A Window, A Light...

Ok, I'm in.

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:05:01 GMT

I made it in ok, and I'd really like nothing more then to just take another day off, say I'm sick or something, but it's better not to push my luck. I feel like what I really need is to get on schedule so that things'll develop an even keel. It's going to be my first day at the new location, and it's an easy drive. It's a Boeing plant, though, so I get to get on site and try to find the correct building for a while. My actual job is literally exactly the same, so I don't worry about that at all, though.

Basically, I just have to find out where I sit and set up my workstation.

Otherwise, I find that I'm pretty situated. It's nice to unpack after a long time on the road. People ask about the drive, and it was a drag, but it was surprisingly easy to get in to the right mindset. I wasn't quite zoned out and I wasn't quite rigidly alert, nor was I really ever all that bored. I made ok time, but I never really took too much time to sit and eat or anything. I did allow the luxury of 8 hours rest wherever I stopped, figuring that I'd be better off well-rested. Anyway, it's not a trip I'm apt to make again any time soon.

I did hate driving through Utah, which I've mentioned if you've talked to me. Salt Lake City was under construction and the landscape was primarily characterized by what I'd probably call a periwinkle blue. Leaving the city, the distance was characterized by the same color; powdery snow had been kicked up by high winds so as to make the ground and sky one undifferentiated haze.

Anyway, my schedule hasn't changed except that I'm pushed ahead two hours because of time zone differences which is just fine, really. I just wanted to write in and let everyone know I was alive, having not died anywhere in a gulch somewhere in Idaho or something.

Recap.

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:10:48 GMT

If I didn't expect that this journal would eventually descend in to my own labyrinthine insecurities, I wouldn't have one in the first place. I do, so it does, but not to worry; my balking and caveats are done tongue in cheek.

Tomorrow I have to send in my modem, and I maybe should have done it tonight, but I wanted to check some updates and chat online. Comcast is making me take the modem in and I don't have time to mail it, so I'm driving to fucking Redmond and back in order to lose the internet. I don't have a modem, everyone. I'm tempted just to keep it and let them bill me, but I want to do this right. Anyway, I'll do all of my updates, map-printing and last-minute checks before I leave work. I don't know if I'll eventually end up going through Colorado or Wyoming. Both are mountains and both are basically empty. I'll probably try to check the weather the day before, because it's unlikely I'll last past Ogdon before Salt Lake City.

Either way, I go east for a thousand miles at that point, give or take 60.

I was anxious a few days ago, and I appreciate the well wishes! I've got a goal in mind, otherwise I wouldn't be doing this like I am, but it's more stressful because I've never done anything like it. So, basically, I'm going to take it one step at a time, and I'm pretty sure it'll be manageable like that. Once I'm on the road, my MO is pretty damned straightforward.

So, yeah, I'll let you know when I'm back. If you've got my number, you might be able to call me if you're interested in where I'm at. I'll just put you on speaker phone for a while. It's going to be hard to waste my time in any kind of conventional sense. XD

On Days Off.

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:34:42 GMT

Thurday was Thanksgiving, and I think that's a gimmie; yep, we're all thankful for stuff - unless we're not, and then the holiday makes a cruel mockery of us. This year and the last, I may have been shaky at points, but I've got obvious stuff to be thankful for. Nobody needs to feel obligated to play that game where we go around the table and try to one-up the last person for the most corny, feel-good thing we're thankful for. We'll leave it at 'let's dig into these leftovers', because that's what it amounts to before we succumb to stuffing-induced drowsiness.

I got yesterday and today off of work, which I like. We don't get paid for Black Friday and neither do we automatically get to work it; we're obligated to request a normal shift, so I left it up to people who wanted it a lot more. I feel like holidays off of weekends should come in sets of two anyhow.

On Black Friday, I do not engage in that rush. I'm opposed to it, having had to work it and being against consumerism in the first place. I absolutely don't support it, and I feel negatively inclined when people do but, obviously, they do. I can't meaningfully hold it against the people that try to take advantage of these sales so I hold it against people meaninglessly instead. So, here's what I'm thankful for; I don't work in retail anymore. After today, I don't bring it up again, so if you went out, don't worry. I'm not carrying some kind of terrible anti-torch for you.

Actually, we had a potluck thing yesterday. I'm making my third meal of various leftovers, right now, actually. I'm not usually a stuffing *or* dumplings guy, but I'll make an exception for these, because they're pretty damned tasty. Tomorrow's my birthday thing. I bet that goes really well, too.

Made it to break.

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:33:31 GMT

Yuh. Made it through to the break. Thursday and Friday off, Friday's unpaid.

When I did finally make it home, I wasn't in much condition to do anything. Hung out for a little while and played some casual Magic before heading back to the apartment to dick around on my computer.

Created a separate space elsewhere to blag about FFXI, which is primarily used just to note what quests I'm working on and what I need to do in-game. So that's probably not going to clog this journal much at any point in the near future.

Tomorrow's Thanksgiving, so I'm heading over to Braintai's earlier on in the day/afternoon then, if I'm not feeling totally wiped, may be heading over to Chris' for an event. It sounds like fun, and normally I'd pass, but I said I'd try quite a while ago so I'll make an effort and probably have an ok time. That is, if I can avoid drinking too much and passing out. Yep. I am filing it under 'things to avoid' right now.

I chatted with Viski last night about games to play and she suggested Shin Megami Tensei : Nocturne. Persona 4 is also high on my list. I wasn't able to guess just from hearing it why she'd select SMT : Nocturne when she had trouble with the grind in Persona 3, but the way she stated it, she felt so familiar with the type of story P3 was trying to produce that it didn't resonate with her enough to deal with the repetitive mechanical aspect. She was never a fan of the dating sim system, either. Looking at the game, I can see how this would happen. I'm basically building a list now.

If you have games or books to suggest, knock yourself out. Of course, if I pick your suggestion, you have to read about it off and on for a while.

Games Wrap-ups.

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:40:16 GMT

I finished Kingdom Hearts for good. I haven't played Chain of Memories, and I'm unlikely to invest any further in the series because CoM is unlikely to have a good play value, even if I know I'm missing some of the story. I feel like there's not too much to be gained in this aspect.

Seeing the ending, I stand by everything I've said so far about the game with a single addition. There are a large number of Final Fantasy characters in the game, from various series, and unlike the Disney characters who have story bits set in their own worlds, in their own contexts, the Final Fantasy characters have all been pulled from their own contexts and inserted into a Kingdom Hearts narrative that was completed whole cloth. That is, Jasmine is from Agrabah, Ariel is from Atlantica, Beast has his castle and rose, but Cloud is not from Midgar, Squall is not from Balamb Garden, and Setzer (small cameo that he makes) isn't from, well, the worlds of Balance and Ruin. (I'm a nerd.)

This game is not, by itself, what I'd consider amazing. It is, however, chock full of things that fascinate me. In this case, it's how the Final Fantasy characters have become characters somewhat divorced from their actual settings. Umberto Eco stated in an essay that some well-known characters become entities outside of their original stories and I wouldn't say that all Final Fantasy characters are. However, characters like Sepheroth, Cloud, and to lesser extents Yuffie, Cid(s), Seifer, Squall and Yuna are coming close. Kind of like Mario. It's hard to say what Mario's continuity really is anymore, but he appears, by himself, as a cultural icon. That's why you can take all of these FF characters and just drop them into this game and say 'Bam! New context!' They all act the same as their original counterparts, but they're not the same actual characters, but nobody bats an eye.

On completion, I realized I had a nagging feeling about the game. I felt that, and this is a spoiler in only the most specific sense, he is basically a multiple murderer before the age of 20. Part of the premise of the game is that there are beings called Nobodies that are created when a 'heart' leaves a body. Sora is assured, as are we, that Nobodies have no emotions and are just 'shells' of people. Since some appear as bosses in the game, it's no surprise when Sora does away with them. Because there is some rationalization as to why this is ok (and it's stated several times at important junctures) and this is his own rationalization for defeating them in the manner that he does, I feel that there's something odd about this.

That is, it's not incorrect to end a life in self-defense, which is clearly happening, but killing someone and disregarding that as a difficult action morally because you believe they don't feel emotion is a terrifying thing to propose.

That went on really, really long.
I've been watching some Supernatural. I doubt I'll catch up on all of this before I go. On disk three, Home and Asylum were much better then preceding episodes, and the ground set for the not-so-subtle conflict between the brothers is basically the entire story that we're watching. Like I had begun to expect by episode 2, supernatural baddies are just a stage to set the action of a dysfunctional family. Asylum really reminded me of Fatal Frame for a little while, which made it worth the price of admission by itself.

So, I guess my main objective is to watch as much of this Supernatural stuff as I can before I leave and have to give it back. I guess I'm also tickled that I ended up combining Umberto Eco and Kingdom Hearts in the same thought-space. Most of my stuff is put away, so Eco's short essays and a copy of Catcher in the Rye are my current constant reading companions. We'll probably be hearing from them again. Enjoy your new Umberto Eco and your last Kingdom Hearts tag for a long while, LJ.

[Exalted!] Man, I really want to play some of this.

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:37:14 GMT

It's been a long time since I've run a game of this, and longer since I've played. I've really got a hankering to actually play in a game. I'm assured that once I'm in Fairview, people will endeavor to make this happen post-haste.

My friend Frank is running a session of Abyssals, aiming to complete an arc that was started before I left. Solars, Lunars, Dragon-blooded - these are all complete. Abyssals, Sidereals, then Solars again to wrap up. I'm hoping to play an Abyssal Dusk with Compassion 5. He's kind of a dark Bodhisattva warrior, who brings death in combat and to those willing to pass on. I might opt to go the priest caste though.

Speaking of Exalted, I really want to run a Ghost in the Shell type Alchemicals game, but that's hard to do right now. Going to have to pass on that one.

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:39:51 GMT

Work's been really dull, lately. Call volume is creeping down, ever so slowly, and my stress level is going down at about the same rate. I've been hurting my ratings lately, because I have to take a little bit of extra time after every call to not feel totally exhausted from what I feel is a deluge of password resets from people who failed to recognize the results of their last attempts and other miscellaneous stuff. There's a little burnout before the holidays, I guess.

So, I've been tired lately. I've been playing more video games, obviously. Fall and winter are seasons that make me turtle up a bit. It's another year sheltered from the shower of commercialism by two-hit combo of not working retail and not turning on my television. Instead, what I'm looking forward to is spending a little time with family and friends. I'm trying to think of a good holiday vegetable dish, and I'm thinking that maybe I could make a nice veggie pilaf for Thanksgiving or, at one point, I had a broccoli and cauliflower salad that had cranberries and sunflower seeds, with either a light and sweet mayo-based dressing or maybe a vinegar one.

Bah. Decisions.

Um. I don't know how other people feel about holiday gifts. I feel like the holiday season, as it gets into winter, is a good time to give friends small gifts since winter is always kind of a drag. It's nice to get something that kind of says 'hey, I've been paying attention and this reminds me of you', but I don't know how others feel about that. I like giving people gifts, but feel that it's sometimes awkward, and I don't know how others react to this kind of thing.

It's Wednesday, and I'm boring. Maybe I shouldn't have bothered this time but maybe you're the kind of person that finds talking about what to take to a Thanksgiving potluck to be interesting. I kind of do, so, I dunno. I mean, all of those tags were pre-existing.

Writer's Block: Book review

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:32:22 GMT

What (if any) books would you ban from a high school library? Are there certain subjects that you feel are inappropriate for teenagers regardless of literary merit?

View 1453 Answers

What. No.

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:47:17 GMT

There are two things I've been thinking of lately, and I'm not done with either of them. Both involve a pretty substantial investment of time, but I'm not sure how prepared I really am for discussing them. On the other hand, I want to, so I guess it's gonna happen anyhow.

I've been watching Supernatural lately because I've got the first season on loan. I guess I'm on episode 8? So far, the best episode really has been the pilot and the series hasn't really caught my interest. I thought I would be the target audience for this kind of thing, and so far, I don't feel that's really been the case. Basically, I haven't really found it really frightening. I don't know if I'm supposed to. The jury is still out. Episode 10 is Asylum, and I'm really looking forward to that one. I'll let you know how I feel about it, and when I get a few more episodes in, I'll give a more detailed opinion.

The other thing I want to come back to is Kingdom Hearts 2, if only because when I've brought it up in passing to others, I've found people to be deeply enthusiastic about it, to the point that I feel I've underestimated this games popularity.

When a friend asked my opinion, I was hesitant to give it. I felt compelled to give several qualifiers. I've enjoyed it so far, it feels well-produced and put together, there's nothing wrong with what it does. And what it does is basically to create a stand-in for a youth, Sora, whose story plays like a Mary Sue. He's naive and trusting, he's energetic, and he's fundamentally good natured. When I use the term 'Mary Sue', I mean it in what's basically the most precise way possible: as the protagonist of a video game, he's a stand in for the author (or player), he's loved and invited in to the inner circle of a group of people with a pre-existing narrative, he gets his abilities or power from an external plot device, he rapidly becomes more powerful then established canon characters, and (spoilers) in the first game he 'dies' to facilitate saving another character/s (/spoilers).

So, I know you can argue that both ways, and I'm not condemning the game by any means. I've read fan fiction, and cast no stigma on it. I've got some written up, somewhere around here, but I can't find it at the moment. Basically, it just has that type of narrative. And it's supposed to. It's a cross-genre mash up with an external character inserted into a non-canon narrative. (And becomes its own canon, at this point. But KH Cloud isn't FFVII Cloud, and can't be.) In fact, for a major game project to cleave so close to the tropes found in fan fiction is pretty impressive, which is why this is a game that continues to fascinate me. But I haven't gotten to the ending yet. And I guess next time I want to come back and talk about my writing project and Baroque, but I've got a lot of ground to cover.

I wrote, like, two pages yesterday. That sounds super lame, but it's the most non-journal stuff I've been able to write in quite a while. Maybe it makes more sense now when I say this project is like rehabilitation to me.

Ok, this was posted on Facebook.

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:23:53 GMT

This is the penultimate post on my Illinois move, which is done primarily to keep people in the loop. Those that are deeply interested, that is. I, uh, I'm not sure who that is, honestly.

Here's the preliminary logistics of the situation. I reported back to my manager that I expected to make a transition to the Hazelwood, MO office as of December 14th and because it's a drive across half the nation on the second week of December, I'm leaving on Thursday the 10th on an route that takes me through Salt Lake City. I don't think that Salt Lake is really a great town in the winter for travel, but it seems to me that there might be more towns on the route then the trip through Wyoming that I'd take if it were summer. Wyoming being the least populated state in the contiguous states. Google tells me that it'll take 1 day and 10 hours, which is an hour more then the 1 day 9 hours through scenic Wyoming. 18 hours in, I will probably learn to loath the decisions that I have made.

Because the office is in Hazelwood and I expect to live in Illinois, that means that instead of living with my father, I'll be staying with my good friend Frank. Frank is a capital fellow, and I don't say that because he's apt to be reading, because I think he has an allergy to online journals like every human being of sound body and mind. So, that's one reason. The others are that he lives 30 minutes closer to my job then my father does and, well, at what will be 26, I am not excited about the prospect of living with my dad again, even if he is a great guy and even if he is really easy to live with. So that's when you can expect me.

Personal feelings about this situation.
I'm torn about this move. If I was 100% sure that I could make it financially out here while I'm trying to go to school, I would probably stay. I could probably do it. This hasn't been an easy decision to make. And if I didn't have the people to come back to, I wouldn't have made it. That's what pushed the decision over. I have new and old friendships in the Puget Sound area that I greatly value, and I'm not happy to put this kind of distance between them, but I have substantially more in the St. Louis area, and it's not really possible for me to overlook that. In the end, I'm trying to make the best decision that I can. There's no 'what if' or 'could have been's to life that matter at all.

My feelings about the Seattle area are complicated. There are things that I love, many things, and there are things that I hold in disdain. It's a wealthy place full of beautiful scenery and cool shit, and I basically ended up living in Boringsburg, on the corner of Nobody Gives a Shit Dr., which is funny when you think of it, and I do pretty often. Since I'm here like I am, how I feel is that Seattle is a different place. It's within driving distance, but that's not really where I live. Bellevue might as well be Belleville considering what I do primarily with my spare time which is staying in, since my budget gets used up pretty frequently with the spare lifestyle that I currently have.

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:26:32 GMT

Bah! I've neglected to write and I'm behind.
Plus, I realize I neglected Halloween and I kind of wanted a costume, so now I have to think of a good one to make for... well, no particular reason anymore. =/

It's Not Always Personal.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:50:39 GMT

I was chatting with Brent not too long ago, and he mentioned my last reference to the concept of the death of the author. I didn't write much, so it was brief, but his mention that it was at least partially spurred by this thread over at RPG.net, in Tangency.* It looks like it was started in good faith and, frankly, I'm just glad whenever someone brings up entitlement and geek culture. If I did it every time I thought about it, I'd probably get banned for trolling. It's just too ubiquitous, though I'm not convinced it's worse then any other x-culture that isn't formed with acknowledgement of priviliage as one of its assumed or core tenants.

The thread is over 60 pages long on the default setting. There are 615 posts as of right now. Obviously, it's still rolling. Actually, I've stopped reading it.

Here's an issue for me, and it comes with a caveat in that I haven't spent a lot of time carefully framing my arguement or rant or whatever. And this isn't specifically about that thread. And I'm a white male in my mid-20's that thinks about this a lot and I've got privilage to spare, and I'm aware of the issues at hand regarding a white male discussing issues of a subaltern group and what that means to the discussion, and framing it in a way where the discussion is actually about me, and not the needs of others. Oh, so, that's actually what this is about.

I may have said this before, but maybe not. It's been a while. Here's what I've learned; this discussion is not about me. It's not about my needs, it's not about how I feel, it's not about the impact society has on me. It's not about my hurt feelings when I discover that I am in a privilaged group and that my existance does, by my passive actions, cause a certain amount of stress on a subaltern group. They don't know me; I am part of the weight that's on their chest. Metaphorically, probably. I don't sit on people very often. There's really very little call for that.

No jokes, people. Moving on.
So, I dunno. I've learned a lot from reading stuff like iblamethepatriarchy and doing a little research. What I'm frustrated at are the people that hear that women are threatened, and they're threatened by men, and they have a good reason... and the first thing out of men's mouths is often to kind of jump down the throat on people that feel threatened. And when I was reading iblame and I thought 'Shit, that is hyperbolic.' or 'Man, that sounds pretty crass, I'm not like that!' I don't say a damned thing. Because I am there as a guest. This is not my space. It is the space of women to talk to each other, and they were kind enough to let me listen, and that's what I'm going to do. And that's taught me a ton. It's one of those times where engaging in discussion of the other does nothing productive, because there's no dialogue that I can open that isn't coming from me, where I'm in a place of power and they're not, societally speaking.

So, RPG.net isn't iblamethepatriarchy. It's supposed to be a safe place, and I mean, ok. For a public forum about playing as an elf, it's damned good. But what gets me, here, are a bunch of people who are acting tough, feel like they can ask the tough questions, trying to play the 'rational guy' or whatever, but they're feelings are hurt because they recognize something of themselves in the condemnation of geek culture (because we're geeks, of course) and aren't putting two and two together. This isn't about us being the bad people, specifically. It's about us checking ourselves. Few people like to hear that the actions they thought were innocuous and that everyone else is telling them are ok are actually disenfranchising to some people. And it's fucking inconvenient! We'll have to ask questions and listen to the answers and change accordingly, and that is a massive pain in the ass! We all like to think that history will vindicate us and we'll live happily ever after, and that the treatment of our actions will by history will be something like 'and contrary to every backwards era that we've ever seen previous to now, these people were totally enlightend and didn't hold any backwards ideas regarding race, sex, or gender."

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit that this is unlikely. Actually, it's unlikely that history books ever get significantly past WWII. Nevermind.

It's a pain, guys, but hey. Most of us are near to the top of the world's social food chain. The least we can do is listen and not silence.

* Entitled "XKCD and rape culture", requires an account (albeit a free one) to view.

Bleh.

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:51:23 GMT

I had intended, for the last few days, to opine about societies stress on the idea of a positive attitude and have twice pulled a short essay when I decided it wasn't very well done. This is a bit of an issue for me, because I think the idea that we should be happy and positive all the time is a toxic one. Being cross about our situation is a bit like pain's role for our bodies; it's a state that tells us that something may be wrong with that situation. Being able to be cross in the workplace, I believe, is critical. Not being able to do so inhibits worker's rights in a subtle but pervasive way. I'd like to get into that a little more when my concept is worked out more cohesively.

Today, I'd like to come back to a subject where my understanding is not complete but, I believe, I am capable of discussing it a little anyhow. That is, I have read some about the concept known as 'the death of the author', and I see a disturbing amount of uncritical opinions engaged against it.

I guess the problem is, when I try to write something about the death of the author, I feel like I'm stating the obvious. It's a problem any student of literature runs into at some point and has to come to terms with. In addition, we all know that people are unreliable, so just asking the author (providing that they indulge us with a response) isn't really always helpful. How do you, by way of example, get a reliable answer from a question like 'does this have racist elements' or 'isn't this actually hateful towards women'? So we have Death of the Author. You obviously can't just assign any old reading to a text, but people keep saying that you can, and that's disingenuous. The only people saying that are people who are opposed to the concept in general. I have never seen a serious post-modern reading critic argue that you can assign any damn reading at all to a text. So, I guess I'm looking into that as well.

So, Halloween.

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 06:50:28 GMT

I actually spent some time looking the holiday's name up because, at some point tonight, I lost the ability to spell it at all. It's the thing where you think of the word too much and it loses all meaning. I'm pretty sure there's a Dinosaur Comic on it. In a twist of fate, I've thought about that word so much, I can no longer determine what it is. Funny thing, that.

So, I'm beat. I know others have got something goin' on tonight, and that's great. Tonight's a great holiday! I spent my day in old-timey German-land and spent an ass-load on a few things I'm particularly pleased with, since it's not for me. That's always the way. I'm very particular about the gifts I give, and if I don't think they're meaningful, I just won't get one. But I'm always on the lookout, and I'm happy with these. But. But. German-land-wine-town is two hours away in the middle of nowhere and mountains, and I we got up a little early to drive out and eat and drink all day. Consequently, I am totally fucking wiped out.

Christ, I'm exhausted. I was tired at 8 PM tonight, everyone. I had other stuff I wanted to talk about and do, and I am not going to. That is the defining decision of the rest of my evening. I'm also going to sleep in tomorrow morning. Who would have guessed?

So, aside from long term personal updates and specific rants, I'm probably moving most of my regular updates to LiveJournal again. Lengthy essay-type or specific personal updates go on my other journal that I basically retain for my personal satisfaction. Amoung my other updates tonight, I'll say that my manager hasn't given me the info I asked for on transferring, my dad wants me to move back in with him when I finally come in, and my overall situation remains good. I remain a fairly poor conversationalist who gets drunk pretty easy. I tried to be funny and pretend to try to steal a pear and it went badly. I got one or two good photos out of my trip. I didn't need that eye anyways. My apartment is a terrible mess that needs to be fixed tomorrow. And....I'm going to bed. Good night.

Bed at midnight? I must be getting old.

neeeeerd

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:15:51 GMT

I had a dream that writer_lynn was running a small WoD game at a larger convention, and I brought my Mage character. (the Atol of the blog's name, incidentally) It was set in Prague, where he was by virtue of plot device. I came up with a plot where he had intended to fly to Edinburgh initially, but got on the wrong flight.

While there, I got into an arguement with someone who had issues with _lynn's professionalism at the venue, and she rolled dice to have her character attack me in game. I actually dreamnt she said "I hope you've got a high Medicine score!" and wasn't quite sure how to react when I broke the sacrosanct agreement by just refusing to take any damage and walked out.

So, I'm a giant nerd. I dreamnt all this in the 15 minutes between 7 and 7:15.

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:57:44 GMT

I've been waffling a bit and angsting some, but things are coming along.

It's autumn, and I'm often very tired. It's a tired that goes well with coffee, so I've grown, organically as it were, my own theory for Seattle's coffee consumption that never mentions Starbucks. In Illinois, you would know the autumn when summer's humidity fled the air to grow dew on grass which, incidentally, I never really liked because when I was in school, I'd have to drag my falling-apart sneakers through the grass and I always had wet socks for first hour. The sky grows wan in preparation for winter, then one day the air turns cold and that's the end of the season.

Washington isn't like that at all, really. The clouds roll in, low, gray, and textured and hang. Their weight is emphasized in showers, like punctuation. It does not rain all the time, but it frequently is wet. So, yes, autumn is the beginning of the wet season.

The trees are the same, though.

I like the fall. The smell is decay, you know, but it's fragrant and sweet and mixed with water. They're leaves. They're nobody you know personally. We must admit that this season is dying and that there's another, one that is about looking out windows and knowing spring arrives, but knowing that sweet air only through memories.

Me Smash Puny Literature!

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:30:15 GMT

I don't know if I've commented on this in the past, but my, um, my... hmm. I forget what it's called. Oh! My attention span is basically shot to hell after so many years of working on phones. I'm basically been conditioned to expect my stimuli to be brought to my attention in a pretty invasive way or else, for the most part, I do things that only require very shallow attention because I expect to be constantly goaded by something. That's a complaint for another time, but it's strongly influenced my writing, which looks like many pages of broken up paragraphs, all tangentially related, but very few of them strung together into a cohesive narrative. I can't seem to relate two thoughts to each other, but I keep writing them down. The story actually is progressing in a direction, but if you took what I've written and plotted it out, it would actually appear to be about three or four narratives at the same time. Some are news articles or commentary on philosophies related to the characters and plot, while others are simply snapshots of what characters are doing.

I'm hoping to patch it together into something cohesive when I'm done. I've written before now, and the natural flow of my writing in the past is totally different from how my mind attempts to patch narratives together now. It's a little frustrating. It's like I'm attempting to glean a deeper understanding by collecting everything found on the surface and trying to use those things to infer as to what lies deeper. Like flotsam of a sunken ship; we can no longer see what sunk it, but we can investigate the wreckage.

[Magic] Raaaaaage Quit!

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:50:23 GMT

The title's taken from something that I'm afraid has become something of an inside joke with a few people that I discuss Magic with up here. Why I'm using it'll become clear presently.

Magic is a game I dig a lot. You may have seen some posts related to it. Magic and I have a difficult relationship because it's fundamentally a consumerist endeavor and I'm not a consumerist type of person. I've got a collector button. For the most part, I can ward it off, but Magic hits a terrible note where the collection seems like it does something. Functionality - even a false functionality - is a terrible lure.

Anyway, I got back in to the game because I enjoy it and because I made a few friends that played. That's a good reason, in my book. My trouble really starts when I begin to tally costs, though. It didn't look so costly when I began! That's what every newbie says. I'll just play casually! I know that it's cheaper just to outright buy the objects of ones cardboard affection, and I know the cost. Or I thought I did. Basically, I figured that the local store level tournament is like the local club level music scene. If you're causal but decent, you'll do ok, but I'm showing up to the 5 dollar game on Friday and people are playing decks that have a cost that rivals my month's rent. Standard's big dog right now is the 'Baneslayer Angel'. It's the new Very Rare category, and basically spells the end of the game if you can't deal with it right away. If you're playing White, then you need to play 4 Baneslayers. There's very little way around it. You can play something else, but there's no debate that you're playing an objectively inferior card.

It's the same with a slew of cards, actually. There's no way you can play any combination of colors and not play these cards. And they're expensive. My own options are limited. I can go big or go casual, and drop out of tournaments. I really, seriously thought about it, and I've made my choice. I'm going casual. I am not about to bust my wallet and stress about this. That is my sad, grownup decision. Of course, I chuckle when I say that.

Actually, when I 'go casual', it's not so bad. I've got a substantial bank of very potent cards. So basically, I'm taking the kid gloves off. Sad grownup indeed. I took apart my brand new tournament deck and sleeved up 14 year old cards this evening.

Flytrap House.

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:53:19 GMT

http://dionaea-house.com/

Right there. I love that link, and I have for years. It's one of my favorite pieces of fiction, not because it's exquisite; it's pretty little rough around the edges. I love it because it's so engaging. And at the time, you could only assume it wasn't real. As it gets more outlandish, I like it less, but I think it's great inspiration for gaming horror. Horror in gaming is something I'm very taken with. I am on and off on thinking about it and running it, but it creates problems as a genre that action and whimsy do not (those create very different ones). Dionaea House is very early-release NWoD. Something like that is what I think about when I think about the weird, obscure World of Darkness.

So, what the hell am I up to? Your guess is about as good as mine. On a day to day basis, very little. Work makes me tired of dealing with people and very happy to just kind of bottle myself in the house reading or cooking or something. I haven't taken a lot of initiative to get out. During school, my 'work' periods were very academic and I wanted to get out more. When I work customer service, I want to stay in. That explains, to me, why when I have a standard-ish job, I'm much more of a homebody. I'll admit that makes the prospect of gaming daunting sometimes. When a game falls through, I rarely persue an alternative that isn't 'stick around and have a cup of coffee'. It's been a little worse then usual, because work is leaning on the helpdesk a little harder then it used to. We're being squeezed to produce value, but management fails to understand that's not how people actually work. It looks terrific in the short term, but it breeds resentment in the analyst population. I see this happen all the time, but I'm honestly a little disapointed, though I understand exactly how and why it's happening. It's stuff like this that makes me want to avoid business, management, and marketing forever and ever.

I've been playing a lot more FFXI lately. Between Andy and my social group, I've been able to break level caps (I can get up to level 70 of 75!) get my artifact equipment (next up, pants and awesome hat), and generally feel more involved. I really only do a little gaming every day. Large portions of my evening are cleaning, cooking, and often writing and reading. Sometimes I'll spend all day playing video games, but the rarity of that situation is such that me renewed interesting in FFXI means that I've put a hold on Kingdom Hearts II. KH 2 is a much better game then 1, but its story sounds like crossover self-insert fanfiction reads. I realized recently that it's probably like that on purpose.

I want to do some other stuff before bed, and I'm out of interesting things. Good night, everyone.

Gah!

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:44:49 GMT

I am pretty frustrated at this point. Basically, I'm checking out the applications process for grad school, and my test location is SIUE. I'm an alumni. I thought it'd be easier, and maybe it is, but if that's true, it's amazingly frustrating. More so because I'm not there anymore. Most of the instructions read like "Apply in person." or "Pick up the document at the Burser's Office." and I'm like, "Fuck you, I can't just stroll down there." Chiefly, it looks like the guidelines assume I'm an undergrad. I've found precious little recommendation for someone who wants to go back after a few years. God forbid I'm one of the people that have been out of school for a decade trying to come back. Even writer_lynn, who I recognize as possessing a good head on her shoulders asked me if I had remained in contact with my professors, to which I asked "Was I supposed to?"

It's a pain. And I can't just go back to my old school because I'm not a resident of the state. It'd cost ten thousand dollars a year to attend as an out of state student. Really? 10k? That's what I have left on my undergrad studies. Jeeze. It's significantly less if I live in Illinois for 6 months, but that's not really exciting. I wanted to just kind of jump back in, but maybe it's not a bad idea to work in the area at the help desk office down there. I'd probably save a decent amount of money.

Well, it could be worth it. Ah, well. I'm going to work this out.

Not A Lot of Luck...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 06:12:43 GMT

..today. Not that it was awful or anything, since it wasn't. Just... unimpressive. Maybe seeds from today will improve tomorrow. I guess there are worse things to hope for.

The deck prototype I worked on failed pretty awfully. It's still a seed of a clever idea, but it's not really anything close to good in its current incarnation. I slapped together something else, and I don't really like it. It's a quick win in theory, but I feel it has a glass jaw.

I've gotten home and it's pretty late, so I don't feel like I've got any time for any meaningful writing. Anything I put down would just be a token to appease my desire to write daily, but I'll probably do it to keep writing something consistently.

And tomorrow's Thursday, which is my easiest day. Plus, I've got some discounted cards coming in the mail, and I think I'm supposed to get my yearbook in (which leads to my driver's license, and I'm not sure if that's a story I've told yet here but that really is a whole different issue).

Have I said anything about Disney buying Marvel. I know it's old news, but I like to rehash that shit a bit because, hey, with new stuff happening every day, it's easy to forget something like that. Or maybe just easy for me. Anyway. There are people that are bent out of shape and people that are enthusiastic (and we geeks are usually pretty negative as a matter of course but...), then there are people like me who instantly realized that Wolverine can now fight along side Sora or whatever in Kingdom Hearts 3: Infinite Cash Franchise. I make a joke like that because KH does pretty much plant a money tree as it's basically just weird Disney/Square-Enix fan-fiction, but people eat it up. But hey, there's nothing wrong with fan-fiction in principle, and the games arn't too bad, so go crazy, Square.

If you like KH, don't tell me you're not dying to see Nightcrawler and Cyclops fighting with Squall, Cloud, and fucking Donald Duck. But seriously, our media has really become myth, and that is the only way this shit could ever happen. And that is something I am dying to research now that I've written down. It is never going to get out of my head.

Not Too Bad.

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:18:32 GMT

A late evening sandwich before bed. Can you put feta on a sandwich? Yes. Yes you can. I was also not a fan of mustard before I bought dijon and hot mustard. I can't believe I was missing out on that.

Writing for me is quiet time. I love putting ink on paper. I love the neat rows of hand printer text on college-ruled notebook paper. It's encouraging for me to look at a physical item, that I can't just delete with a keystroke, and see pages I've written and think 'you've done this'. It makes me feel like I've done something tangible. I feel like I'm committing myself to a project. And when I'm done with that, I'll type it out.

This is not an efficient process, but I don't particularly care, I guess.

Anyway, I'm going to bed soon. I've only written three pages so far, but every day I've been able to put something down and when I'm done, I don't feel bad about it. The opposite in fact. It's becoming marginally easier to sit down and produce something regardless of if I had something in mind when I started. Interesting side note. There are only three pages and half of those are already foot notes. I don't know what that means for a piece of fiction, but I'm already sorry, everyone.

Holy crap, I already have a sandwich tab. I am going to look up that other entry before I go to bed. I wonder what sandwich I was talking about.

Edit: I remember that one. That was good eats.

I really want to do this.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:44:27 GMT

I tried to make an angsty post, then posted it to Facebook, then took it down. It's totally in relation to my writing. My first impulse is always to strike it from the record.

So, I'm starting trying to get my materials together for applications to schools for an MA. I know the drill. "Bad Weston, no biscuit." for waiting this long - absolutely. I have until December 11, though, so it's not beyond expectation. Apropos of nothing, at that point, I will be 26. I will have lived on my own for a year or so, and I will have had spent over two years making ends meet off and on. If that's not enough to be sure I want to go back for more education, then I can't think of anything that would do it for me.

I was afraid of doing this. Big things scare me. Little things, too, but I guess magnitude cows me into inaction. It is, after all, another change in the way I live. After changing my way of life drastically every few months, it becomes exhausting. After a certain point, I realize why people eventually settle down. How many skins can you shed? That's what it feels like. You move across country or get an apartment or sleep on your friends floor overstay your welcome, and each time you settle in again. When you move, your everything is tender and fresh, your nerves are exposed.

The big question is where I'm going. I've come to terms with the fact that some people want me around. The evidence exists for that interpretation, even if it occasionally confuses me or I doubt it. I could move back to Illinois or St. Louis. I could try to get into a school here. I could move to friggin' Texas, and it's not like there's not a precedent. I could actually move anywhere. Isn't that right? Why not move to Maine or Pittsburgh or Cincinnati or Urbana or, I really don't know, Tampa? It doesn't matter. Actually, it does. It just matters almost totally less then walking into a library to track down literature on my topic. I haven't made a secret of it. I don't know. But someone is going to accept me, and I'm going to go there, and wherever that is, it means I'll be moving again - even if it's just across the city. Even thinking of reapplying is nervewracking. Feel free to offer advice.

Basically, it's something I really want to do. It is, I feel, really the only way to advance a career in my field, as well as my field of interest. But I've got a decent job right now, and my own place, so unlike before, trying to follow this up means I actually do have something to lose.

I'm Not Really Sure, Here.

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:24:56 GMT

It's another week; time really can slip through ones fingers. Actually, the overall quality of my time has improved over the last few weeks, which I like. My job is about as unexciting as ever, but compared to my last few gigs, that's an upside. With the fall here, it's something I can really appreciate. I am, as it stands, still moving forward with my next several plans. More information when it becomes available, should this be of interest to you.

I've gotten some additional game playing in. I spend a lot of my time with video games these last few weeks - either Kingdom Hearts 2 (which I haven't finished, since I've taken a break) or Final Fantasy 11. I'm really back into it. Andy's been helping me out with a few quests, and I get to have a good time chatting with him as we do whatever bullshit busywork I need to do to actually advance to some kind of endgame status. Final Fantasy is an incredibly time-intensive game. Things people take for granted on forums are actually pretty difficult to schedule and execute. Traveling to the near east and making myself available to party there was a significant amount of effort. I only really have the stamina to do a few hours at a time, even on long days, so progress is slow, but I have fun.

Playing FFXI makes me really want to play in some other real RP sessions though. I may get a chance tomorrow, and I may not depending on if people are healthy and it's still on. I'd accidentally accepted a proposition to play in a tournament tomorrow without recalling that there's a Friday session. I'd really like to go, but we don't have anything really in place and Brent's ill, so I really have no idea. Magic is, therefore, a backup plan. It's good to have backups. Terrible as it is, though, I kind of want to run my old D&D setting. There's really just no chance at all of this going down. I've got the bug, though.

I can't get over generally being kind of restless. It's not the same as it was before, when I felt like I was trapped and slowly suffocating as if the air I was breathing allowed my lungs to work but, somehow, possessed no oxygen. It's not like that. It's definitely something else.

I needed an Anime tag.

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 06:45:52 GMT

I just realized I have my entire collection of Texhnolyze with me, which is really kind of a fluke. I think I watched the whole thing, but only technically, because there's a good chance I slept through most of it at the time since I watched it at a point where I was putting movies and shows on to go to sleep with. I must of packed it instead of the Ghost in the Shell: 2nd Gig, which I don't seem to have on hand. I'm excited about finally watching the whole thing.

I wonder if I can get someone to mail me my set of 2nd Gig, though.

Had dinner with Noe, Brent, and Val for Noe and Val's birthdays.
The Melting Pot is a nice place to eat, and I had a good time. The food was pretty tasty, but I'd heard it was overpriced, and I have to say that I agree. I said I had a good time, so no regrets, but I'm not likely to go back. At least I know what everyone's talking about, though.

I skipped the tourny today, but I'll probably play a bunch of cards tomorrow. I don't know how that'll work. I head it was a barbeque card playing thing, so I'm not sure if I'm going to be outside or something. I pissed someone off with one of my decks last time when I played a counterspell, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. I think I'll think about it for a while tonight.