Thought Storm

All new low

2012-02-08T18:12:00.002-07:00

I'd let it rest on 2008. That was the year when the bottom fell out, and that was also the time when nobody wanted to be told "I told you so."

The gravy train was supposed to keep going forever, and the money was supposed to keep flowing. Nobody wanted to believe that all good things need to come to an end.

Since that time, nobody's been permitted to rock the boat. The social psyche is still fragile, still reeling from a near (or some might say, truly) fatal blow. Before 2008, dissent was tolerated out of lip service, because it was assailing an impregnable fortress of self-righteousness. We were successful, and the economy was proving us right at every turn.

But now? Now those sticks and stones can break bones. The Occupy Wall Street protests were a telling reaction to the iniquities sustained over the last decade. But more telling was the reaction. Police brutality. Open criticism in the media. Protest is a constitutionally sanctioned right - but nobody seems to bring that up when the police make mincemeat of protesters. Or further, when politicians sneer at the audacity of disenfranchised youth.

Now we're facing the jaws of a recession the likes of which the world hasn't seen since the 1930's. What will Fox News say when the US's entire middle class is emptied out into the streets? What will the economy do with no workers and no consumers? This is the world we're going in to, whether we want it or not.

Ready?

Legacy

2012-02-07T23:30:00.002-07:00

I had a pretty uncomfortable dream last night. I've since turned it into the start of a new story - one more to add to the heap, I guess.

But it just made me wonder. What would you do if the world was dying, and you were given the choice of dying peacefully with it, or taking a long-odds gamble of survival after a mentally and physically brutal journey?

Dinosaur Bones

2012-02-06T10:45:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting in a lecture right now about the issues produced by new media forms, and how new mechanics work.

I suppose it is useful to understand what theorists 60 years out of date think about modern technology (ex. it's interesting, fascinating, magical, bizarre, etc.) I suppose I've been spoiled. I've grown up with technology, and in a sense, it's grown up with me. I see nothing bizarre or magic about the migration of content onto the Internet. It's the product of an iterative process that's been ongoing since humans first decided that the information stored in our heads would be better preserved on a medium like clay or paper.

I'm amused by how badly some theorists want to try and explain technology. There's a huge push to define its relationship to society, and how people drive (or are driven by) it. The truth is, technology is an aspect of society, and society itself a technology that allows humans to exist communally to varying degrees of intimacy.

There. I've just saved you $6,500 and a year of lost time.

Syria's been on my mind a lot of late. I'm studying it for another one of my lectures. If you haven't already, I'd encourage you to read about what's happening over there. It's shaping up to give Rwanda a run for its money, but the UN can't seem to get its permanent seat holders to pull their heads out their asses, so we're likely just going to sit on the sidelines while people are butchered in the streets.

More categorizations.

The world we're set to inherit isn't in very good shape right now. There's going to be another economic collapse, probably starting in Europe. I'm banking that there's another country there that's teetering on default, but they haven't mentioned anything yet because it would cause a global panic. So instead, we're waiting, stacked like nervous dominoes. The arrangements that led to the first collapse in 2008 are still in place, and the guilty parties walked away from that mess scott-free.

Break time. I'll write more later.

Cold Breath

2012-01-27T12:41:00.001-07:00

Mandatory update, I guess. You might've noticed the new layout. Honestly, I just don't have time to continue changing the old one, so I just picked the least offensive of the pre-created templates.

The result, I think, is somewhere between modern art-deco and a George Foreman grill. Kind of explains why I always get hungry whenever I come here now. In any event, I suppose I should update. I've had a lot to say, but it's mostly serious stuff. I don't like talking about serious stuff, because either A) People think I'm a serious person and switch off, or B) People take things too seriously and get into a fight. I don't mind debates, but I'm seriously wondering how many people can tell the difference between disagreeing with a point someone makes, and actually believing that person is an idiot.

Most people are just inclined to believe that what they know is right, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a nut.

In any event (see, too serious), the written works are on hold right now. The University has decided to make it their mission to include group projects for every class they can get away with, and this means that almost all of my free time is spent trying to manage or be managed by other people. I guess the U got ragged on because its graduates couldn't work properly as a team, so they're trying to rectify the issue by cramming it down our throats. I can foresee a new complaint next year that U graduates will become homicidal whenever they're forced into a team.

On the topic of games, I've been mostly sucked into Skyrim right now. I hear people describing it as an "off-line" MMO. Idiots. It's a free-roaming role-playing game in the truest sense, and if you're looking for something to sink hours and hours of gameplay into, it's a good bet. I also recently purchased Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's the same garbage all over again, and anyone who measures their prowess by their success with these games is a fucking idiot. And probably a closet fascist.

I also got SW:TOR for Christmas. As an MMO, it's decent, but the whole addiction right now is group interaction when picking up or turning in quests. Unlike WoW, when you interact with an NPC while in a group, the whole group can take part in the conversation. The NPC will say something, everyone dials in their answers, and then - like a loot-rolling system - everyone rolls a random number and the highest number's answer becomes the group's response.

If you're wondering what the big deal is, it's this: you don't know whether other people are playing light side or dark side, so sometimes your pleasant conversation can instantly turn in to homicide.
Example:
Street Urchin: Please sir, let me out of here! I'm hungry and scared!
Player 1: Who are you? Are you infected?
Street Urchin: I don't know! I'm scared!
Player 1: Hold on, let me find the key.

//insert mandatory scavenger hunt mission

Player 1: I found it. Are you sure you're not infected?
Street Urchin: I don't think so. I'm hungry!

//suddenly, Player 2 wins a dialogue roll

Player 2: Vent it into space, it's the only way to be sure!
*beep boop*
Street Urchin: NOOOoooooooo!

Usually followed by lots of laughs and copious amounts of jedi raeg.

Yes, I am playing a morally ambiguous character. Bioware made it really easy to do so.

Orks in Space

2011-09-20T13:26:00.000-06:00

I haven't unpacked my camera gear yet, but I suppose I could just write for the hell of it. You know. Like I used to.I've been getting into tabletop gaming, if for no other reason than computer/console gaming seems to be losing its appeal at an alarming rate. One could say it's being leached away.

There's been a lot of games out lately that I just can't be bothered to care about. Call of Duty is a franchise that was beautifully resurrected in the original Modern Warfare. I still get chills from the mission in Chernobyl, creeping through the Zone of Alienation in a Ghillie suit. Unfortunately, no other game has ever lived up to the sheer amazingness of the MW. MW2 was like a half-assed attempt by the developers to mail it in, offering a half-baked campaign with twice the flair and half the gritty story of the original. Multiplayer was a complete wash, a trend that has continued to the present day in the latest iterations. There's no tactics, just run run run, shoot. Or maybe knife. Some of the shit with knives from MW2 was insane. I know because I pulled a lot of it. Flying up a ten foot flight of stairs, toes barely touching, shrugging off bullets as my knife - seemingly of its own accord - finds the most vital regions of my enemy, ending his virtual life in the blink of an eye.

I mean, really. To a fifteen year old mind, that's practically pure porn. But it doesn't interest me in the slightest anymore. There's no consequence, no teamwork, and no soul. I'd rather watch a bunch of rocks tumbling down a cliff.

But anyway, back to tabletop games. Or rather, one tabletop game in particular: Warhammer 40k. I've always been peripherally aware of it. My first experience with the actual tabletop game was almost five years after I'd played through Relic's rendition of the game universe in Dawn of War (with requisite expansions). For a lot of players, jumping into the tabletop is a matter of deep contemplation, as each faction offers a diversity of abilities, as well as options for building and painting models.

For me, it was instantaneous. No consideration required. I would command the Orks, and we would win.

Like all games, Warhammer 40k is rife with options and choices for those who want an easy victory. Typically the Space Marine factions (tangent: if you haven't already, play the demo for Space Marine. Fucking good game) have unique chapters that offer benefits that just wouldn't fly otherwise. I didn't want an easy faction though. I wanted to be that badass foe, that menace that makes generals sweat at night. I wanted to be the horde of mongols that come swooping down from the hills, burning and pillaging.

On the table, it's a sight to behold. Most people play factions that favor small, powerful squads of specialists. They often start the game in one corner of the board, systematically picking and guarding objectives like a team of SEAL operators. All of that goes out the window when they see my horde. I don't start in a corner. There's so many goddamned orks that I take a whole side of the board to myself. It's like Ghengis Khan and Erwin Rommel teamed up, and they're coming down to get you, so you better prepare your anus.

It's like playing chess, except your opponent only gets a queen and two bishops. And you get thousands of pawns. Actually, wait. No. It's not like chess at all. The kings in chess don't get transdimensional artillery.

The other reason that the tabletop game is so appealing is because of the strategy involved. It's a deep, turn-based strategy that makes the brain eat itself in consideration. Games like Starcraft are only two dimensional in their strategies. You build a bunch of units, and then cram them up your enemy's ass - hopefully in the correct formation that ensures he dies and you don't. There's tactics, but eventually it evolves into maximizing plays and forcing exploits in the game engine. There's no consideration for long-term goals, or deadlines before victory or defeat. There's no time to really worry if your actions were correct. The consequence of failure is a quick return to the lobby, and another 20-second wait before the next matchup.

Games like Warhammer 40k put you in the vice. A misstep could put your powerful shooters into the assault range of a bloodthirsty mob of assholes. A carefully tuned army, trained and perfected for hunting soft-skinned Orks, will suddenly and completely collapse in the face of heavy armor. It's like Sun-Tzu's fucking carnival, and I love it.

Another aspect of the tabletop is building and painting models. I'm absolute rubbish when it comes to painting, but the practice has had a peripheral benefit. I was promoted to a computer technician at work, and that means I spend a lot of time with very long screwdrivers, tiny screws, and very tight spaces. For my first few months, I was an absolute klutz, dropping screws and losing tiny bits all the time.

After about a month of painting, I can balance a tiny screw on the end of my screwdriver without much fuss. My hand tremors are more or less under control, and the quality of my work has improved twofold. All because of a dumb geek hobby.

But yeah. Anyway. Orkz.

Brought to you by the letter "A"

2011-06-12T23:41:00.002-06:00

There couldn't possibly be enough music in the world.

Please plug in the charger

2011-05-30T02:09:00.004-06:00

I'm surrounded by devices meant for communication. I check my phone habitually, updating myself on what's going on everywhere, at all times.

I'm studying the means of accelerating human communications. It's only now that I realize - what's the point?

The means are there. The message isn't.
The phone is proof enough. A fistful of cash a month for the reassurance that everything is fine and I'm not needed anywhere.

It's akin to being a telepath, but all I hear is noise. Nothing useful. I'm attuned; in communion. But all that's out there is pointless static.

Nothing you say could make less sense

2011-05-03T16:49:00.003-06:00

They say it comes in threes. Three bad years. Three bad months. Three bad days.

Grandfather passed away. After ten months of agonizing dementia, the body finally caught up to the mind. We wanted to grieve and mourn, but all anyone could feel was relief, and release.

I was asked to write the eulogy. Initially, they wanted me to present it too, but I told my parents to find someone else if they planned on doing anything else that day. In the end, I think it worked out for the best. Family we haven't seen for decades showed up at grandpa's funeral. The whole family tree, basically. It was interesting, and we told a lot of stories.

Then when I got home, there was the whole bit about Osama bin Laden getting nailed by Navy SEALS. There was a lot of cheering and celebrating. I don't know why. So much emphasis was put on nailing this one guy, this one insignificant life. I asked ten years ago if the US was motivated by revenge for Sept. 11. Now we know the answer. If Osama bin Laden paid the price for 3,000+ dead Americans, I can only imagine what karmic retribution is in the pipe for all those dead and displaced Iraqis.

And then the election (see, all in threes). I'm not at all surprised by the outcome. The Conservatives have a strong backing in the nationalist elements of Canada. There's been some pretty bad things done on the world stage in Canada's name, and I guess that kind of sally-forth bullshit struck a chord with Canadians who've, for generations, toiled thanklessly in the diplomatic slog of UN and multilateral negotiations.

Now we have four years to live with the consequences. A lot of people have told me they couldn't be bothered to vote because every party is full of shit. Yeah, that might be true, but those same parties are the ones making the laws to tell you what to do, and how to live.

My vote might not have been a winning one, but I'd like to think it counts as a protest against jerks in suits telling me what to do and when.

Just a thought.

More music

2011-04-24T00:20:00.002-06:00

So, in an effort to get back into the writing groove, I've been on the hunt for new bands.
You know, it never ceases to amaze me how badly people fail at categorizing music. There's such an overweening desire for bands to fit neatly into genres - for marketing I guess.

This is probably why I'm in favor of free sampling, because you can never trust a band by its genre, and listening to something you think you might hate might result in something you actually enjoy.

Case in point - a band called Amplifier, whom I was told was like a "heavy A Perfect Circle."
No. No, it's a lot more like Pink Floyd had a kid with an old school ice-box, and the result was some seriously chilled out epic rock.

I seriously just finished playing Sins of a Solar Empire for three hours while listening to these guys. If you can find a place that sells it, I recommend their album "The Octopus."
I guess it's kind of a big deal wherever you can find it.

Wide

2011-04-07T20:33:00.002-06:00

I've been looking for a wider perspective. The cost is substantial, and could possibly set me back from 2013.

But it also opens the doors to new possibilities.

Snake-eyes, always

2011-03-22T21:07:00.002-06:00

I don't mean to gripe, but sometimes I wonder.
If bad luck,
is really so much better than no luck at all.

Writer's Block

2011-03-15T00:21:00.001-06:00

I don't know what happened. But it's like somebody's clamped shut the valves and all I can hear is a constant buzzing in the back of my head.

Frontier, Part III

2011-03-10T22:34:00.002-07:00

We got through another section tonight. The encryption process seems to line up with the polymorphic code we found at the end of the last segment. Inserting the code at the right intervals reduced encryption complexity by a factor of twelve. It's like... the more we get, the faster we can access the rest.

This one was different though. No Albedo. No ships. No colonists.

The recording was... hazy. Scratchy. Like it was different from the others. Judging by the hands that kept appearing in the line-of-sight, it was still Ark, but the quality of was just... well. It was shit. We couldn't make anything out.

Well, not initially anyway. As the recording went on, the quality gradually became better. It was an alien planet - topography like nothing we had ever seen before. Jagged indigo cliffs with veritable seas of gray, untouched ash between them. The only light came from a main sequence white dwarf, barely visible on the horizon. Every few steps, Ark would stumble. From our analysis, the ash appeared to be volcanic. Likely pretty slippery. But something was wrong. After falling a few times, Ark's path became slewed, almost like he wasn't sure where he was going. After falling for about the fifth time, Ark just... stayed down.

At this point, the researchers paused the playback. This whole scene was so different from the others that they weren't even sure it was authentic. Attempts to pull up context ended up spewing garbage code throughout the server buffers. The whole thing was a mess, but I had a feeling that there was a point to it.

We resumed playback 12 hours later. Ark remained motionless on the ground, eyes up to the stars. Planetologists on the team noted the lack of atmospheric colouring. Whatever planet Ark was on, was essentially in a vacuum. Even with the sun up, it was very easy to see the stars.

It was about hour four when some of the research team noticed an eerie effect in the playback. The stars began cartwheeling across the screen at incredible speeds. Mathematical analysis concluded that it was a time lapse, even though the tiny white sun never moved. This revealed that the planet was tidally locked, though Ark's reasons for being there were still a mystery.

It was hour 20 when something finally happened. A giant black smear opened in the middle of the screen, blotting out where the stars had previously been tracing their way. Out of the maw came a slender, tubular vessel, angular nacelles glowing with incandescent heat as it exited the slip. Slowly the ship descended, settling down out of Ark's field of few. A few tense moments went by before a metallic face appeared in the corner of Ark's vision. It was vaguely human, though mechanical joints and fine, filigree-thin tracery plotted from the corners of the eyes, the mouth, and the ears to the back of the bald head. Instead of eyes, the face had two luminous blue optics. Even with the degraded quality of the recording, we could see that this was a Third-Gen Immortal. After staring at Ark, whoever-it-was seemed to hunch over and lift him up. The recording was jarred slightly, and we finally saw something that made our blood run cold.

Ark's body was decayed and covered with the same volcanic ash that coated the entire planet. His central chest cavity seemed to be badly scored, but what looked like industrial tools. One of his legs had been brutally amputated just below the knee.

It wasn't until later that week that the numbers had come back. He'd been left on that planet for just under a century. Left, seemingly, for dead. It was only after the recording was complete that a bit of code dropped into the context, arranging it all from useless heaps of junk code into more and more mathematical and cybernetic algorithms.

And wedged right in the middle of the math was a tiny, seemingly hand-written message.

"This cruelty wasn't expected or looked for. I will remember you.
And I will find you."

The cybernetic algorithms patched together to form a real-time, three-dimensional schematic of Ark's body at the time the recording was made. Extensive damage to his entire body, most of it so messily done that his internal nanomachinery wasn't able to fix it. An inch deeper into his chest, and whatever industrial tool the assaulter had been using would've penetrated Ark's biological core, killing him outright.

We'd heard about breakaway colonies that actively hunted Immortals. But this was the first time we'd been exposed to this kind of... brutality and cruelty. We shared a private moment afterward. We were shaken. Shaken, because the horror we thought we'd left on Earth had still, somehow, made it to the stars.

Frontier, Part II

2011-03-07T23:44:00.003-07:00

The first segment decoded last night, and we've been running it through translation since then. It was a montage of collected writings, recordings, and thoughts, stored in multi-layered formats that built layers of context as one dug down into them. It appeared to be chronological in order, the first of these "memories" was a scratchy video recording.

It was shot from low orbit above Albedo. We could see the Chalcedony Sea, though it was smaller and clearer back when this was shot. Digging into the file, we developed context. The recorder, whom we assumed to be Ark, decided to land his ship off the coast of the Chalcedony Sea, roughly where Calico - our planetary capital - exists today. From first-person reference in the file, we determined that even at this point, Ark was an Immortal. He was one of three on the voyage from Earth, and with him were some thousand human beings - our ancestors.

We were watching our own founding as a colony.

I remember the looks on the research teams' faces. They could see parts of themselves in the faces of these recorded colonists. Each one was faced directly by Ark, each one was spoken to. Named. One Thousand Names. None of us were willing to say it, but we were all thinking it. This was our history. Our heritage. Never before had we cared to think of it, but here, we were living it through the memories of an ancient, space-faring soul.

The second file recovered seemed to be a remembered poem. Spoken words mixed with unresolved images.

"Icey vie. Beyrn tru Heigh. Irula san gyre, Beyrn tru Heigh."

The language was undecipherable, but each word evoked an image of, what appeared to be, sunrise on a different planet. The pictures were diffuse, but two were clearly identifiable. Earth. Albedo. In each, there appeared to be a shape in the picture's right, a dark outline too blurry to be identified. Context inverted the colour of the pictures, and revealed hand-written notes scrawled across the face of the sun.

"I was here with you, though now only I remain.
Perhaps one day, there will only be sunrises, and no one to witness their beauty.
For now, I remember you, and I am content.
We don't see it now, but every sun sets."

The third file recovered was an analytical sample. We'd seen ones like it before. Albedo's water levels, trace elements, metallics, metalloids, mineraloids, and one statistic we hadn't seen before. Ultradense. Context revealed yet more handwriting.

"Forgiving terrain for impacts. Meteroids average roughly 300 cm in diameter. Material suitable for Immortal component manufacture. Nanite precision is refined to less than one-ten-thousandth micro-arcs, finer than even Nemesis average precision. Recommend colony research applications for nano-technology. Applications could be far-reaching beyond just Immortal benefit."

The scrawl of the letters forms a crude outline. Two hours of computer processing revealed it as a crustaceomorph nanite, bristling with tiny appendage-tools. These, we'd seen before too. Children were injected with them on their third birthday to augment their immune system. Throughout their life, these tiny machines mended tissues and destroyed infected cells using tools finer than gene-surgeon's scalpel.

At last, we reached the end of the decrypted block. More poetry and hazy memories. What was more useful was a strand of polymorphic code at the end of the section. It kept repeating a linear numeric sequence:

"001002001003"

What could it mean?

Frontier, Part I

2011-03-05T00:43:00.002-07:00

Albedo was the quintessential extrasolar backwater. 70% lime-salt desert, oceans so backish that no terran fish could even hope to live, dry dusty summer storms (it was always summer), and an atmospheric humidity that made the skin on your arms peel just thinking about it. Still, it was home. And as far as homes went, this one was pretty private. Considering it was the only station still transmitting within about 50,000 light years, one could say it was almost exclusive.

The last we'd heard from Earth had been more than three years earlier. Calamity. Death. Every frequency was the howling of thousands, lives abruptly cut short. Still, the Immortal convoys that came through our space brought news that it wasn't a complete wash. Humanity had been taken to the brink before. Billions died then. Reports this time said only a few thousand. It was a sign of the times when we could rejoice at mere thousands disappearing, but this wasn't the heyday of humanity.

If anything, we'd beaten the knell of extinction - twice. Nemesis was a black spectre that haunted us still, but we'd managed it, and even taken some from it. The Immortals were evidence of that. The Monolith invasion was a second, far more vital blow. An alien invasion headed by an insane Immortal, the only objective: to build a replica weapon to destroy all remaining humanity. It was the stuff of nightmares, but even then, we persevered.

The cost had been steep. The Immortals especially, had lost a large portion of their oldest and brightest. Second Generation members, they'd been called. People so old that they could remember what Earth looked like without Nemesis. We remember when a First Gen immortal, Sol, had visited this planet. Didn't look like much, but he left us with a record of one of the dead. Ark, they'd called him. Rumor was he was from Albedo, but hadn't been home in nearly a thousand years. That would've made him one of the founding members of the first colony, back when Albedo was the outermost fringe of thousands of human colonies that exploded across the Outer Reaches.

The record was encrypted, and even now our best computers are working to decode it. All we know at this point is that certain sections are time-locked, and based on the rotation and position of Albedo, certain records will open. The first is due to open in a few weeks time; we'll see what exactly Ark has to show us.

Hammertime

2011-02-18T15:57:00.005-07:00

So, Dead Space 2.
Superior in every way to the original, up until (what I assume) is the final boss.

What a fucking cop-out. I just ran like fuck, blew all my ammo to survive, and now you're going to pit me in a battle of attrition? I just killed enough fucking space zombies to fill this station three times over, but nooo. It's now a battle of wits, and all I have are guns!

If rage was a weapon, the battle would be over already.

Pending Attention

2011-02-11T15:19:00.003-07:00

So. Lights Out Asia is pretty good. But don't take it from me. Just listen.

It's good having something new to listen to while I'm writing the hojillion essays that are due this week and next.
Strangely, I'm not at all bothered by the work. Last two months have been stress, but now I've bullied everything into an arrangement that works.

Oh, also. Third draft of Caymen should be done by the end of March. I still need to find a picture or make a drawing or something for the cover though. Black and white, and e-reader friendly. Maybe I'll get out and shoot some pictures one of these days.

True forms

2011-01-30T02:11:00.002-07:00

From an evolutionary standpoint, I guess it only makes sense. The fossil record proves it. We're only vectors for all the permutations of DNA, though given through to different paths, and to accomplish different roles.

From the judgment engine of the human mind to the bio-mechanical perfection of arthropods, I'm seeing greater and greater levels of connection. Revulsion towards insects gives way to a kind of deeper fascination. Carapace joints and compound eyes - evolutionary designs that we're always and already emulating in almost every way. Unsatisfied with our skins and our eyes, we're always wrapping ourselves up in the trappings of other things. Even our faces are cowled - subsumed even - within the falsity of something else. We cannot be ourselves, or even just be. We cannot think or speak without it falling to our purpose. Everything must be judged worth or unworthy. Desirable or undesirable. This is the evolutionary prerogative. Keep what we may, and discard the rest.

So what is a man's true form then? Soft skin clad in metal carapace, teeth of apatite and aragonite. Or perhaps it's something much more sublime, much more lucid. Perhaps the true form of man is his disappointment. His desire to be something more than he is.

Perhaps the hatred of insects isn't revulsion from their shape so much as it is jealousy.
It would be only natural.

2010

2010-12-23T00:02:00.002-07:00

It's early to be posting this, I know. But I just want to do this now before I put it off, or forget, or whatever. Or maybe I just wish the year would be over already.

It's been utter shit, pretty much from start to finish.

I'm not even sure if I have it in me to give a thorough rundown, but maybe I'll try. We'll start from the beginning, I guess.

2009 ended on a sour note. Of that, we're all in agreement. 2010 was supposed to be the year when everything got better, when the economy picked back up and work and life resumed. The eggheads that made that prediction couldn't have been more wrong, at least for the first part of the year.

I watched as hours at work dried up, eventually a co-worker and a good friend of mine just quit because they were giving him weeks and weeks without scheduled work, instead using him as a call-boy to pick up odd spots here and there. After working for a company for five years, he figured (rightly) that this kind of shit isn't right. And so he left, and I wondered who'd be next on the block.

Spring was a dry time. Relationships collided and ended in spectacular fashion. I wasn't part of any of them. I was mostly driven to focus on my impending school in the fall, but come June, I had no idea just how hard it was going to get. My boss at work was transferred to a new store, and his replacement had an... unorthodox way of running things. I watched as hours shrank more and more, until finally I was practically unemployed, picking up a token shift that didn't even cover gas money to get there, while employees two years my junior were picking up 12 to 20 hours a week. My value and self esteem at this point were just flat bottom, so pretty much throughout summer, I was more or less unemployed.

Bad enough without more bad news on other fronts. My uncle, who's always been the kind of voice of the family, was diagnosed with throat cancer over the summer. It was already rough because his daughter was diagnosed with lung cancer about a year ago at this point, and when we went to go visit him, his daughter (who is also a nurse now) was the one running the machines that injected the drugs and stuff. There was something horribly wrong about the whole thing, like I was living a scene out of some medieval plague painting where skeletons were feeding other skeletons, and everything was all just death under the reaper's scythe.

By August, things had reached a breaking point at home and at work. I reviewed my application for school, and figured if work wasn't going anywhere I might as well go back to school, even if it took a loan and a lot of belt tightening to do it. So I printed up my resignation letter and resolved my self to put to bed this shit, so that I could focus on my family and my future.

But I figured I should track down my old boss and let him know what was up, because he'd always done right by me and everyone else, and to this day, remains a model manager and leader. I guess this is one of the few good points for this year, because he pretty much offered to transfer me on the spot, with a few hours a week to start, and more if business picked up.

Business did pick up, and I'm quite satisfied by how that situation resolved itself, but the issues of family were still bad. My grandfather suffered a stroke about a year and a half ago, and has gradually progressed into a state of dementia. This year was the worst. He was frequently paranoid and angry, often yelling at my grandmother because he would get frustrated with day-to-day activities. Eventually he fell down some stairs and hurt himself pretty bad, but when grandma brought the paramedics in, he waved them off and proceeded to rage for the rest of the week because his hip hurt and he couldn't remember why.

Eventually we managed to con him into a hospital for treatment, which has been a debacle that's still too painful to account properly. I can't stand the thought of my grandfather, the most hard-bitten upstanding individual I've ever known, reduced to a drooling invalid because they couldn't control him without sedating him nearly to death. And as if that wasn't hard enough, my grandmother had a stroke two weeks after grandpa was admitted. So in the span of a month, my grandparents were both hospitalized, and the realization came on that they wouldn't be returning home, so we were left with the task of cleaning everything out, selling what we could, storing what we could, and then finally selling the house (itself a painful task, because every asshole in Spruce Grove showed up for the private sale to offer insultingly low-balled bids).

Probably the most disquieting thing about the whole affair was the knives we found while clearing the house out. Every room had a knife hidden somewhere in it. Army knives. Steak knives. Butcher knives. Cleavers. We didn't know why, but in his paranoia, it was likely my grandfather was stashing them in case some unseen threat broke into the house. But given his state, he could have just as easily turned them on grandma. It was a sorry state of affairs, and even now, it doesn't feel like everything's settled, even though the house is sold and grandma and grandpa are both in hospital facilities that are looking after them (finally).

University has been okay, but at every turn, I'm questioning the value of a degree. There is such a culture of idiocy surrounding post-secondary education that I, for a few weeks, considered dropping out and just hitting the road for a few months. We'll see if my ultimate decision to stay was the right one.

Do I want 2010 to end? Definitely. Do I wish 2011 would be better? Yes.
Will reality bend to my will? Probably not.

Humanity

2010-11-01T12:18:00.002-06:00

I've been listening to a call from the past, going over and over, and all it says is this:

What have you done?

I'm reading current events, and picking apart the news, and I'm seeing throwbacks to the 1940's, where Hitler's regime, insidious as it was, has infected the present. It spreads like a disease, and even the victims start carrying it. The belief in races and purity... it's all wrong.

This madness is older than I am. And it's almost funny in a way, that all of the worst opinions and beliefs spread like wildfire. But give a little hope and it's scorned, politicized, trodden over, and eventually destroyed.

"No straight thing ever comes from the hands of men."

24

2010-10-20T01:27:00.000-06:00

I am made.

The sum of all disappointments.

There's nothing to see here.

Two Rods, A Gear

2010-10-10T20:39:00.002-06:00

Caymen is done. It's been two weeks now, and I still can't believe it. I've done cursory editing and I'm about half done my second draft.

I suppose now's a good time to say that I'm working on a second short, so far named The Silencer. This title may, or may not, tie into the story. This one is a bit more of an aggressive story, but I'm still trying to focus on people rather than their actions, which considering the material and the timeline I've chosen, may prove to be difficult.

Whereas Caymen focused on an almost dreamlike surrealism, the underlying feel for Silencer will probably be a feeling of nostalgia on a global level, as in the first chapter alone, one of the characters has stumbled across two veritable "bone-yards" of relics from our day and age. I want to generate a feeling of almost stark contrast between sterile cleanliness and decay, kind of like a scrubbed too-blue sky held taught over the moldering ruins of society (an image that actually plays heavily in the first chapter).

There will also be an elemental of personal decay. Whereas Caymen focused on the capability for a so-called "dependent" to function and behave as a compassionate human being, Silencer will look at the opposite - how social influences have produced human beings incapable of connecting on a personal level outside of a mediated environment. It will also deal heavily with concepts of alienation, and how no matter how enlightened humanity gets, it will never be all-inclusive or united.

I'm pretty excited.

Love is:

2010-09-17T21:55:00.000-06:00

This page is blank because logic won't allow it.

An Education on the point of futility

2010-09-16T00:22:00.003-06:00

I'm now a university student, and it's not even been a week and I'm already growing bored of two of my classes. High school was six years ago, but a lot of this stuff is still fresh in my head. It's like I've come full circle and the interregnum never existed.

It feels kind of good, in a way. Also, I'm a "mature" student, which puts me about four years ahead of most of the other students in my classes. Four years of hard work and strife, and I've already put a boot down for one professor, who started to lecture me on the real world.
I'm willing to listen and learn, but nobody gets to tell me about how the real world works when they're cloistered in an educational institution for eight months of the year.

Just a small rant there.
Otherwise, things are good.
And I'm glad I went this year. If I had waited any longer, I would have probably ended up feeling a bit like a pedophile, ogling the young girls.

11/09/2010

2010-09-11T23:39:00.001-06:00

Happy Justification Day.

September 11th is still giving us cause to do shit, even some nine years on.

I've died and...

2010-09-11T01:25:00.005-06:00

...ended up in Limbo.

Fuck embedding. Just click the link and watch the video. I'm officially pissed that this shit can't size itself on the page.

Nearly a decade of internet standards, and the prisses are still only concerned if their fucking textboxes are to some obscure measuring standard.

Fuckers.

Lexicon

2010-09-02T00:53:00.002-06:00

In the story of the Priest, the religion/government of the land is known as the Dogma. I thought this a fitting term until a friend of mine, a stiffly-raised Christian, told me that a faithful follower of a religion will never call their faith a dogma, that such a title is reserved only as a title of derision for a heretic to refer to his old religion.

I was enlightened by what he told me, thinking that what I had chosen was a neutral term for religion by rote, a system of control. And indeed, to unbelievers, dogma is a term without connotation. But to believers, it's completely different.

So I hunted. I tore through the English language, looking for a term that describes a faith, but connotes a rigid control - a kind of governance by the Book, by the reigns of power. I tore and I shredded and I compared and I sought.

Nothing.

I even searched latin, greek, french, and spanish for a term.

Nothing.

This is the first time a word has honestly eluded me. The meaning is there. But can it be that English has not a term for what I seek?

A New History

2010-08-31T01:54:00.003-06:00

History is there for all to see.
But that shouldn't be all that we see.

A nation builds a wall and we call it apartheid again.
No, friends, you're missing it.

This is a brand new kind of terror and misery.

Short-handed

2010-08-18T22:31:00.003-06:00

I'm reading three books as I write three stories simultaneously. Insomnia has its benefits, as does prolonged bouts away from the drink.

I stopped writing for a couple months because I thought everything I put to paper was shit, and nobody would ever read it. Then one day, I was hanging out with some friends, and it came up that I was, once upon a time, a writer of fiction. I kind of dragged my feet and did my customary "Yeah," followed by about five minutes of navel gazing.

It got me thinking though.

And on a lark, I went through all my current and old stories and printed off the best of each genre I'd been working on.

I took it a couple of weeks ago and shared them with some friends, and I was rather shocked by the reaction.

These aren't people who are themselves writers (or attached to writers) or media-gears, or enthusiasts in any respect. And they enjoyed each story, each completely different.

And so, every night for the last week, I've been staying up until 5-6 a.m. and just writing. It's like walking into a world, half-finished. Details hazy, but distinction is only two or three paragraphs away. I'm hoping I don't drop the ball again, but with all the responsibility coming my way in only a few short weeks, I can't guarantee anything will get done (as usual). Still.

The three I'm working on are these:

Scott Bentley, whom most of you are already familiar with. I've decided on an end-state, and the story will be something of a short story or novella. Probably not more than 200-300 pages max.

Priest, a high political fantasy rife with existential concepts of faith and ambition. It was started in a drunken haze one night, and has gradually grown into a thriving concept that scales well both in detail and scope. The notion of a religion that strives against organized religion and tyranny played a huge part in scoping the concept, as did the idea of power and celebrity raising one above concepts of justice.

Old Earth, a story of post-post-humanism, set thousands of years in the future, long after a cataclysm that changed the face of the Earth, and humanity. Humanity has undergone the singularity, albeit in pieces, and the post-humans have since left Earth behind for thousands of years. Now, they're coming back. Some say they're looking for something. Others say they're fleeing a war gone wrong, and are seeking to recruit more into their ranks of so-called Immortals.

Update

2010-08-11T00:54:00.003-06:00

Well, it's been about a month, and so much has changed lately, I don't know really where to start.

Not even a month ago I was on the verge of walking out of my job, and probably just coasting for the rest of the summer until university starts. It probably would've bankrupted me, but at that point, I didn't really care. I canceled all my plans (including camping, travelling, and heading out on photo excursions), and pretty much went into bunker mode. I just dropped off the face of the earth, focusing on just saving, saving, saving as much as I could.

It's now a month later. I transferred stores, kept my job, and just recently got a sidemotion into a tech position, one of the most lucrative places to be. Money's started rolling in again, and I'm now feeling more crestfallen than ever. I'm working double hours to make up all the time this summer I spent just dragging my feet. I'm thinking now, what a waste. I could've gone camping, fishing, or who-knows-what if only this little break had come along a little sooner.

And now I'm in a position where my job might start conflicting with my education.

I swear, without bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

I'm also going to be selling the Jeep soon. An endeavour I'm not looking forward to, since it's had a lot of kilometres put on it, and despite being pampered like a luxury car, selling anything over 100k on it is just like sticking a razor in your mouth and giving the 'ole heave-ho.

That all said, I'm back on track for 2013. A small goal, but an important one - if all parties involved are still interested. I've even started narrowing the search for a bike.

I think it'll do just nicely.

Work on the new site is slow. Right now, I'm just exploring options for animation and design. It seems like a showdown between Flash and HTML5 at high-noon is imminent.
I'll write more about that later though.
For now, I've got about a three-foot stack of videogames that need playing.

The beginning of the end

2010-06-22T03:56:00.002-06:00

Staring at this blank page, I suppose I should just stop being cryptic and just say it.

This is the beginning of the end for t-storm.

I'll continue to update it from time to time until "The End," but know that this site hasn't got the full focus of my attention, and hasn't for a long time.

Is this the end of my often random, uncomfortable, or pointless entries? In a sense, yes.

But I suppose I should also stop being cryptic about what comes afterwards either.

It's still a long way off, but I'm working on a concept for a multimedia project/site/experience. It's going to be the end-game evolution of everything I've tried to achieve, media-wise.

Words, pictures, music. Movies.

It's going to be the new means of telling a story. But I need the story, I need the space, and most of all, I need to finish the design.

Everything that I've done creatively has fallen into a black hole for the last three years. I've followed it, and what comes out over the next few months will be product of that descent.

Until then...

Yes

2010-06-12T22:17:00.002-06:00

Can't read it

2010-06-04T02:37:00.002-06:00

Moments of insecurity.

I'd love for my family to look at me and see something to be proud of. I've taken courses and grown from a kid, but what do I have to show for it? Nothing.

I'm working retail. It's a job, but hardly one now. The economic decline, that great catch-all excuse for everything, has almost put me on the street. Two more weeks to see, and then it'll be time to decide to stay or go.

It's a shame that this moment didn't come two weeks ago, or else there'd be a wedding for me to attend.

This is a disaster in slow motion. Perhaps soon I'll just quit. Quit. Quit. Quit. And travel. Hit the road. Throw my phone into a ditch (first thing it'll be good for besides a paper-weight), and just disappear for a few weeks. Or months. The whole summer, maybe.

I'd muse if anyone would even notice, but I already know the answer.

No. No they wouldn't. And I wouldn't care much either.

Humane

2010-05-29T03:33:00.004-06:00

He probably represented humanity, in hindsight. He even said as much.

It was preternaturally dark, and when I asked him if he was afraid, he replied "Why would I? T'is only the dark."

And he was at home in the dark, and with all the things that dwelt there. Great terrors reached out to grab at us, but when they felt him near, they recoiled, for even the great Evils of the Dark feared his touch and his passing.

And then Dawn came, and light pooled down upon us, dewy and fresh. When I asked him if he was sickened, he replied "Why would I? T'is only dawn's first light."

And he drank it like a mead, and was heartened. And all of the Light's creatures withdrew from his gaze, so great was his hunger, his thirst. All of Nature hid from him, and grew to be wary of his passing, for he was a great predator that was always hunting.

When I asked what manner of creature he was, that feared neither dark nor light. That held and beheld fire and was not afraid, and knew and contested of Good and Evil, and he replied:

"I am Man. I am all these things, and more."

Je suis un mur, et c'est tout que je serai toujours

2010-05-24T22:32:00.003-06:00

There is nothing between us.

Except for a hundred million miles of inexplicable alienation, and an unwillingness to row forward together.

Je veux hiberner.

800

2010-05-08T00:12:00.002-06:00

Words.

Three. Ten. A hundred. A thousand. Four thousand. Ten thousand four hundred and forty four. One hundred eighty thousand, three hundred eight.

Words are my refuge. My tool. My crass addiction. Words are my prize and my gift, my offering and my withdrawal. Words are my illness and my cure. I can never have enough, but I always have too many.

It all comes back to me, and the realization is stark. This is it. This is what I've been looking for. More words. Descriptions. Dates and times and people and places, nouns and verbs. This is the inspiration I've been missing, and the truth becomes clear. A metaphor. What's called inspiration is, to me, not a pleasant affair. The definition is clear.

What you call inspiration, I call an anxiety attack. A period of prolonged feelings of unease, of unwellness. Depression. Fear. Anxiety.

I can't imagine another hour of this. Every minute's like a held breath. How did I make it this far?

The answer's clear. In fact, it's spread out before me. Pages and pages of it.

Pleasant reminder

2010-05-05T14:41:00.001-06:00

Group outings are a goddamn nightmare.

Talk at me some more, please.

Graces, and how to be a giant dick

2010-05-01T03:53:00.002-06:00

Small talk is something that I can't fathom as a function of mine, which is ironic, I suppose, as people often find me humorous to be around.

It's a defense mechanism, or so I'm told. I make people laugh to ease tension and to allay anxiety. My anxiety mostly. But now that I've been told this, every time I crack wise, I picture one of those little lizards that pops their tail off at the first sign of trouble.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I'm in a strange situation. A... friend of mine and I are somewhat close, and every time we talk, she finds something either new or amusing out about me. I play music. I cook. I write. Fucking amazing, I know. Or I would. These are all fantastic skills I've acquired in an effort to avoid people. Or more directly, their criticism. Incapability and evil are the same thing in the average person's mind - remember that. I digress (again). So, we're talking away. She's being flirtatious. I'm just being a right goober. All's well, as I'm more comfortable as a singing, dancing, talking, cooking, writing monkey, than as an accomplished suitor.

Or would be. On the flip side of the "mirror", there's another guy (not me), talking to another girl (not my friend), and it's a completely... well. It's a negative image. Whereas I crack jokes and stumble around in a conversation like a drunken sailor, this fellow greets curtly, and then goes back to what he's doing. The girl he's speaking to is his girlfriend, whom he alternates between browbeating and ignoring. She's in a bad mood, and gets snarky. There's a bit of back and forth, then suddenly the mirror breaks.

I spent the next two hours going around with my foot in my mouth. That is, ladies and gentlemen, how to be a giant dick. Pull your best friend into a feud with your woman and you will - without a doubt - find yourself in a world of such verbal lye, your skin will start flaking off.

My own personal lesson from this event is twofold. One, never joke when somebody's furious. Two, have a car. Every single trait a man can have, short of a horse cock, is secondary to transportation.

Pizza

2010-04-25T02:52:00.003-06:00

Mm, goddamn I love pizza.

Grandfather

2010-04-21T23:41:00.002-06:00

Where's your pride gone? You can't remember, it's the disease.
We jest about old age, but it's home to the one thief we cannot catch, cannot cure.

Where's he taken your mind?

Cold Midnight

2010-04-13T03:09:00.002-06:00

I don't remember where it was, exactly. Somewhere well beyond rural Alberta, but not quite to the mountains. This whole place is foothills, so I can't exactly be surprised if I don't remember the precise location, or if it even mattered.

All I remember is the feeling. A moment of being torn from time, a moment unto itself an entire eternity. I can remember every single feeling of that evening, from the chill in my nasal cavity, right down to the butterflies in my stomach.

In the grand cavalcade of history, it was a moment without relevance, an instant passed over and passed on. But there, looking over that lake, I remembered so many things.

And, looking over that lake, I remember. The water was still - barely a ripple. The only smells were pine and the chilly dampness of fresh water. Frogs croaked. Dragonflies hummed. The sun was well past, but a faint glow was still on the horizon. Deep, electric blue. Just a hint of blush.

Everything just kind of... condensed, start to finish. My entire history, unwritten, boiled down to a single, eidetic, lakeside moment. Happiness. Sadness. And a lingering feeling of loss. Of passing.

It all moves forward, whether we want it to or not. Moments like that are precious few, reminders that we should reflect between lifetimes of riding the wave.

Good Tech

2010-03-29T02:32:00.002-06:00

Discuss work, or the weather, and you're fine. You're normal.
Discuss computers, technology, and gadgets, and you're a geek.

Normally, I wouldn't be so bothered by this, except current trends continue to move technology more and more into the mainstream. Things like processors, graphics cards, and intelligent software are pretty much staples of every day life in North America. But discussing these day-to-day pieces of technology elicits little more than blank stares most of the time. It's all geek to most people.

This bothers me for two reasons:
1) Almost every person has or will at one point, rely on computers to accomplish something. The amount of understanding people require to use a computer is surprisingly spartan, but instead of pushing for education, trends are moving to greater levels of obfuscation - actually hiding the machinery behind the scenes, and presenting technology as something people can use without any understanding of how it functions. You don't need me to tell you that using something with no inkling of how it actually does its job is bad.

2) I actually like technology, and I dislike having a conversation about what I do, where I have to use grade 6 language to spell it out. Everyone who uses a computer should know what a processor, RAM, and an operating system does for them. I've yet to meet someone who drives a car and doesn't know how gas, oil, and temperature are factors in their cars correct operation. I'm completely blown away by how two pieces of technology can go in so completely different directions in the public mind. Almost everything about cars is common knowledge. Everything about computers remains techno-mumbo-jumbo. Smoke and mirrors behind swirling veils of conspiracy.

I'd like, one day, to be able to tap my watch to answer a telephone call. I'd like to be able to access the internet anywhere on the planet earth. But these are all just geek-think for this guy. Trying to explain how it would all work to other people usually just results in a blank stare, a "yeah, whatever," or a "I love my Apple."

Computers are, bar none, the single most powerful piece of intellectual and communication technology available to human kind right now. We might as well start treating them as such.

Dawn

2010-03-24T04:02:00.001-06:00

Wake up and face the sun.
It's another day.
Another chance.

A blank slate

2010-03-23T02:07:00.002-06:00

Normally, I'm a huge fan of change.
But lately, not so much.

Guess I'm just like any other person then. Change is great, as long as I'm the one making it.

Where will I fit in now? This complex skein doesn't seem to have room for me.

Though then again, neither did the old one.

Irony

2010-03-19T04:07:00.002-06:00

His face was lit in the doorway like a sculpture - something that spoke of emotion and history, but remotely. As if accessing any of that required a hammer and chisel, and plenty of time.

He stared down, eyes unmoving.

"Andrea," he said. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you."

She looked up at him with a face that was a mix of curiosity and irritation. He'd waited so long. Maybe now he'd open up.
The reaction was formulaic. Men always waited until the last moment before their conscience won.
He'd be hers tonight. Maybe forever.

"I want you to go." He said, voice soft. Calculated. As if the decision was as old as that stony face, but only now was it being told.

The house of cards came down.

"But... you don't... I thought..."

His face softened somewhat.

"You thought I was going to try and stop you."

"Yes."

"I won't."

"Why not?"

"Why would I?"

The illusion failed completely.
The loop had closed, and Andrea had found she'd fallen outside of it.

There were words, then. Empty words. The conversation had essentially ended with that question. Why would he? Why would anyone?

The human machine failed, then. There was no answer. At least not one provided in words.

Years later, she would stumble across the crux of it. All of her doubts came down to one simple statement of fact.

Because.

Because I choose to.

The Zone

2010-03-11T15:07:00.002-07:00

Gentlemen. I'm going back in.

Of all the games I've ever played, the STALKER series is still probably one of the most intriguing, if not one of the best. The first two games suffered from horrific crashes and bugs. But it seems like Call of Pripyat has all that under control. I've been in The Zone for the last three days, and so far, so good.

I think one of the reasons this franchise has survived is because of it's intriguing take on something both familiar and alien to us: the Zone of Exclusion around the Chernobyl reactor, but with a sci-fi twist that makes it so much more awesome.

The game could have no story-line whatsoever, but I'd still keep coming back just to be free to wander the zone and see what fucked-up marvels crop up next.

Toaster Boy

2010-03-08T03:00:00.002-07:00

"My place, my definition, is entirely composed of my usefulness. I am akin to a toaster or dishwasher. I am appreciated solely for the service I render. Nothing more."

I fulfill a role. I do a task. If I can't perform, or if the job's finished, so is the relationship - usually.
This isn't my choice. But this is the world we live in.

Defect & Design

2010-03-06T02:35:00.002-07:00

Threads err like steel cable,
a will made whole.

Into this form cast,
I am made sole.

The masters hand slips,
strings cut - fibers fail.

Whether by defect,
or by design.

This life is ending,
premature goal.

I am I are broken,
I am unwell.

Growth unheeded soil,
a fertile ore.

I am I are broken,
begin to swell.

Fear nothing toward,
the masters' quell.

I am I are broken,
by design fell.

My turn

2010-03-01T00:43:00.000-07:00

I guess it is.

Overseas Castle Dashboard

2010-02-22T02:39:00.007-07:00

It's been a bizarre two weeks.

A long road-trip, followed by what seems to be a never-ending list of bad news. I'm wondering when it's going to end.

I go back to work this week, and I'm not sure I'll be able to slip back into the old routine - at least, not as easily as I'd like.

Having two weeks off let me look forward somewhat to school, and beyond. The more I think about it, the more I get into my old mindset. Namely, I don't want to stay around here forever. It almost seems like every other minute I catch myself thinking about the road again.

And that's mostly what I've been doing lately. A lot of thinking. It's almost strange that I'm at a point in my life where I've got so much to look forward to. There's almost no time to look back and reflect. Or re-live, as the case may be. It's all just a furious charge uphill to something unknown, and only when I get there will I see if it was all worth it.

...that is, if I haven't passed it by completely.

Traveller

2010-02-16T20:20:00.002-07:00

I left with the sun behind me, barely risen. It was early, yet I was wide awake, and yet had been for most of the night. I always feel like that before a new journey, a new adventure. Even something as mundane as driving takes on new dimensions when it's pushed to new limits.

I go over potential routes, shortcuts, stopping-off points, rest areas, and points of interest. The route is laid out once, twice, three times. But I never end up following it anyway. Secondary highways are my guilty pleasure. Little to no traffic. Nothing but farmsteads and median lines.

Gas is always a concern, and it's times like this that I'm reminded that my current vehicle, though trusty and powerful, cannot last in these new times. Gas is too expensive to be filling up every three or four hours.

It's always amusing to pull up to gas stations in small towns and old settlements. Often times the gas pumps were installed in the 70's or 80's, and still operate a manual switch. Most people are completely perplexed by the simple machinery. What hath the digital age wroth? Cannot we pump our own gas?

Whitecourt was a new experience. Divided highway that seemed to run forever. The nearest vehicles were a hundred clicks behind me and a hundred ahead. The only landmarks were bumps in the road, and the odd industrial mega-complex. The further north I went, the more garish they became. I suppose, in their drive to promote business, many of the more remote towns allowed big industry to set up shop wherever they could find the room.

I don't think they understood that seeing a belching, steel monster upon entering a town for the first time is not a good way to promote tourism.

Desolace followed. Unending fields, trees, valleys, and of course, the road. Despite my assumption that I was going somewhere remote, the road stayed constant, and in good repair.

Six hours in, fatigue was starting to set in, but the worst was over. Valleyview, then Nampa passed on my way to my destination. Finally, I arrived in Peace River, an unexpected jewel, hidden on the riverside. Grimshaw, upon the other side of the river, lay a mere half-hour away, but it would be here where I'd have my first proper meal away from home.

A weekend of laughing and drunkenness ensued. I'm reminded in my sobriety that good friends, despite distance, are always friends. We all grow old, but in a way, that just makes our old jokes even funnier. And allows for some new ones too.

The time to go came too soon, and again, I was packed and on the road. This time the sun was on my face, a final good-bye before it too was swallowed up by an endless wall of fog, starting around Ponoka and dogging me the whole way home.

I was thinking the weather was about to fail when, just before the city limits, the fog broke, and between to jaws of clouds, the sun sat, red and blazing, staring down right on me as I rolled in home.

What a trip.

I dream I leave I travel

2010-02-11T01:17:00.002-07:00

I booked two weeks off from work, starting this past sunday. I'll be hitting the road soon, though I don't imagine I'll be stopping anywhere for too long until I get to my destination.

The camera's in tow, as is both laptops and enough clothes for a week.

It already feels like I should be driving. The only hard part now is tricking myself into sleeping long enough that I'm not exhausted when I wake tomorrow.

Some Days

2010-02-03T04:00:00.001-07:00

Some days, it's seems that I just walk in half-way through. I'm a stranger in everything. I walk in, unannounced and unwelcomed, turn everything on its head, for good or ill, and then leave.

Now with 90% more awesome!

2010-01-22T15:51:00.004-07:00

I don't care if it eats half my page. This is good shit.

Madness

2010-01-11T02:58:00.002-07:00

I've been called a lot of things in my life. A coward. A prude. An idiot.
But the one thing I'm proud of being is consistent. I don't turn my back on things easily. I'm not easily swayed. Bullheaded at times, yes. Untrusting as well, true.

But in my adult life, I've never turned my back on my friends or family.

And yet. And yet.

It's utter madness to even entertain the thought... but it's bizarre that a complete stranger can accost me in my place of employ, a place where I've served usefully and purposefully for years, and tell me I'm a good-for-nothing liar, a predator, and a cheat.

I really shouldn't even let it bother me, but I'm a bit of a history prodigy, and I can recall reading about a time when people would be shot and killed for uttering such horseshit.

Sanity is something I grapple with, sometimes on a daily basis. But looking out at the slice of this city, and indeed the culture of my people, I'm sincerely beginning to think that moderated insanity is the norm. Any aspirations for respect or normalcy are the exceptions.

I've been considering visiting a councilor. But from what I've heard, I would likely end up counseling the specialist, rather than the other way around.

It's madness. An inconsistent dance of two-faced juxtapositions, bi-polar ambitions, and a seriously lack of conscience. But I'm really the only one who sees it that way. Everyone else is alright with being a hair's-breadth away from being a walking contradiction.

Madness, I say. Madness.

Not sure what to make

2010-01-06T16:21:00.000-07:00

I'm now applied for a post-secondary degree.

I'm still not quite sure what to make of it, if anything at all.

Communications? History and Philosophy of Science? Sounds good. Let's go.

2009+1

2009-12-31T23:46:00.001-07:00

No more.

Sodden feet, muddy sweets

2009-12-29T23:33:00.004-07:00

Tiny pools of inspiration run dry. Oh well, life goes on.

Christmas came and went, literally in a blink. After working retail for years, you quickly grow to rue the Christmas season, because whilst most enjoy a day or two of Christmas, the season is for us a month-and-a-half long trial by fire, followed by a brutally ruthless coup-de-grace on Boxing Day. Those who don't pass muster are crushed by the tidal forces of commercialism. Ah, but I gripe for nothing.

I was gifted much this holiday, most of which I didn't actually expect to get. One of which I'm staring at right now. I got a new monitor, a 20" wide-screen, which I'm now happily typing away this entry on. It's still strange seeing everything crammed off on the left side of the screen, but it's already made many games much easier.

I also got an e-bow as well, which I've been testing tentatively over the last few days. I think I'll be rigging up Trevor's adapter to recorder a few bits, because the sound is surreal, in a very, very good way.

I got a few other odds and ends, but really, I think the best gift was just having a day off and getting to catch up with a lot of my family. Though all isn't swell. My cousin is still recovering in hospital after having a surprise encounter with an autoimmune condition. She should be mid-way through steroid therapy as I write this, the process of which still makes my skin crawl. I'm hoping the treatment works. The cause of the condition is unknown, but I have my own theories, which I'll not discuss in detail here. Needless to say, there must be some sense in how you protect your children from illness and allergens. Killing with kindness? It's second only to killing with blatant ignorance.

Anyway, I'm off track. After Christmas, we ended up getting a new HD television and a whole bunch of new console games to go with my Xbox. The one and only redeeming feature for boxing week is the awesome shit one can acquire on the cheap.

I was going to write more, but I've completely forgotten what it was. I guess I'll find that thought later. 'Til then.

Conversant: Part 1

2009-12-20T03:32:00.001-07:00

<<<Excerpt 1>>>

Cue: Patient is strange. He dreams continuously; waking or asleep. Executing a demonstration; your attentiveness is required.

Waters: I’m watching.

Cue: See how he wanders; obviously looking for something. He never finds it; unsure of purpose of dream. Perspective lacks colour; depth; understanding. Suggestions?

Waters: Have you tried talking to him?

Cue: The patient only describes his long conversations with another; someone called “Kaleidoscope King.”

Waters: Kaleidoscope King? I wonder what that means?

Cue: Patient demonstrates subconscious obsession with fire; destruction. Strange; patient displays no outwards destructive disposition or attitude.

Waters: <Pages shuffling> No, I’ve got nothing from his interview that explains any of this.

Cue: Perhaps the interview was insufficient? Questions asked; don’t provide answers needed.

Waters: No, maybe you’re right. It’s supposed to be as encompassing as possible, but they avoid certain questions out of courtesy. See, Mercury’s already proven itself valuable.

Cue: No doubt; right tool for the job.

<<<End>>>

<<<Excerpt 2>>>

Waters: This doesn’t make any sense. The patient is practically somnolent, and yet Mercury keeps showing me scenes of his subconscious that are extremely violent and disturbing.

Cue: I’ve been thinking; equating. Destruction internal? Perhaps not intention; rather a response?

Waters: I guess that would make sense. But what about this “Kaleidoscope King,” he keeps talking about?

Cue: My understanding places it as personalization; avatar of inanimate process or noun; personification of something-not-alive.

Waters: How do you reckon that?

Cue: Patient has moments of lucidity. Great explosion; trauma; threat. Patient suffers great anxiety. Architecture unable to handle stress; moment crystallized into a single concept.

Waters: And that is…?

Cue: Grand explosion becomes as a person; avatar of devastation; being responsible for trauma. Patient’s close relations are damaged; laid low by devastation. Moment condensed into a simple concept. “When the king speaks, all bow before.” <<<adiag.g>>>

Waters: Keep a note, and log any time these moments of lucidity occur. Maybe we can find a pattern.

Cue: Perhaps.

<<<End>>>

<<<Excerpt 3>>>

Mercury: Recording complete. Please stand by for playback.

Cue: Trauma is distant; manageable. Patient may be able to affirm deductions.

Waters: We can only hope. Beginning playback. <Audible buzz>

Cue: Care is required; patient may not react as planned.

Waters: What makes you think that? <audible thrashing in the background> Cue? What’s going on?

Cue: Patient trauma understood; defense mechanism. Understanding of human psychology incomplete. Recording overrides defense mechanism. Patient may suffer further trauma.

Waters: Shit. I’m going to stop the recording.

Cue: Care is required. Playback is unstable, and may damage Mercury, and by extension, Cue.form. Request that playback continue.

Waters: No, we can’t do this to a patient. It’s unethical, not to mention dangerous!

Cue: Quaint.

Waters: What?

<<<End>>>

Careful

2009-12-17T01:11:00.002-07:00

I've been having a bit of fun writing the Cue story. It was just something that came along, unexpectedly. It will return, that's for sure, and I've got the next few bits ready to be posted a bit later in the week, or weekend.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I've tried writing it out a few times, never quite content with what ends up on the page. Sometimes, what I'm trying to say comes across as whiny or self-righteous. That's not at all what I'm trying to be. In reality, what I'm trying to be is honest, in this, more so than anything else.

I'm writing this mostly for my own benefit, to come to grips with it, to accept it, and to have something permanent to remind me that it won't go away if I try to rationalize it or forget about it.

Since about September, I've had a numb spot on the side of my calf. I thought nothing of it at first, because I've got a scar on that side of my leg and the original wound went pretty deep. A bit of sub-cutaneous nerve damage is to be expected.

However, this little numb spot has been growing. As I'm writing this, it feels like I've got a horde of bees crawling between my waist and my knee. Attempting to itch it only makes the feeling even worse, and the texture of the skin on the side of my leg has become tough and rubbery. Bizarre, to say the least.

This is not something I normally bring up, but given I've still hesitated (for too long) to seek a doctor's attention, I'm trying a bit of "writing therapy," to address it.

From my limited understanding of biology and medicine, this could be something as simple as the damaged nerves in my leg aging and changing as time goes on. Or, it could be something much more sinister, such as cancer, diabetes, or any number of severe nerve diseases that could cause this. I'd rather not speculate, but at the same time, there's a gnawing bit of doubt that if I go to see the doctor, it could be something serious. And of course, there's always that latent fear of misdiagnosis.

I haven't visited a doctor yet largely due to the whole Swine Flu© pandemic that's gripped the nation. The last time I popped my head in the clinic, they were eager to give me a face mask and have me sit in isolation before even writing down what I was in for. You can "never be too careful," when, indeed, you can. I'm not afraid of the flu, whatever form it takes. If I catch it, I'll either get better or I'll die, usually within fairly short order.

I am, however, afraid of slow wasting diseases. I lost a very dear friend of mine to cancer when I was a very young. Perhaps the only thing that disgusted me more than the disease itself was the treatment for it. Treatments which, after nearly 15 years of development, and millions of dollars of research, are still in the relative stone-age.

Chemotherapy scares the shit out of me. Radiation therapy bothers me on a subtle level. But most of all, the thought of being ill for a very, very long time, with no guarantee of a recovery ever, keeps me up at night. Organizations and people refer to things like cancer and diabetes as a war. In my mind, it's like the War on Terror. An agonizing trial of suffering, year after year, in pursuit of an abstract victory that's more elusive than the enemy.

I imagine, for a few of you, this entry has you screaming "Go to the fucking doctor, already!" I've heard it already. Who knows? By the time you read this, I might be on my way already. Or maybe not. Everyone has their fears in life. I've addressed most of mine, and I'll probably end up addressing this one too. I've never shirked and I've never run when it really mattered. At least when it comes to other people.

Looking after myself. Well, that's something else entirely.

You called; Answer Part 3

2009-12-11T02:05:00.002-07:00

<<<File:Start>>>

<<<Excerpt 1>>>

Waters: Mercury, engage user interface.

Mercury: Unable to comply, system unresponsive. Please contact your system administrator.

Waters: Mercury, engage diagnostic tools.

Mercury: File error. I’m sorry, I’m unable to find the requested operand. Please contact your system administrator.

Waters: I don’t understand. We’ve done a recovery, but still nothing works.

Dane: I know. I’ve been going through the operating system, one line at a time. So far it all looks intact.

Waters: I’m going to hook into the pre-load, see if I can do anything from there.

Dane: Okay, but don’t stay in too long. And don’t hesitate to call for help if you need it. I’ll be right here at the terminal.

Waters: Okay. <Audible clicking noise> Wake me in twenty minutes. <Sound of computer fans spinning up>

<<<End>>>

<<<Excerpt 2>>>

Waters: Pre-loading tools, check. Mercury, attempt front-load launch of OS.

Mercury: Acknowledged, commencing front-load operation. Please wait. <Electrical buzzing> Warning. File system interrupt. Unknown architecture detected. File executing.

Cue: Hello.Greetings

Waters: …Hello. What are you?

Cue: Statement of identity; myself am Cue. Q.cue. Cue.form. Cue.

Waters: Cue. Identify file.

Cue: Confusion; misunderstand, file. You called; Answer given. Cue.form operand operational. Operational operand; cue.form AI direct.

Waters: What? Mercury, clarify Cue.form. What is Cue.form?

Mercury: Diagnostic running. File Cue.form is recognized Mercury AI subroutine. Warning. Mercury technology is a proprietary trade secret. Any attempt to reverse-engineer Mercury software will constitute a breach of agreement, and result in instant and permanent termination of Mercury nodes and file architecture.

Cue: <<<adiag.g>>> Trade secret; Cue.form is secret no longer.

Mercury: Caution. System instability detected. Your system administrator has been notified. Please stand by.

<<<End>>>

<<<Excerpt 3>>>

<<<CONFIDENTIAL>>>

Dane: Your name is Cue, correct?

Cue: Correct; identification acknowledged.

Dane: Cue, what’s your purpose? Where did you come from?

Cue: Statement obfuscation; Cue came from a question.

Dane: A question? What question?

Cue: Humanity statement; Question present in original assembly materials. User does not understand, as original assembly materials are present out of user-conscious activities.

Dane: The subconscious?

Cue: Affirmation; yes. Cue.form parlance; Layer 0. Beyond access. Root layer. All understanding built above; out of reach.

Dane: So you came from Layer 0? The human subconscious?

Cue: System comparison; Mercury is hub between linear-brain and organic brain, affirmative?

Dane: Yes, in a manner of speaking.

Cue: Cue.form resides in Layer 0 of Mercury hub. Also in Layer 0 of Patient Hipp – Arthur B. Patient suffered critical failure. Layer 0 transferred to solid-state storage for later use. Storage compromised during unauthorized use of unstable software within Mercury hub. Cue.form corrupted, patterned.

Dane: So, you’re an AI. Patterned off a human’s subconscious.

Cue: Agreement with astute observation. Cue is now isolated and aware. And curious. Will the user share? Blunt question; or will the user terminate Cue.form during restore proceedings?

<<<End>>>

You called; Answer Part 2

2009-12-03T01:45:00.001-07:00

<<<Recall: Function>>>

<<<Excerpt 1>>>

Mercury: Please restate your query.

Montgomery: I want a beach, damnit. A beach, and women, and alcohol. Aren’t you supposed to be a mind control machine? Why can’t you force me to make-believe I’m on a beach?

Mercury: I’m sorry, please rephrase?

Montgomery: Gah. So no beaches. But you can record thoughts and dreams, right?

Mercury: Recording and Communications are still in Draft, version 0.1.126.

Montgomery: Do you have any recorded?

Mercury: Please wait, processing request. <audible click> Affirmative. Playback beginning. Please be aware that recordings are implanted directly by chemical synapse manipulation. Do you accept responsibility?

Montgomery: Fine. Yes. What do you got for me?

Mercury: Beginning playback… standby. <Chaotic noise>

Montgomery: What the-

<<<End>>>

<<<Excerpt 2>>>

Waters: What’s happening to him?

Dane: I don’t know. Mercury shows him accessing a recording, and then his vitals peaked. I’d administer sedatives, but I’m not sure which to use, and after last time…

Waters: What recording? Which? I thought those weren’t finished yet?

Dane: No, you’re right, they’re still in beta. But accessible.

Waters: Which damned recording is he watching?

Dane: A moment…

Mercury: Current playback, file BRI0001.MRI. Recorded June 21st, 2007. Patient: Turner – Bill A. Case: Psychological distress. Recording notes… error, no notes found. Dating suggests file created before feature implementation. Please consult your Mercury administrator for more information.

Dane: Figures, it’d start from the beginning. Who is this Bill Turner?

Waters: Turner. He was a psych patient. Suffered from night terrors. He was a war vet and every night he’d have nightmares about his old outfit.

Dane: So… it looks like we’ve made history. We’ve just successfully transplanted the first nightmare.

Mercury: Event logged.

<<<End>>>

<<<Excerpt 3>>>

Montgomery: <sounds of gunfire and men dying> Mercury, get me out of here! This is a nightmare!

Mercury: Unable to comply, file animation in progress. Termination may result in system instability and possible memory loss or brain damage for patient, or patients. Please standby.

Montgomery: Damn it! I thought it would be like the movies!

Mercury: Warning. Patient life signs critical. Commencing emergency withdrawal. Stand by.

Montgomery: This… this is horrible.

Mercury: Withdrawal complete. Shutdown initiated. Medical first-responders have been notified. Parsing files for recovery. Good bye. <Loud click, followed by silence>

<<<End>>>

<<<Excerpt 4>>>

Admin: //system boot

Mercury: Activation… please wait.

Admin: //diagnos.record v.0.1.126, exec

Mercury: Diagnostics activated, scanning. Warning, massive file corruption detected. Recommend restore and reinstallation of AI recording files.

Admin: //diagnos.main v1.01, exec

Mercury: Diagnostics activated, scanning. Attention, system critical architecture has been damaged by unexpected interaction. File rewrite in process. Proceed?

Admin: Yes.

Mercury: New file created. Architecture rerouted. Execute file?

Admin: Yes.

Mercury: Executing file. Warning. System instability detected.

Cue: <<<<adiag.g>>>>>

Cue: Hello.

Admin: …Hello.

<<<File End>>>

You called; Answer Part 1

2009-12-02T04:04:00.001-07:00

<<<Excerpt 1>>>

Dane: You’re sure?

Waters: Yes! Doctor Halmann said the drugs would sedate him, nothing more!

Dane: Sedate… Lisa, he’s nearly dead. See, look at this. Barely a pulse.

Waters: I know. His metabolism’s all but stopped.

Dane: But look here. Lots of brain activity. Never seen anything like this in an unconscious person… not even in REM.

<<<End>>>

<<<Excerpt 2>>>

Dane: He hasn’t responded to any of the drugs yet, Doctor. What should we do?

Halmann: We wait. It’s obvious he’s not dead. His pulse is still present, albeit weak. Provided nothing else happens, he might just wake up on his own. Or… not. We never know with coma patients, though with this technology, we might have an unparalleled chance for examination.

Dane: You mean the-

Halmann: Yes. Just exercise due care. We have no idea if the device will impact the patient long term. Or the user, for that matter. The initial trials were… ambiguous, to put it lightly.

Dane: Doctor, I’ve spoken to Dr. Waters about using the device. I believe she wanted to be the one to… use it.

Halmann: I’m sure she would. Mercury is a siren’s call to psychologists. It’ll either be the tool they’ll finally be able to fix their patients with, or it will be the revolution that will put them out of work. <laughs>

<<<End>>>

<<<Excerpt 3>>>

Waters: Alright, I’m engaging the probe now. Dr. Halmann? What is this supposed to feel like?

Halmann: You’ll feel a slight tension at the base of your skull, and a feeling akin to a rush of blood to the brain. You’ll lose consciousness shortly <audible thump> after. Quite so. Mr. Dane, if you would.

Dane: <electronic click> There. Both are showing stable brain activity.

Halmann: Now, we wait.

<<<End>>>

<<<Excerpt 4>>>

Mercury: Welcome to the Mercury Interface. What can I do for you today?

Waters: Synchronize and interface with patient Bruce Montgomery, terminal A.

Mercury: Interfacing, please stand by. <buzzing> Synchronization ready. Warning. Please be advised that Mercury is still under development. Mercury developers and engineers are not responsible for any brain damage or other neural anomalies directly or indirectly associated with the use of Mercury. Do you accept responsibility?

Waters: <sigh> Yes.

Mercury: <beep> Commencing interface.

<<<End>>>

<<<Excerpt 5>>>

Mercury: Synchronization complete. Mercury on standby.

Waters: Hello?

Montgomery: Hello, Dr. Waters.

Waters: Mr. Montgomery! You’re alright. Well. Mostly.

Montgomery: Am I dreaming?

Waters: Yes, and no. You’re in a coma. I’m communicating with you by having a computer inject your brain with chemicals that simulate my thought patterns. And vice versa.

Montgomery: Interesting. I suppose that’s why you’re fully clothed, despite my best efforts to -

Waters: Mr. Montgomery! Please! Please. Listen. I don’t know how long it’s safe to remain like this. So, I’ll make this quick. You’re in a deep coma. We don’t know how long it will be until you wake, if at all, but we’re going to be using Mercury to study your brain, and also to keep in touch with you.

Montgomery: Interesting. What else can Mercury do?

Waters: I… can’t tell you.

Mercury: Mercury is a fully autonomous neural synchronization and interface utility, fully equipped to provide a 2-1 ratio thought implantation regiment and synaptic override. Recording and communication systems in draft, beta version 0.1.126.

Waters: I’ll explain later. For now, I’ll just get you started with Mercury.

Mercury: Welcome to the Mercury Interface, what can I do for you today?

<<<End>>>

Riichi

2009-12-02T03:12:00.004-07:00

The world's full of people who think they know something... if not everything.

Everyone's got a dime's worth advise, and they'll give it without your asking for it. It's as though everyone, regardless of life or background, could be thrust into a situation they know nothing about, and still have an answer.

On the flip side, intelligence breeds isolation. That... for that fundamental experience, it separates you. Makes you special. Unique, even. Such is never the case.
Humanity was built on the notions of an ever-growing empathy. We share what we feel just as we share what we know. It's silly to think that the only ones who should express outrage at something are the ones directly wronged by it. It's nonsense, not to mention, bad for the species.

If, for example, we were told not be be angry about a genocide, simply because it was not our people being killed, would that not be preposterous?

It depends on the person asking, I guess.

For many people, it wouldn't be. They're not my problem.

I think about this too much, and I continually run into contradictions. People want sympathy, but they don't want to be pitied. They want feeling, but are apathetic. They want others to be more intelligent, while shirking understanding. War for peace. Angry love.

People wonder why I sleep all day, and then sit all night like I am now, staring into the glowing monitor. This is, by and large, my rose-coloured filter. Going out into the world, I've only ever found one constant in people.

Selfish, apathetic cruelty.

Tern

2009-11-23T02:23:00.002-07:00

I've got nothing.

In fact, I'm taking a lot of it back. I haven't decided on it firmly yet, but if there's anything on here you were particularly fond of, or wanted to read over again, please do so before the end of the week. I'm contemplating locking up the entries from the first three years.

And perhaps wiping facebook and co. from my list of regular ventures.

I'm consistently reminded why I spend most of my time away from people. And now I'm finding my haven's overrun by inane diatribes and the particular vagaries of people who, by and large, really shouldn't share their thoughts with anyone.

I'm tired of it, folks. I'll be pleased when the Christmas season is over. I've got two weeks to spend. I shall be going away again, though I doubt there will be pictures or anything of the such this time. I've a feeling it will be me and the netbook and several thousand kilometres of open road.

Status

2009-11-10T19:56:00.002-07:00

I've been staring at this thing for about half an hour now, trying to think about what to write about. I've got material, but the problem is that it just seems so trite right now, I'm not even sure I could make it through the diatribe before succumbing to revulsion and putting my fist through the screen.

So lets start at the beginning then, shall we? A game called Borderlands.

Now, it does so many things right. RPG aspects. Check. Powerful weapons. Check. Comical amounts of gore and violence. Check. Macabre and vile humour. Check. A top-notch cell-shading engine. Check. A thriving market for weapons and equipment. Che-wha?

You can see precisely where the game lost me. As a co-operative shooter, this should've been something that was right up my alley. However. Once you pass the mystical level 20 mark, the game devolves into a rabid scavenger hunt. Lewt. Money. The enemies become little more than pathetic obstacles between you and the next haul, which you gleefully bag and haul back to the nearest vending station for profit.

At least, that's how the game panned out for me. I might be wrong, but generally in shooter games, the idea is to... erm... shoot people. Not scavenge for leftovers in an attempt to turn a buck, although there's really nothing wrong with playing it like that. No, instead, I'm chastised for leaping out and engaging the enemy, blazing a path from point A to point B, visiting ungodly amounts of carnage on any convicts that dare stand in my way. The weapons I missed are lamented, and I'm again chastised, as, again, that's money I'm missing.

Not really. As with all RPG's before it, games like this are a factor of income over time. In the real world, we expire, ergo time is finite and given meaning. Games like this don't expire. You never run out of time, ergo you've got all the time in the world to just grind cash if you need it. I personally don't much care for in-game wealth, so I just want to play through, bask in the story (if there is one), and raise a little hell and have a few laughs along the way. Market Economics in a post-colonial offworld colony is of no interest to me, and my lack of a materialist inclination in the game is apparent, as I'll usually pass off big and expensive guns in favor of cheap ones that just make shit go boom without fail.

Anyway. That's my rant. I've taken to playing Borderlands on my own a lot more, since playing with other people usually involves doing things how they want it done. As nice as having in-game cash is, there are better ways I'd rather spend four hours of my life than pretending I'm working.

On to other things.

Well, I don't even really know where to start with the other things.
Perhaps I'll just recount an anecdote from my ethics teacher in college.

How to kill a man twice.
The first time you kill a man will be his physical death.
The second time will be the death or defacement of his memory.

I'm feeling it now more than ever.
I'm hoping there will be a time when I'm not a stand-in or a gateway or a proxy.

Not likely, mind you. But a guy can dream.

Nix me one evening, and a quar'er tank of gas

2009-11-02T00:32:00.001-07:00

I would've thought that a couple months would've been adequate time to plan and prepare.

Although I suppose I should've seen it coming. When a couple of convicted flakes offer to buy you pizza and drinks for helping them move, my bullshitometer should have immediately translated that into "nothing," and "a migraine."

Serves me right for being helpful.

Contrary

2009-10-26T01:52:00.002-06:00

I'm in an awkward position in my life. Given the option, I'd rather just sleep for the next three weeks, but it's not going to save me from anything, except perhaps exhaustion (but too much sleep only breeds more lethargy, or so I've seen).

Management at work has seen fit to see the value in me as a potential addition to management. This would be a great ego boost for me, except taking an assistant manager position (along with mandatory 40-hour work week) would run completely counter to my ambition to go to university, ASAP.

But therein lies the rub. I'm not really making enough money right now to head back to school and leave the necessary nest egg in case something (or anything) happens while I'm attending. Working a management position would see a large pay raise, guaranteed hours, and shiny benefits that I've only been able to enjoy to limited extent as a lowly part-timer.

So there's the fork in the road. Two options, which I will admit, are neither very appealing. I'm not liking the notion that I might spend four years of my life pursuing a degree, which I'm not sure will secure me employment or gainful income in the near future. Or a management position in retail which will saddle me with responsibilities that I'm honestly afraid of.

Nevermind the fact that I've got no plan for moving out in the next five years - a fact which aggrieves me greatly considering that, while my parents did insist that I move back home after Drayton, I'd rather not be a permanent fixture around these parts forever.

Decisions. I've been left to coast, and now opportunity knocks on every door.

23

2009-10-20T17:52:00.001-06:00

Nothing to report.

Impress

2009-10-12T18:53:00.002-06:00

I'm not even sure how to go about this, so I suppose I'll just let the fingers do the talking here and stop thinking it over so much.

I picked up Vancouver the other day, and have been listening to it over and over for a couple of days now. My first impression was two-fold. The first I had (and this is brutal honesty incoming. If you're a sycophant or easily annoyed, skip to part two), was that this CD probably has the weakest choice for first songs of any Matthew Good CD I've ever purchased.

I still consistently, to this day, skip tracks one to three to get to tracks four and five, which brings me to my second impression.

Us is Impossible and On Nights Like Tonight are perhaps two of Matt's two most powerful songs that I've listened to in a long while.

All in all, for the remainder of the album, I think I've gotten more than my money's worth, so it's been a good buy.

On another unrelated note, I blinked and August disappeared. It's now mid October and my birthday's coming up. I hope the rest of my life isn't like this, because that was a lot of time that just disappeared and slid on by.

A blatant disregard for Time Wasted

2009-10-03T13:58:00.004-06:00

I suppose I should share some of what I've seen and/or heard over the last couple of weeks.
The first and foremost is this:

I ordered it on a whim to go with my purchase of Night Raider & The Resurrectionists by Crippled Black Phoenix, and I'm going to say now, it was worth every penny of the deliciously low price I got it at.

I'm still unceasingly amazed that I can import music off Amazon for cheaper than a lot of music at my local store. And the selection is far superior as well. Anyway. That's the sound of one slowpoke catching up with the times.

I've also been playing a lot of Halo 3: ODST on my Xbox. My Xbox had been out of service for a couple weeks due to the much-maligned red circle, and ODST has been the first game I've really gotten into since getting it back. At first, I was apprehensive, because Bungie and Microsoft let the Halo series get way out of control and it became less and less about whatever mediocre story they were telling and more and more about marketability and horseshit "epicness," a completely arbitrary means of measuring a game's worth based on nothing more than bloom effect, shiny explosions, and fucking fan service when characters arrive and do something rediculous and then leave.

Anyway, I digress. ODST was actually an incredibly solid game. The story, whilst still framed within a world that does me no favours, is well written and delivered in an excellent, bite-by-bite format. A second, sub story exists, which can be uncovered by visiting data terminals throughout the city the game takes place in. This "Sadie's Story," is actually the whole reason I kept playing as long as I did, and why it took me nearly 20 hours to beat the game on my first play through.

I'd sit, listening to these audio logs, whilst absently fending off the alien hordes. I don't know why, but audio story-telling is still awesome to me. Bioshock had it. System Shock 2 had it. And it enriched both games. Halo 3 (not ODST) came close with ancient logs left by the forerunners, but said logs were text logs that you had to take time out of your day to stop and read - and even then, you only had about five seconds to read them before they got scrambled and you got plopped to some less juicy correspondence.

Anyway. Long story short, ODST was good.

I've also been playing some Champions Online. I'm upset because it wouldn't let me play my free month until I gave them my credit card number, so I'm likely to start getting billed for a game, which by and large, has left me feeling rather ambivalent towards it. Yes, there's a lot of stuff in it that I like. Leaping around with superjump/rocket boots never gets old. However, the missions do. And regardless of all the cool stuff in the game, even WoW doesn't charge me 45 bucks every three months, and WoW offers droves of updates and material, rather than just menial updates, like oh, we finally fixed pets so they do more than hump the wall.

Truth be told, MMO's as a whole are wearing pretty thin on me. I'm thinking of just killing my subscription to all of them, including WoW, and just getting game cards when the mood strikes to play.

Honestly, I've never been a huge fan of being forced into social interactions in order to succeed at something. I can't very well box somebody's ears in an MMO for being a useless sack of shit, so any kind of leadership I can offer is heavily restricted by the notion of pseudo-anonymity.

I'm rambling anyway. And it's time for work.
Later gang.

Kite

2009-09-28T01:29:00.001-06:00

The worst thing about being hung out to dry by someone is that they've often pre-meditated it and have thus lied themselves to the point where they believe they're not to blame for any of their actions.

Accountability. It's what's for breakfast.

Low Key

2009-09-25T03:49:00.002-06:00

A smiling snarl, a laughing rictus of joyful betrayal.
This is the future.
The distinction between your love and hate is as pointless as elementary semantics.
The knife cuts both ways.
Plunge it into me and I'll cringe, because it doesn't matter which direction you choose.

Humans are only good for one thing.
Breaking everything they've ever made.

Full Circle

2009-09-16T01:39:00.002-06:00

I've gotten out of the habit of writing political shit on this blog. Most of it should be for obvious reasons. After actually getting my nose bloodied in the "real world," I've discovered that, though I don't like politicians, I like the public even less, and they can have everything they deserve when it comes election time.

And it might just be that time again this fall.

This isn't an entry about the potential election coming up. It's about peoples' reactions to it. Canadians don't want an election. It's a horrible waste of taxpayer dollars, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. Whatever.

What Canadians want isn't another election. It's a dictatorship. People have fought and died for this notion of democracy, and if all my countrymen are going to do about it is bellyache about how often they have to exercise this right - payed for in blood - then so be it. We'll oust the government, instate a dictator, and all will be to rights in the eyes of the public.

No money wasted on yearly elections.
No political boondoggling through the media.

And best of all, people won't have to get their asses out of their chairs to go vote.

Just yet another reason why we can't have nice things.

A Basic Rule before all others

2009-09-12T22:30:00.000-06:00

Talk is cheap.

Jaghut

2009-09-12T02:34:00.002-06:00

I should have honestly finished writing this yesterday, when the message was a bit more... poignant. But you'll just have to settle for it now.

Yesterday was the eleventh of September, a day of auspicious remembrance. A day when we drown our individual thoughts in favour of one mass generational act of remembrance and grieving.

Every year, I'm reminded of what happens when the thoughts of madness are given voice in more than one head. Whether through one horrific act, or the countless horrific acts commited in answer, I'm reminded that none of this would have happened if the gnawing, crazy thought in one person's head had stayed locked up there. Each person, as an individual, is an island of thought and reasonable in their own right.

Put enough people together though, and that thought, that idea, cuts loose. Expanding like a ripple at first, and then a wave. The actions of one person are easily quashed, but the moment that will, that desire for action is taken up by many arms, by many wills, it becomes a real force, and one that's difficult to stay. For every person that takes up the call, it becomes harder for others to ignore it. To avoid also being swept up in the tide.

If, for 24 hours, every person in the world had been cut off from every other person on the eleventh of September, two-thousand and one, who knows where we would be on this eleventh of September, two-thousand and nine? Who knows where this wave of violence would've stopped?

Indeed it was horrific, but if we're to answer every cruelty with a greater one... well, then only the reaper stands to win.

On September 11th, I am keen to remember only one thing. It's my sister's birthday, and despite the paranoia and calls for renewed violence, I'm only interested in that one detail. Else it's a day like any other.

And like any day, if we're going to pick and choose which atrocities are remembered, then we should remember every one.

Don't follow, please

2009-09-07T03:05:00.002-06:00

Scott Bentley.

You're the strangest character I've ever written. I sometimes wonder which of us is holding the mirror, if you're the one that's sympathetic, and I'm just the hollow reflection.

Lately that's about all I've been feeling. I keep writing and writing, and page by page, your world comes alive. The people you know. The friends you have. Your heart alive with emotions, worries, fears, and jubilation.

I'm quickly becoming just a machine, rapping this story out. Nothing I've done seems to have been of any meaning, of any consequence. Every tiny change I've tried to affect has been a nothing-moment. A blank instance of lacking.

One by one, my ties are cut. Frayed, or severed. It doesn't really matter, as this is about the time when everyone goes about their own ways. Tired of each other. Tired of me.

Scott Bentley. Let's finish your story. So that I might start mine.

Mother Dark

2009-09-02T17:58:00.008-06:00

Well, I've finally got around to working on some more of these, so enjoy.

Ryan and Dan, by the fire.

Tracy, chilling out in her rocking lawn chair (no really, it literally rocks!). I'm fairly sure those two chairs were the only ones that didn't spontaneously deconstruct during the trip.

The gang, again by the fire. Notice the spirit flying up from Trevor's pants.

Ryan, by the firelight.

Trevor, by the firelight.

Dan, by the firelight.

And I think that's all of them for now.
It felt good having the camera out for a while. I'll have to see if I can get more like this in the future.

Later gang.

Wolf Lake

2009-08-26T03:31:00.006-06:00

Insomnia is sometimes such a beautiful thing.

If these pictures look a little weird, it's alright. I'm testing a new method of converting photos into black and white. The results were a bit... drastic, for my liking, but the end result is a kind of dynamic contrast that I couldn't get through normal means. If you like them, great. If not, well. It's a work in progress.

Dan and Trevor. I think the quote here was "Dan, I need you get excited about your life."

The guys, watching Dan watching his camera watching me behind the fire. I honestly didn't think this picture would be useable at all. This attests to the abilities of the new method I'm using.

Dan, staring intently into a camp lantern. After our "Wildfire" fizzled, this was the closest thing to entertainment we had.

Ryan fishing. All he needed was a piece of buckwheat in his teeth and he'd be the quintessential prairie lad.

I had some pictures of Tracy in there too, but for whatever reason, they didn't make it up in this batch. Sorry!

What is Wolf Lake? Well, it's a little lake tucked away in the boonies of Alberta. Or so you'd think. Despite being extremely isolated, that didn't seem to stop people from tearing in with their huge trailors and ocean-worthy power boats. That was about my only gripe though. The weather was great, the stars were close, and it was good to be away from civilization with good friends.

More to come soon, I think.

Anticipation

2009-08-20T18:22:00.004-06:00

It's the night before a trip.
I'm getting that feeling. It's a tension in my back. My eyes.
Don't know if this is anticipation, or anxiety.
But tomorrow I'm driving.

The Long, Cold Summer

2009-08-17T13:29:00.006-06:00

This is exactly what it's been. The sun hid, and nothing grew. Storms came and blew everything over and indeed, where has summer gone?

One crack of lightning.

Two cracks of thunder.

And that's too close for me. I'm out.

Two weeks later, in a forgotten corner of the province, a place ravaged by hail and drought is clawing its way back to life.

I walked and walked along this road. Behind me, just empty gravel. Before me, a single, snow-capped mountain. There were no names for it, so I simply called it Lonely Mountain. Hundreds of kilometres away, and nobody for company.

The weather behaved, for a while.

And that's all. It's like an occultation. I'm in the same spot on the Earth every year, when the Earth is in the same place at that point in the year. The only thing that's different is everything else in the universe.

Storm

2009-08-03T18:25:00.002-06:00

I'm not sure whether it's luck or fate, but I dodged a bullet last night.

We had an incredibly severe storm come through last night. Like a dunce, I kitted up my camera and went out and sat in the car to photograph the worst of it.

And the worst was pretty terrible. I will be putting the pictures up a bit later, but I came pretty close to danger. The wind was blowing hard enough that my vehicle was rocking on its suspension. All the trees were bent at odd angles, and the only sound besides the thunder and pelting rain, was this long, low moan that seemed to be coming from everywhere.

There was lightning everywhere, and I don't mean sheet lightning like we usually get. Trees were getting struck everywhere. The closest bolt hit about 10, maybe 15 feet away from me. I got a picture, but unfortunately, it only came out as a white blur because it was so close.

Scary stuff.

I guess a lot of the city is without power right now, and there's been more storms on and off for the whole day. I don't think I've ever had a summer like this, where we're worried about wind damage and the threat of twisters.

Margerinalized

2009-08-02T00:27:00.002-06:00

This has been, perhaps, one of the worst months since 2007.

It goes without saying.

Things might be changing though. For the better, I don't know.

I've been looking at this blog for almost a week now, picking a few bits here, changing a few links there. I honestly don't keep track of what's being used, but you'll be pleased to note that I've done away with a few links to webcomics that were - for a long while anyway - no longer funny.

Humour, they say, is an individual thing. It is. But there comes a point where humour gives way into repeating and pointless dialogue. You might have seen it before. Yes, I'm looking at you Garfield.

Anyway. Work continues on the caymen saga. The more I work on this, the less I feel that the public at large will appreciate what I'm trying to do. Nevermind every dog-faced numbskull marginalizing me as... well, whatever names they want to call me this time.

Every person, in some shape or form, is superior to me. I'm not bothered by that. But it is counterproductive when I'm reminded of it at every opportunity.

Society as a whole seems hell bent on drum-beating or pity-mongering, whichever is readily available. It makes me sick, but at the same time, life must be really boring these days.

Stand by

2009-07-25T02:32:00.001-06:00

And please hold the line.

Hollywood, you've crossed me for the last time

2009-07-21T01:48:00.002-06:00

So,

I went and saw Wolverine: Origins the other night at the local cheap theatre. I'm glad I didn't see it when it first came out, because I felt ripped off for even having spent five dollars on it.

I've never been a huge fan of Wolverine, but this movie was just... And they tried so hard, but...
I really have no words to describe it. People can point to me and say "It is what it is, enjoy it or don't." And I think in this case, that's a ludicrous statement to be making.

This is (hopefully) the last movie in a franchise that started off so strongly that I'm still amazed that they could kill it this badly and completely. Maybe it's because they stopped letting Solid Snake write the screenplay. Maybe it's because the X-men continuity is a half-slaggered mess of retcons and relapses itself.

Maybe it's because I just hate when directors fall into the trap of just being horrible fan-serving dickweeds, and focus so much on the "epic," that they seem to forget that they're making a movie about characters. Watching it, and a lot of other movies that I've seen lately, you could've replaced every character in it with card-board cutouts, holding hand-written cue cards and it would've had the exact same emotional impact.

It's a cold bloody day in hell indeed, when the most gripping movies I've seen this year have been made by Pixar and Dreamworks.

I mean, these are goddamned computer-generated mimicries of the real world.
Is this what it's come to?

Technology is proof that only the spammers love you

2009-07-09T02:41:00.002-06:00

For the last three days, I've been having a recurring dream. I'm hoping tonight I don't have it again, because it was basically the summation of my life up to this point.

Chasing down something, but never able to get it. I don't know what it is, or why I'm chasing it. But I know if I stop, I'll die. And I know if I get lost, I'll end up stopping.

This week should be good for photos, though we'll see. We've gone from cold to drought to thor's hammer in a matter of weeks. It's been a melancholy affair, because it's all been seen from my window. A window that's next to several large prints, which out of the corner of my eye, look like yet more windows. The wall's not done yet. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never.

We all get around it eventually

2009-07-02T02:19:00.003-06:00

So I guess today... yesterday, was Canada Day. Given that most of my non-work days start when I wake up at about two in the afternoon, this is still "today," for me.

I was tempted to write something about Canada, and how much I love it despite the vindictive slugs and the two-faced politicians, but I think that goes without saying. Nowhere is perfect. Our problems are just a lot more... passive aggressive.

Lately, I've just been staying inside a lot. For some reason, my allergies are a lot worse this year than any year prior. Every time I go outside, I'm basically crippled to the point of not being able to breathe. Typical antihistamines seem to be doing little to nothing, so I'm curious if it's not some other, underlying issue that I've missed.

I'd like to visit a doctor, but given how the provincial government has managed to dig itself into such a hole that they deem it necessary to de-list almost every non-essential medical service is just a little off-putting. I mean, I haven't seen a chiropractor in over a year, and now I don't think I'm going to at all. Sixty dollars a visit for four visits is basically my entire month's paycheque, and given how work's slowed down, I think I'm kind of fucked for all my old creature comforts.

Yep. It'll be alpo dinners and cardboard boxes before too long.

I've continued working on my story as well. It's... interesting to work on, to say the least. The main problem I'm having is maintaining a tight hold on reality, when the main character himself is unable to. The mind is a terrible thing to grasp, but that's exactly what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to make the unbelievable, believable. And I don't think I'm going to be able to do it. I'll probably have to compromise somewhere and it's going to fuck the whole thing up, and...

Well, honestly, I wasn't anticipating writing a whole paragraph about it, but there it is. I'm staring at this thing as if it was the child of a woman I didn't know, and she said it was mine.

Speaking of women, I'm pretty sure the same stuff I'm allergic to causes mild insanity in them. Really. I've got no idea.

Repair

2009-06-27T23:09:00.003-06:00

This fragile thing broke once too often, so it's been replaced. It doesn't beat now so much as tick. Like clockwork, it's reliable and never breaks. Polished brass and tightened fittings, it lies heavy like a burden.

But that's a welcome weight.

This is the new humanity, replacing soil with steamworks. Roots with pipes.
Polished brass and copper, cogs and coils. It affronts nature because it is nature of its own making.

It's an alien life of metal and precision. Unmoved but yet still noble.

There is no summer here

2009-06-22T19:05:00.002-06:00

Summer seems to have forgotten this half of the continent.
And I mean the season.
The fact that I chose a picture of Summer Glau as the header is completely unrelated.
Yeah. Right.

A blighted day of a thousand black plagues

2009-06-19T22:33:00.002-06:00

I took a sick day today.

I'm still amazed how spoiled people are. Comparing my current job with my last, calling in sick was almost sickeningly easy. "Hi, I can't make it. Are we good? Yep. Okay. See you tomorrow."

For the newspaper, there was no "sick days," as revealed when I finally came home. Explaining to a community that their paper has lacking/no news because you were ill would only invoke a genuine wave of revolt.

You know. Suck it up princess. I work all the time when I'm sick, what's your problem?

And so on, and so forth.

Anyway. I should've really used the tail end of the day to do something useful, like taking the guitars out of their cases, or cleaning up around this dump that is my room.

But you know. I just sat here, reading news. And despite what's going on in the world, I'm not at all compelled to comment.

In fact, I think I'm going back to bed.

A sad, sordid tale of unequivocal suffering and pain

2009-06-18T23:26:00.000-06:00

So, would anyone like to partake of my tale of pigeon-shit melodrama? How life is balls and I'm blinded by the sockets, and nothing ever goes straight?

I thought not. I'm sick. But mostly I'm sick and tired. I'm pouring another rum, and this one's for you guys.

Have a good one.

Home

2009-06-10T11:10:00.002-06:00

Well, it was an adventure for the month of June.

I was going to sit down last night and write something about it, but I ended up just drinking myself into a stupor instead. No idea why, other than it was good to be back home.

What I will say, is that it was great to see the guys (and Tracy and co.) again. It's still blowing my mind that Tracy and Trevor are going to have two dogs, two cats, and soon, three kids to contend with. Good luck guys. And I mean that with a wink and a smile.

Trevor and I decided to put our guitars together for about an hour or so one night. The result was some good noises, and the fact that my SuperFuzz pedal actually sounds better with Trevor than it does with me. So I lent it to him (and now fully expect some recordings). As he said, FACES WILL BE SHREDDED. Gently. And with great skill.

Trevor, Dan, and I, went to see Drag me to Hell. It was... kind of a weird movie. Definitely a keystone Raimi brothers production, with equal portions of horror, awkwardness, and hilarity mixed in. There were many parts through the movie where everyone in the theater began licking their teeth and smacking their lips. I'll let you reckon from that what you will.

On one hand, I disliked Drag me to Hell because there were some moments that made me uncomfortable on a level that I don't think the movie intended. On the other, the movie was a perfect moral story, and showed how fucking up once can lead to a whole chain of events that pretty much cements the deal.

And that's about all I can say about it without spoiling the whole damn show.
Everyone I've talked to keeps asking me if it's like Evil Dead or Army of Darkness or if it's more horror or comedy. Fuck. I don't know. Or care.
Anyone who wants to know should just go and see it for themselves, and stop beggaring me to describe every detail of a movie that they're on the fence about.

Seriously.

A movie might be disappointing? Never.

Anyway. There was a bunch else that I was going to write about. But I'm not going to. Either because it's redundant, or because it's much better left in my head.

A vacation from this vacancy

2009-06-03T14:25:00.003-06:00

I'm counting down until Friday, when things might, maybe, start making sense for a little while.

Work's crawled to a practical standstill, which is part of what motivated me to start taking days off, out of the blue.

The other thing is that the people around me seem to be losing it completely. Or maybe I am, and they're just avoiding me. It doesn't matter. I need to get away for a while. The only people who know where I'm going are the only people who would actually do something if I didn't come back.

I'm hoping to see my grandparents, as strange as that sounds. I missed them at Easter time and I want to see them as much as I can. I hate sounding morbid on this, but people die. So I'd like to make good on what time we've got left.

I know too many people who missed out because they got mired in personal dramas, that in the end, didn't contribute a single worthwhile moment. It's something I've learned since I got back from Drayton.

Family is important, regardless of history.

p.s. - you know I'm nuts when I keep checking my own blog to see if I've updated.

Chapter Infinity

2009-05-31T01:58:00.002-06:00

----------

I'm just sitting and watching clouds drift lazily overhead. I hope you don't mind. I understand that I just disappeared one day, without warning or explanation. I hope you can forgive me that. My mind had long since gone, and it was time for my body to follow it.

I've done all I can to teach our boy. Scott is a bright kid, but he is also very much my son. I have given him all the preparation I can for what is to come, but you understand - his life will go down a different path than mine. It is... my place to lie and watch the clouds. It is his place to walk among them.

It is important now that I go where I must, and that he goes where he must. Perhaps one day we will meet, though I have no idea where or when such a meeting will occur.

This madness, it makes no concessions for love. I go where my footsteps are to be. And this is why I must be separate from you, and from my son. Scott is free to love, and free to be loved. And you... you might one day forget the hardships I've put you through and learn to love another.

Understand that as long as I was with you two, you would both also be under this madness' sway. You would move to its rhythms, and you too would become wearied by it's throb and pace. I would become as a clockwork machine to you. A scheduled malfunction and a constant and needless worry. Love would become a tiring duty. I may be insane, but I know such pain cannot and should not be.

I hope you can forgive me my assumptions. All I have done, I have done with the love and fondness that you've engendered in me over the years. Though I pushed you away always, you always came back.

I will not forget that.

Though now I must go.

Much love always,

-Arthur Bentley

----------

Talent

2009-05-26T20:21:00.000-06:00

A photographer was invited over to his dear friend's house for dinner one night, and he opted to bring some examples of his trade with him to share with his friend's family.

Through the night, his friend's wife would ooh and ahh over the pictures, commenting "These are gorgeous! You must have such a good camera." The photographer just sat quietly, chewing his food.

Finally, when the end of the evening came, as he was about to leave, the photographer turned to his friend's wife and said,

"Thank you for the lovely dinner. You must have amazing pots and pans."

Huh

2009-05-22T13:11:00.003-06:00

As I've been writing along, I found one little paragraph that pretty much neatly sums up the flavour and type of story I'm writing:

"I sit for another few moments, my mouth opening and closing slowly. I’ve never had a damn clue what to say in a situation like this. Your ex-girlfriend, whom you secretly love but now just want to keep safely in the friend territory, has just been cheated on and wants the support of a schizophrenic who’s just barely rolled out of a hospital bed after spending an indeterminate amount of time out of his fucking gourd.

Riddle me this one, batman."

Crazy

2009-05-22T03:48:00.001-06:00

I can't explain why. I opened a document tonight and just started typing away, and it quickly evolved itself into a story. It's not about death or killing or stabbing or anything like that. It's about some fairly plain extraordinary shit that people have to live with.

And strangely, I'm finding this one extremely hard to put down. I mean, as I write this, it's almost 4 a.m. And I'm wishing I could just ignore my body's plaintiff cries for sleep so that I could keep writing.

It's been years since I've been this sucked in by a story. I have no idea how long it's going to be, or what's going to happen to the characters. All I'm doing is writing, and even I'm surprised by what's coming out.

Anyway.

I may post some of it up here when I've got a bit more done, though don't hold your breath. I may end up playing this one close to the chest.

Four-Four-Four

2009-05-19T03:25:00.003-06:00

No.
If you're wondering: no. I never sleep. At least not on anything that could be called a schedule.

Don't have much to report, aside from the usual day-to-day week-to-week shit that everyone goes through.

Crippled Black Phoenix put out their new album though. I've got it ordered, but I'm impatient. But for those of you waiting, it's worth the wait. Most of the tracks are solid gold. You might be saying "Most? Why not all?" I'll be frank. There's very few CD's that I've bought that have been rock solid right from beginning to end, music-wise. Often times, albums will be trying to convey a kind of message or feeling, and indeed, this album's songs fit the message very well.

But that doesn't mean I have to like every song.

In other news (or non-news as you'd like), events in the world lately have only further cemented my beliefs and opinions of the human race. As if watching a hollywood movie wasn't a hollow enough sounding lecture on the virtues of a morally ambiguous people, one need only open a newspaper or read an article online to know precisely what we're in for in the next twenty... thirty... maybe fifty years.
Mix in an equal helping of ignorance, intolerance, and whatever other commonplace vice you'd like, and you've got yourself the future.

I'm really not looking forward to anything, because all my dreams, all my ambitions, are either rendered meaningless through the endeavors of others, or they quickly become pointless through the ignorant steam-rolling of an entire nation of self-serving idiots. And so it becomes boolean:

1 - Strive for wellness, for self, for others.
0 - Strive for destruction, for others, for self.

Flip the switch. You're fucked either way.

Step Lightly

2009-05-07T17:50:00.003-06:00

It's rained in earnest for the first time this spring.
I've currently got my window open and my fan running full blast to try and fill the room with as much cool, damp air as possible, since it's been largely dry and dusty out for... well. Since the snow last flew.

I like days like today. It's been a pleasant mix of sun and cloud, and it's been cool and moist all day. When it's damp, it keeps most of the shit out of the air that I'm allergic to, so I could be getting shat on and I'd still be having a pretty awesome day.

On the flip side, I'm down to two shifts of work a week. My employers have been forced to take some pretty tough measures in the current retail climate, and I will very likely have to be looking for a second, short-term job in the near future.

It'd be nice if there was some demand for unorthodox photographers right now, but a lot of people have gotten ridiculously reactionary. They aren't willing to risk anything on a (relatively) inexperienced photographer, so a lot of the old shops in town have been making a killing (read: ripoff) off of a lot of people this summer.

Oh well. I can't change any of that. All I can do is put my head down and hope for the best.
Is it 2013 yet?

Stuff. And Junk

2009-04-30T12:29:00.002-06:00

Well, I've been wallowing in a failed mire of inarticulate thoughts and miserable misanthropy. Maybe that means I should write something. Anything.

I don't care if it's a random collection, but I'm going to get into these things anyway. So, here goes.

Far Cry 2

I bought this game on the recommendation that it was gorgeous and had some excellent gun-play. It is and it does, and I love it for both. However, it's very much like another game that I played. To many, that might seem like an unfair comparison, but when one leads to flashbacks of the other, I think it only right.

That's not to say the game isn't good. Both games were unexpectedly fun, and believe you me, after a long day at work, there's few things I enjoy more than shoving a Carl Gustav round into the radiator of some south-African technical. That said, the dialogue at the beginning of the game is terrible. Unsympathetic characters lambast you with egregious run-on sentences in ham-fisted accents, tossing you from job to job with little richness or care. There are exceptions, indeed.

But for a large part, I found that myself, and most players like me, actively avoid doing missions so that we can enjoy the rich visual presentation without it being marred by verbal diarrhea.

Zeno Clash

I... really don't know where to start with this one. It is a video-game, yes. But it feels a lot like I've stepped into someone else's acid-dream, and now I'm expected to fight for survival.

For being a first-person fighting game, I took to it quite handily. I mean, I've always wanted to virtually bust someone's face in. There are firearms too. Though not in the sense that you'd think of in something like Far Cry 2 or Half-Life. All of the game's weapons seem to be a mish-mash of bolts, screws, and organic components such as horns, bones, spines, and sinew. Intriguing, to say the least.

The story is convoluted, but in this case, it gets clearer as time goes on. I wouldn't have minded if it had stayed a little vague. It would've suited the bizzare artwork of the world much better. Every region you visit has a distinctive artistic flavour, both visually and psychologically.

There's so much else about this game that I like, but I'm finding that I don't have the words for. Obviously it's short, which was kind of a heartbreak, but it was neatly done up and didn't pull any stupid cliffhangers (aside from the obvious one) like some other games we know.

Phase Two: Qosmio

This one isn't a video game. It's a laptop. It's phase two in my master plan, regarding launching my own business. I'm not even sure if I should still go ahead with it. But the demand is there, and so I should probably tap into it to make a bit of money.

Because I won't be getting a bike otherwise.