Reality keeps intruding...

Well, episode three isn't any better the second time. It isn't bad, no, I'm quite admant about its not sucking. I just hoped I'd discover levels of insight or deeper meaning tucked in with all the crappy Anakin-Padmae scenes. Would it have killed Lucas to make episodes one and two a single movie and have given us either a back story or more Vader? Maybe an episode one that set up the millennia long war of attrition between Jedi and Sith? Some freaking back story? Or, a whole episode of Vader just going gangbusters on Jedi s? How cool would that be! We (book and comic reading geeks...) know that there were Jedi who survived Vaders' trophy hunting. Why not a whole episode about that, one where Vader really becomes willingly evil, not just 'I'm-a-confused-teenager-evil'? Also (sort of a spoiler, but come on...) who really thinks Obi-wan wouldn't of lightsabered Vader right through the eye-socket? He would of taken him out. For sure. Alright, enough bitching about what could have been. It was do or do not, and Lucas wasn't even trying. Just don't look back in anger...Ok, yeah, I'm listening to Oasis right now. It's on the internet radio station I'm grooving to while I type. Sorta fitting and all, plus, I'm just a big hack. Well folks, back to my memorial day sponsored three day weekend. Retrofitted an attic ladder in the garage yesterday, bought another billion feet of insulation. Was up till three in the morning aligning hinges and trying to attach springs. That's my salute to American resolve. On a rare but serious note, it was sorta tough to watch nightline last night and see all the people who have died in the Iraq war. I have a cousin and uncle that both made it back from Iraq mostly whole. Outside of their eyes they look the same. I'm lucky that they came back, and that I wasn't watching for their faces on the show. I was watching for one guy I knew from my high school band, and while we weren't that close, it still hit hard. Watching all the faces go past and to feel a generational attachment form was odd. I must be getting old, because some of those kids looked like kids. Whether you're from the "lies-lies-unjust-war-of-aggression-by-imperialistic-baby-killing-cowards" party or the "doing-their-duty-one-hundred-times-more-people-that-age-die-in-car-crashes-each-year- than-in-the-entire-war-respect-their-sacrifice" camp, you can't be blase about the deaths of Americans, however they died. Heck, forget Americans, any death can't be treated indifferently. Justified or not a death is an outcome that represents failure. Somewhere, sometime, somehow either the person who died or the person who killed that person failed and brought about the death. And in either case their is a victim, due to that failure. People don't die without consequence. There may be righteousness to the death, on either side, but there is no death that does not affect. I watched as long as I could, then went back to work on my ladder. Onwards, upwards, and always in circles. To Staff Sgt. David Weisenburg, and his family: memorial day is a bit different for me now. I'm truly sorry, and truly grateful. It was a pleasure to know him when I did.

Wanna buy a short sword +3...

I played neverwinter nights for about four hours last night, didn't even blink once. I had no clue where I was or how much time I'd spent playing. Family members were but vauge memories of the time that came before my half-orc paladin aqquired baldurs armor and smote evilness with my acid dripping sword. I've never done the whole "rpg" thing, but I'm sure making up for it now! I'd never thought I'd enjoy this type of game. I'd even mocked the "poor souls" who sold xp on ebay and had clan meetings online (well, I still do, that's just nerdy...). Silly thing is, I read a ton of books and rpg's typically are more story based than any other type of game (with a few minor exceptions...). Heck, they call the levels "chapters", which should have been a huge tip off for me. I enjoy the story as much or more than I do wipping the floor with the nasty critters which abound in video games. I love the progression and the deliberate pacing. It's almost like those choose your own story books from when I was a kid. Except I hated those things. I always had my fingers in about six different pages, because I wanted the best ending and I wanted to read all the stories. Now, if I miss a cool plot twist, I just create an uber-level cheat character and replay the chapter quickly. Oh yeah, that's the stuff. I'm six years old all over again.

Public reserve...

So, I'm about fed up with bloggers interface. I've lost numerous posts on multiple computers due to glitches in their editing software. If I try to edit the html, all my previously inputed material in 'compose tab' may or may not disapear. If I change the font, words, at random, disapear from the post. Inserted spaces will move and entire paragraphs are sucked into the black whole that is bloggers' 'create post' page. How freaking annoying to spend an hour or so editing your own work just to see it turn into nothingness. I'm not worried about some loss of social impact or lessened grandeur, I just don't have enough spare time to blow on an hour of vapor posting. Maybe there is a niche where people purposely create beautifully moving posts, carefully linked and pictured, only to erase them as a form of personal growth and self enlightenment. Whatever. From now on, I will write my posts in o.office (yeah suckers!), and paste to bloggers crappy post page. Oh yeah, I can't get the spell check to work either. But that's my fault I'm pretty sure. It's a love-hate relationship here. In other rambling, I got my computers wiring re-routed and all my systems are functioning, so maybe I'll post a bit more often. That, and I won't be so hesitant because I might lose a post. I had a really time sensitive post become ghost text and it will never see the light of day, even though it was about one of the best things in life (star wars). But maybe now the brain leechings will occur more frequently. That's something to worry about eh? Toodles...

Three steps to a better me...

Quick and dirty folks: The picture link to walmart sucks is too small to make out. Sorry. It's a play on words you see. Ha. My color scheme is pathetic. Um, yes, I know that firefox and ie are not operating systems. I merely was commenting on my desire to stay native in windows and the lack of a good alternative browser in the windows domain. Opera doesn't do it for me. Not awful though. That's all for now kiddies, I'm off to see the wizard or at least the guy who pays me. Oh yeah, new link coming soon, see it HERE first! Tah!

The Lack Thereof...

Walmart is the Devil!!! They Suck!!! Sorry, had to get that out of my system. So, this is just a quick quip to explain my links and what they mean to me.

Let's see, Stone Brewing: the goodness never stops with these guys! I first met them about four years ago and it's been a long term commitment for me. The original wonder came from their Arrogant Bastard Ale, which has never let me down. When I found it on tap, oh my! The have increased the goodness over the years with Double Bastard Ale and their Vertical Epic Ale (which just was released a bit ago and might still linger in shops for a day or two...). All Stone beers are goodness in a bottle. Stones' beers are ones I can share with friends without fear of scorn, even though they're non-Oregon made beers. They're Oregonians in spirit my friends, they are in spirit.

MotoCzysz, my wet dream of choice, whither art thou 'o steel and carbon fiber mount? I want one of these like Starwars fans want a real lightsaber (yeah, I want one of those too...). I don't even have a (working) motorcycle, though my wife promises I can have one sooner rather than later. This is way too much bike for me, but it's a Portland bred bike, and wicked cool! The new Nortons, even being Portland based, are a distant second, since this bike is a scratch built wonder from the heir of Britten. Maybe in the future, instead of a mid life crisis I can have one of these.

Emesis Basin Paulson is the genius of Mr. Andrew Paulson. He put me in the 'credit-thanks' section of one of his cd's. He loves orcas, computers, his wife and sea captains. But not in that order. In fact order may not apply here. Check in on this one often kids, it's in a constant flux. This is one big safety belt violation in the making! Brilliance is birthed here, and often.

12 oz Prophet is a good mind adjuster for the "art means___" crowd. If art has to mean something specific to be art, than this site cannot exisit and by trying to view it the world and universe would cease to be. It is what it is. Form and function have no set pattern here. It's just so viscious, to impose yourself on art. Beg for forgiveness, then go and whine no more.

Buiness Reply Mail is sorta self explainatory. Submit or die by the sword! That is, submit your best stuff to these guys and gals. Scuttlebutt is of a coffee table book in the making. You know you wish you'd thought of this first. Actually, we* used to do this all the time, back when. We* just never documented or spent time on it. It was all quick wit and bluster. This is the real deal! (we*: me and my...friends? Yeah, I got a few...)

Last but not least, there is firefox. Um, Firefox! Yeah, see, I.E. crashes way too much and I'm just not enough of a non-conformist to go to linux or unix or one of those other os's. I'm a lazy American, and firefox hits all the right spots for me. Ease of use, check. Vocal and rabid support, check. No new crap to learn, check. Free, check. It's the best thing since sliced cheese. Not a huge advancement over regular cheese but a big time and effort saver. That's all it takes for me, and I'll up 'em till something better pops up.

Make sure to bug Aaron about his lack of a webpage for me to link(see post below...), and stay tunned for more excitement! Who will I link up next? Microtech Knifes? The 'OpenOffice' project? PvP?
You'll just have to come back and see. Oh I am so self-important!

Why Doesn't Aaron have a website? (#1)

Why Doesn't Aaron have a website? (#2)

Why doesn't Aaron have a website? So, I wanted to pimp some cool stuff, show off a few friends, explain why I'm linked to the links I'm linked to. And this punk here doesn't have a website. Sure, he says his stuff is on other peoples sites. Big whoop. Get your own freakin site or go home! Aarons' stuff is good folks, and there's music. Music! I mean, c'mon! He's a talented media-designer- artist something or other. Doesn't everyone think he should have his own showcase for his work? Isn't it just sad that he doesn't? Won't you all write him at europacontact@hotmail.com and tell him so? (Side note to Aaron: No one reads this... you're safe...) He's got dvd's that he'll hand out, he needs a website. How else will his glory be enhanced? Trying for the guilt thing here. Hey, with a website he could get more work and buy that juicer he wants (that was from the 'carrot-stick' school of motivation...). Ok, enough with the bitchin, on to the promo's. Ironically, that will come before this post, although it will be posted after this one, but you'll see that one first, but this one was first, and... Ok, that was just dumb. Forwards not backwards, up not down and always in circles!

SO pissed right now...

My keyboard sucks, my computer froze (too many tabbed windows) and I lost a post in progress. I was saying "Happy Birthday" to Daniel, and recounting the story of his birthday present. Not a damn person gets to read it now, because I am not retyping and relinking all of it again. Sorry. This dissapoints all of two people, I know, but it hurts me all the same to say it. Where the hell is the quick save button on my "create" page? I just spent a buttload of time hunting down the proper pictures and getting the feng shui all harmonized. I had to retype most of it anyway, because in addition to the spacebar being spotty I'm getting miskeys where "n" becomes "b" and it's all a bit too much right now. Maybe tomorrow morning I'll do it all proper, but for now:
Happy Birthday Daniel. Sixteen is weird times. You'll be fine, I'm positive of it. Later.

It was a really funny story, I swear...

I saw a guy I used to be pretty good friends with today. He just got back from riding his bike across Thailand and part of Vietnam. He has always been the "free-spirit" illustration in my lifes' personal encyclopedia. This was just the latest in a series of instances where he just goes and "does". Travel, adventure and restlessness seem to have come prepackaged and sorted in him. Mind you he's an extremely intelligent, laid back guy in a paranoid sorta way. He's either the first or dead last to catch on, being a bright but all together distracted kinda fellow. I'm at a loss for classifying him, being as he's amazingly unique and awesome in and of himself. Be that as is, I had remembered shortly after seeing him a story involving us and two of our friends. One of those story's from way back that really needs to be archived and preserved for the eventuality of my having kids. A jaw dropping "No you didn't...?!" story that honest to God happened and which as of half an hour ago I cannot remember to save my life. So there you have it. It's an unforgettable story (ironically...) so if I ever do remember it, it will make its' way here. If not, trust me, it was a really funny story. Really.

Nothing says mothers day like a robot costume...

Maybe I'm a few days late to ramble on about mothers day. How grumpy everyone was on that holiest of days. Ok, so I usually do a pretty crappy job of remembering my mothers "day", as well as her anniversary, birthday and how much she hates run on sentences. I'm a self-absorbed son. Well, I got a card this year. On my own. No reminders from anyone. My wife bought chocolates. We make a good team, each doing half the work and getting the job done. That's why we got married, so we each can do a half assed job all the time now. Equal division of labor rocks! Anyway, I squeaked by in the "remembering" category this year (so far...) and actually saw mom on mothers day. Two for two. Everyone I ran into on mothers day was pretty miffed though. As in, (actual conversation here...) "Yeah, she wants to make dinner for me and my wife. That's why I'm shopping 'sigh'. Sure am glad to be here and not there though! Damned mothers day.". Honest, that was the sentiment I encountered all day. It sure must suck to have a mom looking out for your expanding waistline on "her" day! Man, the only thing worse than that is if she had those cold beers waiting for you when you finished shopping (for butter the mom was using to cook his dinner with). And we all know she had the beer cold. So, the flip side of all this is that a lot of people were buying aluminum foil. In two's and three's, multiple rolls at a time. And at the end of my grocery store experience three kids (fifteen and sixteen is still 'kids') came through the line with three rolls of aluminum foil, a couple red bulls and a bagel. Not a word was said till they finished paying, at which point the guy (there were two girls, a guy...no pizza place...) who was not only silent but stone still the entire time looked over at me and said "Robot Costume". That was it, "Robot Costume". A smile and they left. And I was thinking, what says mothers day better than a robot costume? Nothing. Those three silent kids had put all the petty, angst riddled family drama I'd seen that day into stunning perspective. Wrap yourself up in aluminum foil, empty yourself of emotion and desire and then go about your day. Be a robot. Robots are souless machines bent on the destruction of human kind. They drink way too much. They are foul mouthed and will steal your medications. But they are completely selfless. They have no soul to serve and are mostly sedate till the backup programming kicks in. Robots are the perfect template for mothers day harmony. They don't complain, they don't think, they merely do. For once in your life, ignore your inner cries of protest about suffering at moms hands. Let go of the pain and resentment. Don't try to focus on positives. Don't become a martyr. Literally deny yourself existence for one damn day and let your mom have a day of her own. Because they are few and far between for her. Every other day of the year you can be as ungrateful and resentful as you want. Heck, you probably have good reason to be! I don't question your right to be that way, just the necessity. For one single day, make yourself a robot costume, commune with your robot nature and let go. Let mom be mom. Be her son or daughter. Don't bitch and moan. Don't complain. Just be. She'll appreciate it more than all the flowers, chocolate and butter in the world. It's selfless. My whole family accidentally bought my mom her favorite starbucks drink on mothers day. She's got like four or five still in the fridge. That's not really selfless. It's considerate. The selfless part is that my brother and dad had those coupons for a "buy one get one free" drink at starbucks. They got my moms drinks and then split one drink themselves. That was selfless. It also was not robotic. They're beyond the need for robot sympathy, having learned on their own to value another more highly. But for all the special people, seriously think about investing in some aluminum foil next year. It'll make the world a better place for a day. And then when the robots do come in the middle of the night, they will mistake you for other robots and the human resistance can flourish briefly before being wipped out once and for all.

This is one of those hella sad things in life. Seeing a persons potential just erased. All the redemption he had left in him, done in by one drunk asshole. Too many people cared for it ever to be cool to have ended like this. For proper respects you gotta go to: http://www.lay-lo.com/graff/bore.html Better late than never. R.I.P. Travis.

Thespacebardoesn'twork...

I've never tried to fill in online forms with a broken keyboard before. You end up hitting the "edit" button every other page to keep it all straight. You re-type almost every single sentence. Heck, I'm re-typing as we speak. It's a silly thing, a malfunctioning key, it demands all of your attention and becomes the unifying theme to whatever you're doing. I could be typing a report or spamming a friends email box and I'd have to re-read every single word to make sure the space made it in. I do have to check every single word. I'm enjoying the process in a weird "editorial" way, as if I'm fixing someone else's errors. As long as they're my errors, I'm going to savor them. Well golly, this isn't sweeps week, I'll save the exciting plot lines for later.

Wait for it...

So, I've got a habit of starting things I'm writting with "So,". It's just a habit, not a particularly bad one, but it's a pretty ingrained habit none the less. Maybe I'll break it, but this whole thing is sorta freeform and spontaneous, so breaking it might be a bit too forced for my taste. I also like run on sentences and big words I can use in sentences, but that I can't spell. I have a propensity for them. See, I'm not sure I spelled that word correctly and I'm purposely refraining from using spell check on this, just as a form of self enforced something or other. In fact, I'll probably spell check this whole thing after I publish it, just for peace of mind. I won't edit the thing, but I'll know (and maybe, just maybe, you will too...).
There, that's better (I just changed font). Seems a bit odd that I can process better in a pleasing font, but I can, so it changes. No idea what the default font is on this thing and I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter. It might, but I'll deal with that then. If old english teachers from school days past are to read this, my utter lack of a point will be a small comfort. That, as well as my continuing ignorance of grammar, punctuation and spelling (though not necessarily in that order, or at all...).
I am just now recouping from the day at work, the beer is still cold, the TV muted. I am not sure how this all fits togther yet, but it'll happen. I've been fostering a small fear of gas stations for some time now. At first it was a fear of running into the island with my bumper. Given time and experience that has dissapated (mostly). My fears being what they are (mine) naturally abhor a vaccum, and are instantly replaced with more severe, and possibly british, ones. Take this new fear of the gas station: I'm not even positive it is new. That was a horrible use of the one-on-top-of-the-other-dots-thingies. Totally wasted. Anyway, I am starting to believe that my new fear was only masked by the original fear, and the relief I felt after I successfully navigated the tiny driving lanes at the gas station. I think that this new fear was there all along, and that I just failed to pay it due heed. So, this new sort of british fear is a fear of the attendants. They are for the most part totally friendly and outgoing. They seem quick to smile or at least yell at someone other than me. They even wash my windows with those dirty squegees (sometimes). My fear is this: That they are only being so nice and social in order to get a tip. This is a multi-stage fear so bear with me. See, I don't use cash. Plastic is my drug of choice, the narcotic of convenience and respectability rolled up in a slow burn wrapper. When you pay with a card at the gas station they don't give you a tip section to show some guilt. They might expect you to carry a spot of cash, but I don't. It's all plastic, most of the time. I always feel akward being friendly and engaging when I have this creeping sensation of being a mark. Being made for a quick tip. I'm usually getting gas after or before work (never on a day off oddly...) so I've got the whole shirt and tie thing happening. Whatever it is, they come running and I'm left feeling like the guy in the '87 Jetta is getting ignored because I might, just might give a tip. But I'm not tipping. And so I'm akward and stilted dealing with the delightful human beings who pump my gas. Mind you I don't want to pump my own. Oh no, this is a mark of refinement having someone else pump gas for me. I'll pay the tax and create jobs and all that bit. No, I'm just uncomfortable with the interaction bit. I always sigh and stretch or yawn like I've been worked beyond any standard of decency. I feign dazed stuppor or hide behind my coffee cup. I cringe when I'm called "sir". Yes, I could budget my gas money, carry it in cash and include a tip in my figures. I could carry tip money specially for the gas station. I could have scratch-its on hand for a unique type of gratitude. Or, I could just come up with a bunch of half-assed solutions and continue on with my ways and fears.
Change is a constant, but damned if I don't at least put up a fight. I have my neurotic fear of interactions with gas station attendants that I'm not going to tip, and that's just how it is. I've got friends that used to work at gas stations. I know the ways they devised to spot a tip, the customers they sought out, stories told. I know the thinly veiled disgust they felt for non-tippers, the people who didn't think they were good enough to live (their sentiment, not mine). Maybe that has contributed to my neurosis. Maybe I really am just becoming british and socially akward. Maybe I'm creating drama to avoid self realizations of being stingy with the help. Do I really need to solve this? Or should I just enjoy my own bumbling ineptness in this limited irregular occurance? Eh...
That's all I got. I'm still new to this whole form of ego stroking. I'm sufficently self important so I'm really just curious to see what happens here. I've got no mission statement, no plan of attack. Just a blank page and my mind. God save us all.

Coming dear...

So, the name is a bit odd to me right now because the very first thing I posted was a picture. That was a complete and total accident, but hey, you gotta start somewhere. I needed a name for this and "These are just words..." was written on my notebook of random crap that I carry around. Seemed to work as well as anything else at the moment. That's about it. More as follows. Yes dear, coming dear...

You should see the rest of the house...