which I have considered before but did not go through with because of the a)cost and b)effort to find a therapist. She took care of issue b for me by gaving me a recommendation of a place to go to. I'm ignoring a for the time being in the hopes that it will pay off like a sound investment. It's not really THAT expensive either for what I hope to be relatively short-term.
In other big news, I am finally moving out on my own. I've had roommates my entire life except for two situations. Situation the first: Peter joined a fraternity and moved out 2nd semester of my sophomore year. Had I not fallen in with the music crowd I might have followed him the next year. How different might've things been if that had happened! I honestly can't even imagine.
Situation the second: summer of 2006 I moved into one of the Dicks. I think Green, but it may have been Purple. The Purple and Green Dick, for the uninformed, were Phi Mu Alpha off-campus housing in the student ghetto for a few years. Purple and Green for the colors of the houses. Dick for being basically male-only with the odd female love interest.
The summer I moved in was pretty hellish as I had almost no money and several of the roommates hadn't paid rent or utilities in awhile. I was the only one there for about 2 months as all of the other tenants were either forced out or voluntarily left for various reasons. I could go on about this for a few thousand words so I'll put a cork in it for now.
Finally, I went to Universal Studios and Epcot in Orlando a few weeks ago. I have to say, in my opinion Epcot kinda sucks. I guess I'm not in their target audience. I went with my roommate Wen, his girlfriend, and a friend of his girlfriend. His gf's friend was insanely annoying to be around. Don't get me started.
Fin.
|
|
| California Adventure |
[02 Dec 2008|10:14pm] |
Some, most, or all of you may not be aware that a month or so ago I traveled to Corona, California for about 3 weeks. I worked roughly 50-60 hours a week and basically didn't have a whole lot to do. Except ONE day I had off. Below is the story of my adventure.
A fire had started up a few miles away from my hotel and so there was a ton of traffic when I left. At the time I hadn't been paying attention to the news and had no idea how serious the fires were, I just thought "oh there's a fire. I hope it isn't serious..." The traffic at first slowed me down. But getting lost once I got to the ocean (my directions were very complicated after that point) slowed me down a lot more. I didn't really get to do anything until nearly 1pm. Had I known the way I might have arrived by noon or earlier.
Once I got to the ocean I swung north. If I had followed the ocean I might have arrived quicker, but I took a detour per my directions and got lost in Carson City or some city with a similar name. Eventually I found the directions correctly and soon arrived at my destination: 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica.
Close to where I parked was a caffeine dispensary called The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Cafe. I hung out there for a bit as I was in desperate need of a bathroom break and so that I could also get my bearings. I kept myself from wishing I had brought my laptop as I saw several people using theirs. There aren't any decent cafes that I've seen in Ft. Lauderdale. Nothing like Waterstreet or Coffee Works. Just Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts. I should probably give Starbucks a chance, or find a bookstore/cafe. Anyway.
After that, I spent a lot of time at the pier checking out the sights. I've played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and I have to say it's uncannily accurate in places. I kept expecting to see someone drive a car over the pier. There was a cop car blocking it though so the driver would have gotten 2 stars for their effort. In the spirit of visiting a place that existed in a video game, I played Pinball, Centipede, and Skeeball at the arcade and listened to the street musicians. I've seen a few street musicians before, but never that many in one day. 3-4 on the pier, then 2-3 on Third St.
After I got bored of the pier I decided to increase the number of large bodies of water I've been in by 1. This makes 2 oceans and 2 great lakes (Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Atlantic Ocean, and Pacific Ocean). I didn't actually do any swimming. It was too cold for me and I didn't want to go back to my car to get my swim shorts.
I liked that a lot of people were walking around and on bikes. One funny thing. I saw a guy putting around in circles with an 'impeach bush' sign suddenly scream out "arrest bush!" repeatedly towards the people on the beach. This made me think about getting a bike, but I wouldn't have had it long enough to make use of it.
One other note about Santa Monica: there were an incredible amount of beautiful women there. Sheesh.
By this time I was getting weak from hunger. Also, a slight feeling of sickness I had felt all day started to get worse. So, I went to get some food. I was too hungry to really look around, but I was next to a place called "Johnnies", I think it was called, and since I like Italian food I tried out the lasagna. Honestly, the lasagna was a mistake as it was a little cold in the middle. I probably should have complained, but I was half-way done and I was committed to finishing what I started. It just wasn't that big of a deal. I would have liked to have a few more days to sample food there since I only ate one thing at one place and I heard a lot of things like "the food is absolutely wonderful there."
After I ate I saw that the sun was getting close to going down and I hung out near the pier to watch my first sunset on the coast. By this time the smoke was clouding the sky even here where it had been a sheet of clear blue not a few hours earlier.
I stayed around a bit walking around listening to some street music. I bought some books for my flight back to Ft. Lauderdale as well (Anathem and a collection of short stories in graphic novel form called Flight). By this time it was dark and I knew there was no way I'd be able to find a park and going to a mall (two of my other planned destinations) seemed silly what with all of the stuff available by Third Street. I called it a night around 6:30-7pm.
I tried to go back the way I came and had a hell of a time finding where to go in the dark. But eventually I got back on the right road only to find out it was shut down about 10-20 miles away from the hotel because the fire had hit the area. I tried an alternate route, but that was shut down as well. I wasn't rude or anything to the police offer guarding the street, but after I turned around I realized I was lacking perspective over how horrible the situation must be and that my difficulties in getting to my hotel were nothing compared to losing a home or business. I calmed down a lot after I realized that.
Without knowing the area I decided that I had no choice but to either sleep in my car or rent a room for the night. I decided to rent out a room. I was told I wouldn't be reimbursed for the hotel because my regular hotel didn't get evacuated and I didn't need to leave the hotel. Jerks.
|
|
| Dream Scene |
[29 Nov 2008|11:27am] |
A friend posted about a dream she had so I figure I may as well post about a dream I had. A lot of what I 'remember' about the dream is pretty incoherent, but I remember enough to talk about. I was in a hotel, much like the one I stayed in while in California. I can't remember who, how, or why, but apparently I murdered someone. Most of the stuff I remember was me trying to get away with it by getting rid of evidence that a murder was committed in the hotel. It was pretty clear to me that the best I was going to do was buy myself time.
The point at which I start to remember stuff was after the murder and I'm pretty sure the disposal of the body. Some of the evidence was a little bit of blood and some things I wrote on a small notepad. I spent a part of the dream trying to figure out how to get rid of the stuff on the notepad. I didn't want to just throw it away as someone might find it and whatever was on the pad was apparently something I couldn't let someone have. I thought about burning it, but I felt that was going to be too incriminating. So I put it in my pocket and decided to deal with it later.
Next thing I know the bed is in a different location to hide the blood and someone I know (no one specific, it was just someone I felt I knew) came in and needed something from me and started to become curious over why the bed was moved. He tried to look in the section that was covering the blood. I kept getting more and more insistent that he shouldn't look at it. I think I came up with a somewhat believable lie. He stopped seeming so interested. About then I woke up.
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
justcodedan's journal