Oh, and I found an amaryllis kit at (of all places) Wal-Mart. So for my Wesir holiday thing, I planted an amaryllis. :)

Oh blue and green lights, jewel-toned bulbs of glassy goodness, you are so much more superior to Dave's lights. Lalalala.

I told you. I love Christmas. :) After it passes, I'm going to save the lights and -- if I can -- buy a bedframe to wrap the lights around at home. Or a rock to wind the lights arou...uh, nevermind.

Big hand's on 120
Little hand's on "E"
Hey Nyquil Driver
It's Nyquil drivin' time.

But I don't know that I'd pay full price ($18!) for it. Wish now that I'd bought some of the others when Mothernature.com still had some in stock!   >> 1:31:35 PM  
 
 
Yet one more reason not to eat at McDonald's.   >> 12:15:05 PM  
 
 
It's an interesting time of year for me. It's almost my favorite time of year.

I like Christmas-time, even if I'm not Christian. Christmas was never a Christian holiday to me, anyway. It was a family holiday.

My parents never forced religion on me. We didn't pray at the table except on holidays. Lessons were not learned by sending me to read passages from the Bible. We didn't go to church on Sundays. No youth groups. Jesus Christ was not a name invoked in my household unless you dropped a hammer on your toe. Most of the schools I went to as a child were named either for the city they were in or a dead president, not a saint or an angel.

Now it's different. This part of the year kicks off with the festival of Wesir in my religion -- a time of introspection and stability. Of candles in the dark. It's a good time to count blessings. It coincides well with the Christmas holiday. And with the holiday that my family celebrates, which isn't quite a religious thing, per se.

I grew up in a family where the family was our religion. Sure -- we got married in a chapel, we had priests at our funerals, and sometimes we went to church, but I can't help but remember a phrase I heard once describing religion in Japan: "You're married Shinto and you die Buddhist."

If you had to put a name to the god of the family I grew up in, you'd name it "love" and "conviction" -- however contrived that may sound, that's as simply as I can put it. My mother never wanted more from her kids than for us to love each other and keep in touch. She and Mark put themselves through a lot of self-sacrifice to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. He joined the military. She went to work for first an electronics company, then a bank. They didn't want to do either of those things, but money was tight, and someone had to pay the bills -- and it wasn't going to be the eleven-year-old who kept asking mom if they could get a cat.

I respect that. I'll carry that with me for the rest of my life -- that knowledge that, but for the grace of others, I would not be where I am now. I wish, when I was younger and blissfully unaware of these things, I had made it more evident to them how much I appreciated their work. What can you do to repay that?

So Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year, because while it may be the celebration of the birth of Christ for many families -- and none of this is meant to belittle that; please forgive me if it sounds that way -- in my family it is the celebration of our own private, unnamed belief -- the cult of the family, if you would.

I think God approves. I think Jesus would approve. I sometimes wonder if Jesus would be kind of embarrassed that people make such a big deal about his birthday. "Hey, that's great people, nice touch -- the pine trees and presents and lights and guy in a red suit and all...but I kind of wanted you to quit the fighting and the bitching and the whining all year rather than just one day."

Yeah, that's what Jesus would say.

And then he and I would go have a beer with Tori Amos.   >> 12:59:40 AM  
 
 

11.29.2000

An excellent little bit on creativity by Scott Kurtz (the guy who does PVP).   >> 11:56:59 AM  
 
 
Words. Value. Meaning.
Dave and I were discussing the words and usage of "gone for good" today. It's one of those phrases we tack onto things to finalize them. Many people who used to work for the company I'm with are now "gone for good". Things that bother us, that we have gotten rid of, are "gone for good". It's a coffin lid amongst phrases. I wonder how it came into usage.

Hem is a word I had trouble with when the meaning of it was explained to me for the first time. We shy away from words that connotate subservience in the culture I come from. So it's understandable that I wasn't pleased when, after I had decided I did in fact want to be a priest (and before I was ordained), that one of my future titles -- hemet-Netjer -- means in one of its socially unacceptable forms (according to modern American thinking) "slave of God".

Scary.

And then there were the things that a person like me thinks when I see that translation. The instant mistrust. Negative emotions. Defiance.

Why did I do this? When I write posts like this, sometimes it helps to examine them if I pretend I'm my mother reading these words. What does she think when she reads entries like this by her child? Does she wonder what her daughter is doing? Her daughter admits she had a hard time coping with this for a while, but her daughter also looks back on her life and sees an interesting pattern. When I accepted that I represent my spiritual Parent, a lot of things in life -- I don't want to say easier, because life never gets "easier". Things flowed better. It was like I unclogged a drain. Or something.

Any way you look at it, we are all a slave to something. Ourselves. Our jobs. Our children. Our little pursuits. Our stomachs. Our sexual drives. Our conception of freedom. Our past. I imagine the Socialist movement wouldn't agree with me, but I think it's true. People are slaves to cultural conditioning. To love. To money. To success. To power. To doing what they think is right.

At the heart, in that scary place of stripped-down walls, that place without the pretense of the fancy words I'm using now, I am a slave to what is right. To wanting my family to be safe and happy and well. To wanting to do what is best for everyone. To improving myself. To writing. To Bast, Who is all of these things.

Serving yourself should never be overlooked -- serving others shouldn't, either. In serving God, though, you have a most powerful employer with eyes that see quite a bit father than my own. When you serve God, you serve yourself. You serve others. You bring the circle around. Reciprocation.

If this sounds cynical or if it seems I'm having a crisis of faith -- rest assured that it's not intended to be viewed that way. I don't know how solid these thoughts are. It seems to me this is all something that isn't quite complete, that is lacking in one point I haven't hit. Completist that I am, I'm hoping writing about it will help me to discover that point, or explore the already-established ones to see if there are corners I'm missing.

Chances are, if you like reading this journal, you will probably like Unbreakable. I enjoyed it, though I "figured it out" about halfway through. Don't go in with a pretense, just go and see it before someone breaks it for you. :) I don't think it will be as universally loved as Sixth Sense, but it's still an excellent little piece of modern fantasy.

That's all for tonight. I hope I didn't hurt anyone's head with these strange thoughts of mine.   >> 1:07:26 AM  
 
 

11.28.2000

Happy Ramadan everyone!   >> 2:52:10 PM  
 
 
The good news: The band that does the opening theme for Angel is called Darling Violetta.And they have a website!

The bad news: There is no Angel soundtrack, nor is it on a CD. And the website sucks.

But I still managed to find the MP3. Which saves me the trouble of having to record it off my TV with Dave's mini-disk player :)   >> 1:38:25 PM  
 
 
Daily Devotions are continuing; the Nisut (AUS) wrote several before She went into surgery, and I've been charged with posting them at the proper time.

If you missed this morning's, my apologies. Things got a little hectic last night and you know how it goes. The proper devotion is now up. :)

Flight was smooth. Slept through it. The power went out here at around 8:30 PM last night due to various issues that have now hopefully been fixed.

For those of you who, for whatever reason, think you need to bu me things for Christmas -- and you don't -- you can find my wishlist on Amazon.com. Please ignore the hideously expensive stuff -- I put it on there in the hopes that I might win their wishlist contest. :)

Have I mentioned how nice my new coat is? I've always wanted a black full-length coat. Oh my. Yes. I love it. It's so nice to have this time of year. And I can practically get lost in it, it's so roomy.   >> 12:07:58 PM  
 
 

11.26.2000

My toes are freezing.

Tomorrow (well, today -- it's after midnight) I leave. I'm sad to go. I like my Mima, in case you couldn't tell. She's so unlike anyone else in my life, except maybe my mom.

I can't lay a price on the time that I've spent with her. There will never be another Mima. Just like they'll never be another me or another you. And I just woke her up, trying to cover her feet up, because like I said, it's kind of cold in here.

All you people who know my Mima's home number, all you siblings and relatives of mine, give her a call. Or come visit her. She'd like to see and hear from you. You can never visit or call your Mima too much. And if you do -- well, she'll tell you if you're being too overbearing.

So anyway, I have to go to bed, because tomorrow I have to pack and say goodbye to my Mima, and I need sleep for that. I'll miss the grandfather clock and the way I can seem to dwell here without needing to eat or sleep much, but I do admit to missing my cat.

See you all tomorrow/today :)   >> 11:40:53 PM  
 
 

11.25.2000

Quit whining, you goober!

Well, I guess those claims that you can hear me laugh clear across the country just aren't true. ;)   >> 5:43:10 PM  
 
 
Heh.

He doesn't have a photographic memory, but he does go to the places his books take place (when he can) and dictates into a tape-recorder while his wife takes photos or uses a video camera.

One advantage that we've had with LAST CALL, EXPIRATION DATE and EARTHQUAKE WEATHER is we've been able to go look at the places, which I never have been able to do with London or Rome or Venice or any of those places. And so my wife and I would drive through all the places the characters would go to and I'd be talking into a little tape-recorder and Serena would be leaning out of the window with a camera and eventually we figured out we were paying ninety dollars to have snapshots developed - just one days worth - and that it would much more sensible to simply buy a video camera - 'cause the tapes are reusable and you can put the commentary right on with the pictures.

I thought he might be doing that. It's a good idea. I really ought to do the same.   >> 5:33:41 PM  
 
 
Finished Expiration Date...it held up all the way to the end, which was very solid, and I don't feel as if I was missing something when I finally finished, but I think I was expecting something different. Or rather, I was expecting the ending I got, and then I got it, and I didn't think I would.

It's a good read for several reasons -- excellent writing, compelling plot and characters, and setting...good heaven. I want to know what lengths this man went to to research this thing. You felt like he knew what it meant to be an electrician, a psychiatrist, a former child star, a crack junkie...really, excellent writing I think is the key to that. His descriptions were dead on and inventive. Anyone who has ever lived in or around L.A. County will feel like they're there when reading this.

Either the guy has a photographic memory, or he takes excellent notes, or both. It was really, really good.

But I was expecting something more from the ending. Like I said, it's not a bad or disappointing ending, it just seems like, with all the twists and curves and weird things he threw in all over the place up to that point, that he'd do something weird with the end.

A mighty satisfying read, overall. And despite the fact that it was over 500 pages, it flew by. There wasn't an inch of fat in that book.

I give it nine out of ten funnel cakes. And...hm. It has a sequel...hm.

We went and did a little shopping today. I bought an indoor desk fountain which has a picture holder that will be perfect for a mini Akhu shrine. I also found an instrument for revenge against one of my siblings, who probably won't see this one coming. Mwa. Mwaha. Mwahahaahahahaha.   >> 5:05:38 PM  
 
 

11.24.2000

Marge and Stephanie Amateur Christmas Light Stringers, now in business.

I've never strung up christmas lights. That was always the man's job. I did decorate trees and I did make cookies and I did go shopping, buit no christmas light...uh, erecting. Huh.

(What verb do you use when referring to putting lights on the house? I know it's probably out there, and I know Bruce will probably tell me what it is.)

Um, so, right, me and my Mima went out and hung lights around the house, and then we came back inside and I fished out some letters from the 1940s that she had kept. Most of them were written by my grandfather, Papo, who my Mima says wrote her every day he was overseas fighting in WWII.

The most interesting discovery was that she had gone and gotten married to him two weeks after meeting him on a blind date. Her family didn't know she was getting married. So we found letters from friends and family talking about how they were happy for her, but a bit put out that she hadn't gone and told them or invited them. But there were extenuating circumstances -- if she hadn't married him then, he would have shipped out before they could have tied the knot.

Fascinating!

Moving further back in time, there were also postcards from 1911 to my great-grandmother Lotte from a now unknown courter who promised her she would be his forever. To my benefit, his words proved false, and all we know of him now is his initials, and that he didn't know how to spell Lotte's name.

I'm reading Expiration Date by Tim Powers inbetween talking with my Mima. It's pretty good. I can't draw a total conclusion until I get to the end; the author has a mind-blowing number of events going on in this book, and I want to see if he will and/or can put them all together into a cohesive conclusion by the end.

And then I shall be so jealous. ;)

It occured to me last night after I set aside Expiration Date that there's one thing that had always nagged at me, reading Egyptian myths. I grew up on Greek mythology, where just about everything takes place in some mythological or fantastic place. Olympus, Hades, the island of this or that. Fantastical places that were transposed over real geography, perhaps, but strange all the same; perhaps elevated to this bizarre position by the fact that the gods were involved.

And Norse mythology is similar. Midgard, the well of the world...um, I think. Really, I didn't read a whole lot of Norse mythology. I just remember that there were some strange places in them.

But Egyptian myths don't take place in strange places. The Two Lands is the place they occur in. I think the Shipwrecked Sailor takes place on what may be a fantastical location, but in the Contendings Egypt is the locale. What does this mean? I think I know, but I wanted to jot it down here so I can someday pursue it further and see if my theory is accurate.

My hands are freezing, and I have to do some work on a website. Just wanted to capture these thoughts before they evaporate.   >> 5:19:51 PM  
 
 

11.23.2000

I keep forgetting how much natron resembles crack cocaine.

When I was going through the security x-ray at Lambert airport, they pulled my bag and asked to search it. The first thing they went for was my travel shrine box, at which point I leaned forward, touched the woman's hand very lightly, and said, "I'm sorry, that's a religious item."

You'd think I'd told her it was full of pit vipers.

Her eyes got huge, she shoved it back in my travel bag, and stammered an apology. Apparently they're not allowed to search religious items due to airport policy (or maybe it's local law?). It's at once nice -- natron does resemble drugs, even though all it is is baking soda and salt clumped together through the magic of chemistry -- and a little disquieting. I would have preferred she asked me to open the box and view the contents rather than taking my word on it actually being a religious object. As it was, her hands were shaking when she tried to close up my bag -- I took over from there, thanked her, and told her it was okay. I understood she was doing her job, and I appreciated her respecting my beliefs.

The turkey was good, the stuffing was good, the pie was good. I didn't cook one bit of it, which seems wrong -- I've helped cook or I have cooked on Pilgrim Welfare Day since my last year at college, at least. It just doesn't feel right to simply sit and gnaw on the celery while someone else takes care of the rest.

But it is nice. My Mima rocks :)   >> 3:05:08 PM  
 
 

11.22.2000

I'm about to head off to beautiful....um, Ohio.

Last night, in my dreams, it was Siberia, not Ohio, that I was flying to, and I was quite nervous because I knew I didn't have a passport. The stewardess assured me, though, that in Siberia you need no passports.

Anyway, I'm off :) Thanks to the Shemsut who wrote me with the hand sickle idea! I love hand-forged stuff. It's tempting.

Mmmm. Knives.   >> 12:56:34 PM  
 
 

11.21.2000

By the way, if anyone's wondering -- I really kind of want a hand sickle for my gardening endeavors. But I know how hard these are to find anymore, so I'll also settle for some good ol' fashioned pruning shears. My mums and wild rose bush would thank you.

(Though I would really dig a hand sickle.)   >> 11:32:31 PM  
 
 
Garden.com is closing down.

Last chance to buy a scythe online, everyone!

(Yes, it's tempting.)   >> 11:20:35 PM  
 
 
Nothing much to say. Just working away on this final day before Pilgrim Welfare Day vacation, and listening to PSME while the hours sift by. Sometimes the characters from PSME remind me of parts of my life. I was reflecting on that the other day. Maybe that's why it effected me so much.

And the songs, too. But that's stuff I don't thing needs to go past me and him.

flowers are blooming
that's one of the miracles I've made for you
 
memories
so much pleasure and sorrow with them
sometimes I wanna throw them away
but every time breaches
one voice
 
who calls me in the moonlight?
the voice that lingers in my heart
whoever calls me on and on
the voice that I used to hear before

I can't really come to think of myself as a programmer. If you ask me for my job description I usually will say programmer or game designer or web designer, but that's really for the benefit of people who don't work in the field. HTML isn't code the way C++ is code or Java is code or PERL is code, but at the same time it is because if you showed it to Regular Citizen Joe they'd probably smack you over the head with a broom and ask what you're doing in their bedroom wearing their pink fuzzy duck slippers.

Even when I was GM Rowan, Ace GSL Programmer (and let me tell you, those skills rust up real fast if you let them), I didn't consider myself a programmer. I'd think about the stuff Andy or Greg does, and I'd look at the things I'd written in GSL, and my head would say, "They're writing the real stuff. I didn't even know what a declared variable was before I got here."

Yet at the same time I don't know quite what web-title I fall under. Web designer? Yeah, I guess I've done some designs. I don't like most of them, but I've done them. I feel like there's obvious, trained things I'm missing out on, and I accredit that to my lack of a graphic design (or associated) degree. Web architect? I can put together a site with a file structure and templates, but I can't code a shopping cart and I only know enough PERL/jscript/vbscript to get me in trouble.

HTML coder. What can I say? I'm to programming what tea is to coffee.   >> 12:15:28 PM  
 
 

11.20.2000

"EverQuest guide suicide proven to be a hoax!"

Well, duh.

I guess I take for granted my ability to understand human motivation. As soon as I read the initial story -- that a remote employee for EverQuest killed herself because she was fired from her job -- I smelled a fraud. Suicide isn't something someone usually does because of one single event -- it's an amassing of events, and it's usually preceded by plenty of warning shots. There's always the strange anomaly that decides to call it quits on the Earth Arena for no particular reason, but human nature is human nature, and most of us need lots of reasons and justifications to get our brain to the stage where we'd put a bullet into it. One doesn't just kill oneself because one got fired. There's more to it than that.

But, well, most of the people who run these stories themselves have never actually worked on a MMPRPG, and don't see the situations I've seen. I guess.   >> 2:36:19 PM  
 
 

11.19.2000

Cat commentary on the Egyptian underworld and the Book of the Dead:

"Oh crimeny, another freaking doorway?"

"You mean the djed pillar isn't a scratching post?"

"I don't care if you call it the Field of Slow Swimming Salmon and Small, Helpless, Flightless Birds. If it doesn't have a proper litterbox, I ain't going."

"Greetings, feline, we shall now weigh your heart against the feather of M...um, please give us back the feather."

And now we know.   >> 1:53:21 PM  
 
 
Hey everyone! You know, coffee makes a great holiday gift, and no one roasts coffee better than my uncle. I'll take Phoenix Coffee over $tarbucks any day of the week.

Yes, I officially endorse Phoenix Coffee. I can't help it. They're not only family, they're great coffee roasters. And that's a bonus in my line of work.   >> 2:20:42 AM  
 
 

11.18.2000

Vent? A vent? What's that? Ooooh. That!

I bet this is more than any of you ever wanted to know about me and my shoes.   >> 7:41:22 PM  
 
 
Hmmm. Interesting....   >> 6:23:29 PM  
 
 
One of my favorite things to do is to figure out meals to make out of the strange things we've bought and forgotten in the freezer. In honor of Plague Household Week, I thawed the split chicken breasts we've had since September, dumped them in a pot of boiling water with chopped up onion, celery leaves, boullion, salt, pepper, and assorted herbs. We have frozen peas and beans which will be added in about an hour, when I strip the meat off the breasts and add carrots and celery stalk. To the final boiling concoction will be included "rivlets" -- a combination of flour, salt, pepper, and egg yolk that you crumble into boiling soup for instant noodles.

I love making soup. It's so forgiving. Too salty or too heavily spiced, just add more water. Not enough spice -- boil it down or throw in more boullion. It freezes well, heats up fast, and everyone likes it. It's great for sick days because it's got a lot of good stuff in it, and it's warm and soothing. Every Jones Girl knows how to make good poultry-based soups. It's one of those things Mima and Papo passed onto us. That and the beef mushroom onion soup thing. Ooooh. Yeah.   >> 6:16:29 PM  
 
 
Oh my. Oh yes. Little things are being done now, things are developing. I can't say what yet, but when it comes to light, you can bet I will be linking back to this post to point out that this was the night the idea was born.

This means you, Shemsu.   >> 3:28:51 AM  
 
 

11.17.2000

Scientists confirm: Yep, she's still sick.

The stuffy nose is clearing up, the coughing has stopped, the aches are still present but not so bad...it's not any of the usual symptoms this time holding me back, it's the fatigue. I woke up this morning to go into work, walked out into the living room, sat down on the couch (which I usually do) and fell back to sleep (which I haven't done before). Ugh.

So I did not go in today, which I also didn't want to do, because I have a lot of work to do, but I don't think I would have gotten any of it done, and would very likely have made myself sicker and more tired.

In the meantime, I've watched more TV in the last four days than I have in the last year, and I'm eating up the sleep in double digits. In the fertile soil of my fevered mind, ideas for the book are being nurtured. I think I've found a solution to the hokey death problem, but I've said that before, so who knows?

I don't know the exact date, but around this time ... was it two years ago? Roger Johnston passed away. Like I said, the date is lost. But the memory remains.

Wow. I wish he were here. That year I got laid off, when I had no money, I remember going to the Christmas party with him and Suz and Jeff and getting gifts from him and thinking, "Crimeny. How can I ever pay this back?" I didn't have enough money to buy myself lunch, much less give him something in return. I hope he knew how much his generosity meant to me. I hope you, Suz, know how much yours meant to me that year.

Is this election thing over yet? Someone wake me when it's over. If it's not the election coverage, it's all the dumb jokes I'm getting about it. Look, England didn't grant us freedom -- we took the country from them. Just like they (and we) took it from the tribes who it technically "belonged" to in the first place (I put the word in quotes because most Native Americans will tell you -- and I'm in agreement -- that the land doesn't belong to anyone, making it impossible to take or give away). And it's not like this is the first time that the election results have been in question. Nor is the country without a president. Clinton is still the president, and will be the terror of the White House interns for several weeks to come. Occurrences like this are exactly the reason why we don't just switch presidents the day after election day.

Okay, back to writing. The anal retentive historian in me will now be silent.   >> 11:24:51 PM  
 
 

11.16.2000

Side...effect of the cold...it's making it really, really hard for me to concentrate today.

Ugh.

I realize last night I was talking to people and toward the end saying things that didn't make a lot of sense. I apologize. If I go anywhere tonight after work, it'll be straight to bed.   >> 3:01:01 PM  
 
 
I found this site years ago, and I have never bought any jewelry from it, but I've always wanted to.   >> 11:39:03 AM  
 
 

11.15.2000

This just in: I'm still sick.

Favorite phrase of the day: It's not me, it's the Sudafed talking.

Though I still feel nowhere near to normal health levels, I'm working today, because I'm not that sick. I don't know if the medication is helping, though. I hate this feeling like my head is about to float off.

Netscape 6 has been released. So far I like it, but it still has problems. IE also has problems. I like the skins in Netscape -- unfortunately, the link to their skin creator appears to be down. Not that NS 6 told me that with an informative error (though IE did when I tried to download it with that browser instead). It should bottom out with an informative error, but it doesn't. Like I said, it has problems.

Dreamweaver/Fireworks 4 have been announced and should be ready RSN. Ankhka and I are crossing our fingers that they'll correct the bugs that have plagued our working with it. I for one would like to be able to update templates without worrying about it crashing every time I do.

Five by Five will be participating in A Day Without Weblogs. I hope those of you who also do weblogs will consider joining this noble effort to maintain AIDS awareness.

God thought I ought to mention that She/He loves you, and wants you to know that. Do you know that?   >> 4:55:47 PM  
 
 
Mmm...delicious desktops.   >> 12:13:14 AM  
 
 

11.14.2000

I'm sick.

No no. I'm sick.

At about 6:30 pm last night my body said, "Ha ha ha! Lamer = you!" and started defragging on me. I've had achey bones, stuffy/runny nose, and a touch of a cough since.

My friends in this struggle are ginger-lemon tea, Clariton, and filched ibuprofen from Ankhka's collection. Sometime tonight, when the guys get home, I'm going to make one of them take me to the store so I can get some real drugs.

I took the day off. I don't have any sick days left, so it's cutting into my vacation days. I don't have any vacation days, so I have to work some upcoming Saturdays. Three, to be exact. But that's the future. Got to enjoy the Now.

I'm going to go lie down on the couch now.

Report on the weekend later, when I'm not feeling quite so light-headed.   >> 3:09:21 PM  
 
 

11.13.2000

I'm a shade of blue today, even though I'm wearing brown.   >> 3:36:09 PM  
 
 
I join the cry of fifty-zillion other webloggers when I say that I, too, want a Powazek action figure.   >> 3:29:04 PM  
 
 
(Gamer alert! This post will have nothing to do with this weekend's retreat, which I will be mentioning in a longer post later.)

Heh. Happy memories come from reading Gryph's comments about Bear and Street Fighter II. I never played it myself, but when I wasn't playing Blue's Journey, I would stand around for hours with Ron watching him play Street Fighter. He kicked a staggering quantity of ass with Chun Li. And to this day, I enjoy watching fighting games more than playing them.

But the game he was really good at was Mortal Kombat -- with Kano. Most people don't pick Kano -- and it was disappointing to see him relegated to a thug in the movie of the same name (likewise for SubZero). Ron liked him, though. Maybe it had something to do with the ripping-the-heart-out-of-your-enemy fatality move of that character.

But I remember the day some kid walked in, picked SubZero, and proceeded to successively use the power move (I think it was a slide combo) of that character to beat and annoy everyone in the arcade.

Until Ron took the second player position, selected Kano, and proceeded to use famous Ron Reverse Psychology on the guy, using Kano's power moves on the runt until he got sick of being humiliated and walked out -- never to be seen again.   >> 1:46:10 PM  
 
 

11.11.2000

Just past Joliet, in the home stretch of the drive to Chicago, a little red light went off in Dave's squeaky truck that said Maintenance Required.

The truck, having just been to the mechanic's and had numerous hoses and belts (as well as a waterpump) replaced, was immediately pulled over, at which point Dave remembered that Mitsubishi (who, despite the truck being a "Dodge" Raider, actually built the thang) programmed the car's computer so that said light comes on at certain mileages. And his had just hit 80k.

We breathed a sigh of relief, walked into the convenience store we'd pulled over at, and immediately walked back out when we heard the country music playing very loudly inside.

It's 30 degrees. And strangely, I kind of like it.   >> 9:45:30 AM  
 
 

11.10.2000

Conversations between two techs in a truck at 1 am on the drive back from the office. Subject: a favorite movie and its TV spin-off, #52 in an on-going series.
 

I'm off to Chicago for an Interfaith thing. You all be good while I'm gone, and I'll give you a report about what it was like for meryBast to be amongst Buddhists (sugoi!).   >> 3:24:41 AM  
 
 

11.8.2000

Pets.com, Furniture.com, and Eve.com are all shutting down or have been shut down. Not that any of the above were a surprise to me, but the one I was disgruntled to hear about was Mothernature.com, which will also be shutting down services. They had a nice layout and a nifty delivery club. It's a shame.

At least Healthshop.com is still in business. Someplace that I can go buy the stuff that will cost me way too much at the Wild Oats here in Missourah.

Suz's post about the presidential election here in the States pretty much sums up my feelings on the whole thing. Whoo daddy. What a race. It's the most exciting thing about it -- the final countdown to see who won. The Smiler or the Beast?   >> 2:50:56 PM  
 
 

11.7.2000

Maybe we just need to lose the two party system altogether. Hard to predict what that would do to the country, though.

Ah well. Four years from now, we'll see what state the country's in.

(The preceding post was my opinion on the political dancing going on in America now. It's not meant to reflect my company, my religion, or my cat's stance on American politics. You have your own brain -- I can't and shouldn't and won't tell you who to vote for. You need to decide that for yourself.)   >> 3:38:47 PM  
 
 

11.6.2000

For all you St. Louisans, information about the AIDS Foundation of St. Louis.   >> 11:10:08 PM  
 
 
Sometimes, you have so much work to do that you can't figure out where to start.

My life is like that, both outside of the office and inside it, right now.

At the center is me. Outside it is a maelstrom of things that need me to pay attention to them. And many people who understand that I'm not fifty people and can't handle everything all at once, but a vocal few who don't understand that and want me to help them. Now.

Lists.

Lists are my friends right now. :)   >> 1:19:46 PM  
 
 

11.5.2000

I went back and re-read my three copies of Bone this weekend. If you've never read Bone, and you are the type of person who appreciates the notion that comic books do not necessarily need to be for children, then you owe it to yourself to pick these up. The first three feature some of the best story and artwork...ever. If I could draw and plot really well, this is how I'd draw and plot. Seriously. It's fantastic.

And it's even friendly to younger readers...so if you really want to, you can pick it up pretending you're buying it for your kids, then sneak a read when no one's looking. Go ahead. No one will laugh at you.

I did a reading of Bone in the car on the way to CompUSA the other day, complete with different voices for different characters. Jeff thought it was funny. Dave, as usual, was silent.

Quiet day. Nothing much going on. Continued trying to think of something for that story, but nothing is coming up just yet.

"Stupid, stupid rat creatures!"

Bah.

Maybe I'll have him go off collecting rainbow bubbles from the people of Rainbow World...oh wait. No. That's the story for Bust-A-Move 4.

More work on Phoenix Coffee is pending. Tomorrow. After my headache goes away. Ugh.   >> 12:00:45 AM  
 
 

11.4.2000

And, geez, art based on the World Tree that I've never seen.

Cool.   >> 2:16:20 AM  
 
 
Dude.

My name is enscribed on a NASA microchip somewhere.

That is so cool.   >> 2:12:45 AM  
 
 

11.3.2000

Hey kids! It's time for more reasons why Netscape 4.x sucks!

• While Netscape will repeat a <td> background for a .JPG image, it will not do the same for a .GIF image. In other words, if you want to use the background= attribute in a table and you're worried about NS 4.x compatibility, your images have to be .JPGs for it to function the same in both IE and NetScape.
• If you use the <link> tag to put a style sheet into your page and the style sheet file is empty, Netscape will refuse to load the page -- it won't give you an error, it'll just sit there and pretend it's loading the page when instead it's actually plotting on new and different ways to make your life as a webdesigner hell.

As I found out this morning.

Next weekend I'll be away from the house again, and two weekends after that I'll be in Ohio. This weekend I'm onduty.

It was a brief respite, that short time I had last week when I didn't have anything to do. Now it seems to have fled. But it's okay, because last weekend I found out that when I don't have anything to do or any place to go, I discover...I'm really, really bored.

We made it through a grand total of an hour's worth of excercise this weekend. Maybe I can work in thirty more minutes tomorrow or Sunday. But Bust-A-Move 4 arrived in the mail today, so no promises on that.   >> 1:30:50 PM  
 
 

11.2.2000

Penguins cheer me up.   >> 7:05:09 PM  
 
 
I know love never goes away, like they say in that song, but some days it sure feels like certain forms of love have flown away from me.

Not depressed or anything, but I've had that Tonic song in my MP3 playlist for the last few days, and it makes me nostalgic for the time when I used to have someone in my life whose name was Ron.

Today I asked the all-important question -- do you or don't you condition? Most of the guys said they wouldn't use conditioner, one tried to claim he was using conditioner by default since he uses Pert Plus (nasty stuff), and every other guy I asked gave me that horrified "Do I look like I like to touch other guy's hair?" look.

But y'know what? I like running my hands through my honey's hair. Men find soft hair a turn-on, but who says women don't, too? And maybe that's why I'm in this little tumble-cycle of remembering the old times when the rosy-eyed version of love was in my life, because I'm thinking about the smell and feel of his hair, and the contrast between the black and the silver, and the way it curled on my fingertips.

I condition, for the record. I stopped dyeing my hair because it was making it dry and brittle. And I avoid blow-drying it and using anything on it that shouldn't be there. Because there's something wonderful about that special someone you love putting their hands through your hair.

I don't know when I got bitter
Love is surely better when it's gone.

"Uuuuh. No," I say, already calling up my MP3 player and its comforting list of mostly background music from animé.

"Ah. It's not something I listen to all the time," he adds as he turns his stereo off. "It's cheesy, but I dig it."

Heh. That about sums up my relationship with j-pop. It's cheesy, but I dig it.

I've been feeling like I'm being less good-natured than usual to people around me. It's not intentional. It's probably a sign that my hormones are wobbling in the direction of the monthly flooding of the red gates.

I know, splendid imagery, that. You're welcome. Please, don't thank me. Thank my thesaurus.   >> 1:21:30 AM  
 
 

11.1.2000

There's something creepy about David Carradine. Maybe it's the way he stares forward and speaks with that Shatner-esque speech pattern. You know. The deliberate. Pausing. And all that.

Jeff and I (and today, Dave) have been trying to start off our mornings with thirty minutes of exercise. This morning we did the Tai Chi Workout video that Jeff has, hosted by David Carradine. A lot of it seemed to be about flexibility and stretching, which is dandy; it didn't do much for my heartrate, though.

I might add that the bellydance tapes I bought really were excellent, but I just didn't have the time before to do them. I'm looking forward now to the workouts in the morning, though. So maybe I'll do my own thing on the weekends. We'll see.

What is it about the new house that makes it so easy to get up earlier and go to bed on time? I don't know. Maybe I was thinking well when I moved the computer out of my bedroom. It's much easier to sit and write and webbrowse when you have the illusion of already being in the place where you sleep.

Whatever it is, it's nice.   >> 12:32:38 PM