Staten Noveau

It's been a long couple of weeks. My nerves are beginning to show it too.

There's any number of reasons for this, but most of all, I think it's a matter of course.

I'm also a little frustrated by some people this week. Insisting I have to listen or talk to them whenever they're around. I'm not an object of confession. I'll be there when you need me, but if you need me every night, your need isn't so much a must, as it is an addiction or obsession. I'm not a plaything. I'm a living, breathing human being, with wants that must be met for my enjoyment.

Sitting around for three hours a night talking about nothing does not create enjoyment for me. Especially when all intelligent or amusing conversation is ended in the first half hour, and I find myself providing one word answers to rhetorical questions for the remaining two and a half. Such dialogue is tripe, and I can't imagine why it would provide comfort to anyone, least of all when the questions are loaded.

Do you hate me?
Well, obviously, since I don't, the answer is no.

Are you comforted by this fact, that you haven't earned my ire?

I don't know how people can live like this. I could get by with someone only talking once in a while. I don't get how my not saying much in an evening (but still saying something!) is considered an affront, and that I should be made to feel guilty for not meeting my evening's rambling bullshit quota.

No thanks. If I don't talk enough for your liking, that's your problem. If you want lots of talk without a lot of substance, get a fucking parakeet.

Test, Test?

Well, that wasn't so bad, now was it?

One cool feature I noticed was a hierarchy-layout for the blog history. I would use that (as it's stored by year, rather than month), except by default, the top-most record is always open. It takes up a lot more space than it needs too, so either I get some 1337 skillz, or just don't bother.

Otherwise, the page is starting to look like its old self again.
Okay, Google. If you can get me a pre-collapsed history hierarchy, and the ability to set the blog title and the blog head as two different things without hard-coding it, you've redeemed yourself.

And while you're at it, try sinking Microsoft.

Well

Fuck you Google.

There, I said it. In the process of my "update," I decided to give their new page layout tools a whirl. It assured me that my old template would be "backed up," but being as paranoid as I am, I made a backup of the one I was using (as it was heavily modified, and I didn't want that work going to waste.)

Naturally, the "update," complete formats my page. Utterly. As in, WTF? So, I attempt to revert. Guess what? It doesn't revert to my old template. It reverts to my old old template. As in, before I added a bunch of links and background colours and the title flag and everything.

So. I open up my file and load my old template in, praising myself for thinking ahead.

But wait. XML errors. XML errors that didn't exist while the template was in use, five minutes before I updated.

I guess this is why they call it Beta.

Some Things, MNS

I'm going to be going over the blog today and adjusting it to get rid of all the dead links/blogs I don't read anymore. I'll also probably be "upgrading" it to Google's new version, or whatever. It seems it's actually a mandatory update, as I'm no longer able to comment on blogs that aren't Googlized. I think it would've been great if, on acquisition, Google had just Googlized everyone's blog and been done with that, but in giving people a choice that's really no choice at all, I think they've kind of dropped the ball.

Anyway, so yeah. This blog will be cleaned up and turned into a Google account blog. As a note, anyone who hasn't upgraded their account will not be able to comment. I know. It sucks. But you'll have to upgrade sooner or later. I'm choosing to do so now.

Also, what's the plan for monday? I've got the weekend off coming up and nothing to do.

Endure, etc.

I've been in a bit of a funk lately. Don't know why.

It might have something to do with looking in the mirror in the morning and not recognizing the face staring back. I wouldn't call it a loss of identity. Really, I've created an identity that a lot of people really like, which is fundamentally not me.

Maybe I'll take it off, and wrap it up and give it away for Christmas. Or maybe I'll keep people guessing. Who am I? What do I want? Will you ever really know?

I'm not telling.
Largely because none of the above questions even matter.

Eyes of Orion

The coyotes yip and howl under the moonless stars. I can never tell if it's from loneliness or triumph.

I remember a time when the wolves used to roam here. Proud packs. Apex predators, stalking, hunting, and killing their prey without nary a worry save the threat of other wolves. And the occasional coyote.

Now the wolves are gone. Hunted to extinction for crimes that were not theirs. Such is humanity's way. When no real reason for extermination is forthcoming, one is produced. Synthesized. Adopted.

Now the coyote rules these frigid wastes. Alone. There are no packs. One could say there are hardly even families out here. Everyone is strangers, and hardly anyone looks up anymore. In their current state, humanity will find their destiny at the bottom of the holes they dig, rather than at the highest heavens they dream of.

Found in Rubbish

There are times when what I must do makes me genuinely hate being me.

This is one of them.

Lost in Transmogrification

I'll always wonder how a straightforward comment that leaves my mouth ends up bent completely around in somebody else's mind.

I'm also already tired between having to choose between friend and girlfriend. They're the same. They're equal. Some might say bro's before ho's. Some might say duty to the booty. I say fuck it all. I'm trying to please everyone and they're all just taking it. I won't be criticized. I won't be lectured. I won't be tempted. I won't tolerate threats. Veiled or otherwise.

Was it a bad idea to get involved? I don't really care. Good ideas are about as rare as meteor-strikes, and I was tired of waiting around for something to happen. Was it love?

Love. Love. Is just a word. Bandied about and handwritten in love letters by tasteless dilettantes and hopeless romantics. It's thrown out like a lifeline of spider silk by the naive. It's born in its absence, and it's proven in its silence. Through action. Or inaction. Easily confused with compassion, love is, as it tends to be, a muddled mess of feelings, where you find yourself a million miles where you thought you were supposed to be, following someone else's footprints in the snow with a great yawning expanse before you, and nothing behind you except for hazy memories of a life that could have been someone else's.

Was it Love? No. It was a whole host of things. But it wasn't love. It wasn't the heady rush of exhilaration at the unknown prospect of tomorrow. Like every day before, these days will end, and their endings are not unknown. One could say formulaic, but although the destination is always the same, the means of getting there are the real mystery.

There is a girl out there who is calling me her boyfriend, and it is her wish that it last for years. For the small pleasures that we share, I hope the torture we endure of each other never makes it for that long. I also hope that she never reads this, because I know she will take the wrong meaning from it, as often others do. These relationships... they are a perfect machine. Slight differences are like grit on the turning cogs. At first they grate only slightly. But the longer one has to endure the difference of another, the greater the resentment of that one person becomes.

My patience is geological in tenure, but lessons learned in the past show me that I should not test its longevity again. When the machine breaks, it is broke. It is not safe to try again. I've never asked and only given... and that it seems... that is the only wrong thing I have ever done by any.

Today

Was a die I verily would like to never have to live again. My stress today is work related. I'll leave it at that.

I'm just thankful nobody stopped to give me parking advice again today in the grocery store parking lot. I could have become homicidal. As it stands now, I'd like some time to myself. To think, and to relax. I'd like the rest of the world to just fuck off, and if necessary, die, for the next two hours, if it would be so kind.

I think I'm just going to listen to calming music, and write...

Where's my beef?

So, I just got in from hanging with the boys. The trilogy. The legacy. Whatever name we're going by nowadays. It was fun times.

You know, even though we didn't see a movie, it's good for my sanity getting out from this town once in a while. I'm realizing just how much beer we were toting around in that back seat. Man, if the cops had pulled us over, I'm sure we would've had to get belligerent because there is no way that they'd let us get away with that much in the back seat.

Not to mention the box of Lucky.

I think that car had more alcohol in it than gasoline, that's for sure. Hope you boys enjoy that bounty. Except for you D. I don't know what you drink, aside from Coke, but Ryan and Trevor said you don't like the booze so much. Oh well. I guess when the three of us are lying in hospital on dialysis, you'll be sitting there laughing at us.

In any event, I'm finishing this beer and heading to bed. See you all next time I swing out that way.

Cheers

Humming Tunes

So, through some feat of midnight engineering genius (or insanity, depending on your point of view), I managed to record some short clips of me jamming last night. I'm not going to call it music yet, because that would be an insult to music everywhere. Instead, it'll just go by "pleasant" noise for now. Unfortunately, I don't have a place to host the sound clips, but I'll pass them along through MSN or e-mail to those interested.

I was just using the Windows Sound Recorder for these ones, so the clips are one minute long. Most are two stuck end on end, where I took the same chords and tried a louder approach the second time through. All in all, I think it's not bad, but I still have a ways to go before I'm playing at Trevor's level.

In other news, I'm probably going to hit the liquor store today. I've been too dry for my own good lately, and I need to get my tolerance back up.

Power Lines Transmitting

After being in an opinion slump for the past... oh, six months, I've got the spring back to write commentary on news and politics. Power Lines has been updated, and those so inclined can go give it a read.

After some experience, my skills at writing commentary seem to have improved somewhat since last posting. Hopefully it'll only get better.

In other news, I have the weekend off. Hooray.