Spiritus Calvinball

What Is This Blog?

2012-02-04T13:49:00.002-05:00

Some years ago, I thought I'd try to bring some of my rather diverse friends together to coauthor a blog with me. It was novel while it lasted. Then interest petered out. Here it remains on Google's servers as a record of that experiment and an echo of those times.

-synkarius

My powers

2009-05-13T22:18:00.002-04:00

I never told anyone but I can see the future.
Today I predict that Dave will get his ass handed to him in smash bros. I furthermore predict that this will cause Dave to stop playing smash bros. and he will quit playing modern video games all together, forcing him to play only MDuel and Snood until he dies.

Korea and IE6 / Partying classy-like

2009-03-28T05:47:00.005-04:00

korea is notorious for its relationship with internet explorer, specifically, IEv6. it's horrible, it display's code in a way not supported by the w3 consortium. also, it requires the user to click on a flash movie before it starts working, meaning that i have to use a javascript workaround every time.

and i found out why.

korea has a really strong pc cafe culture, which means the owners have to buy a lot of computers, so obviously the person will look for the cheapest method. many computer builders will build a computer and use a cracked version of windows, so that you dont have to pay the extra 150 or something. thing is, windows (xp anyway) wont automatically update to IE7 if you have a cracked version. and because of that, my sites sometimes look different on otherp eoples computers here and its really annoying(!)

------------------------------

yesterday a client of mine at a newspaper invited me to a movie premiere, and a fashion show plus the after party. so me and 2 friends went and had a great time. the movie premiere had free food and drink, the fashion show had free unlimited champagne, and the afterparty had free unlimited cocktails. so like, im pretty sure when we see celebritys and wonder how they support theyr crazy lifestyle, im pretty sure its because they just get to do alot of stuff for free(!)

Trojan Women Showtimes Schedule

2009-03-26T07:55:00.003-04:00

TROJAN WOMEN

2/26 @ 8pm

2/27 @ 8pm

2/28 @ 8pm

2/29 @ 2pm

Limited World Syndrome

2009-03-19T20:15:00.002-04:00

Note: I didn't publish this on 3/19/09 as the date says I did. I wrote it then and saved it as a draft. I found and published it on 2/5/12.

-synkarius

Sometimes a movie or a book or a game does this thing that makes what should seem epic terribly small-scale instead. It happens when there's not enough of something that there should be an abundance of, usually people or places.

The best example I can think of offhand is the second Narnia movie, Prince Caspian. When I read the books, I thought of Narnia as being a fairly large place. When I watched that movie, it seemed to reduce the entire world of Narnia to about 100 square miles with maybe 5000 inhabitants total. Why was the entire magical beast population living in those woods? Why did the evil king guy not have legions to call to his aid like Longshanks did in Braveheart? It really made the plot feel small and unimportant.

Caspian wasn't by far the only story that suffers from this though. Princess Mononoke, as much as I love it, has a terrible case of LWS.

Trojan World News

2009-03-11T11:01:00.002-04:00

Trojan World News

The Dark Night of the Dork

2009-03-10T01:41:00.005-04:00

John of the Cross experienced a period in his life where he took no joy during his spiritual practices, a phenomenon he referred to as the Dark Night of the Soul. As you can imagine, as a monk, this amounted to a personal crisis - I have been experiencing a similar period in my own life, but not in my relationship with God, but in my relationship with one of the most important things that defines me as a dork - namely, video games.

Why do video games suck balls these days?

Seriously, does everything have to be flashy, 3d, and commercialized to the point of hilarity?

Mr. T doing WOW commercials?

You can't blow up children in the new Fallout title?

RPGs, even from the Great Square (Square-Enix, w/e) have been bullshit for close to a decade now.

I have a pretty damn powerful PC, and I've been a gamer since the early 80's, so why am I playing Final Fantasy VI for the fiftieth time, this time at 1600/1200 res?

Where have all the bright minds that made video games so popular gone? Did you guys all collectively forget how to make something, pay attention now, DIFFERENT!?

This brings me to another point. What does it even mean to be a dork any more?

To me being a dork is all about dealing with social anxieties in a medium that boasts a level playing field, be it books, music, movies, art, video games, whatever? so why is it impossible for me to enjoy playing Call of Duty 4 online? Isn't the internet a dork's wet dream?

Children have obviously seen Mr T's famous TV spot. They litter the net nade whoring and picking up mindless achievements, the new term for points - But who the fuck ever played video games for points!?

Losers! That's who! Losers who have lost the ability to creatively exploit games the way we did back when games were designed, marketed, and released without the need of fifty patches or five expansion packs all costing the same price as the original game!

What the fuck is going on!? What the fuck is an expansion pack good for anyway!? Release your fucking games when they are complete! Stop raping us!

Well, money is power, and absolute power, well you know.

To the software development companies, you can take Liam Neeson's voice talent and shove it deep and wide up your lubricated ass crack and give me exploding children! Mr T, well he can return to technically advising the remake of the A-Team and get the fuck off of the tube, Square-Enix, fuck Enix, and to the American teenager especially: Fuck you, achievements are for homos, I'll still kick your chubby little ass in Street Fighter IV, even though I've never played it.

-Unfortunately John of the Cross only had one solution to the Dark Night of the Soul, grinding through it, and so I shall, so we shall, but goddamnit if I'm not going to make some noise in the meantime.

I feel just a little better now.

Atlas Shrugged

2009-02-12T12:57:00.009-05:00

This book has been a religious experience. I recommend it to anyone and everyone.

"Throughout his life, whenever he became convinced that a course of action was right, the desire to follow it had come automatically. What was happening to him-- he wondered. The impossible conflict of feeling reluctance to do that which was right-- wasn't it the basic formula of moral corruption? To recognize one's guilt, yet feel nothing but the coldest, most profound indifference-- wasn't it a betrayal of that which had been the motor of his life-course and of his pride?"

-one of Rearden's internal monologues

Sometimes a great story has a few stunning epiphany moments. This story is composed of them. Bravo, Rand. Well done.

Left For Dead

2009-01-29T15:51:00.007-05:00

I was at a lan party a few weeks ago and I was introduced to a cooperative first person shooter called Left For Dead.

It's the only game I've ever played where all four players have to work as a team in order to succeed, and by succeed I mean survive from one safe house to another in a post apocalyptic world overwhelmed by hordes of zombies and various other mutants who all have special abilities that are designed to confuse and separate you.

I don't throw this word around a lot, but the game is brilliant.

I haven't played a video game this consistently with this much intensity since some of the early S-gen Final Fantasy games.

Everyone should play. Mad props to Valve.

Cartoonize Photos

2009-01-28T03:25:00.008-05:00

Steps:

Find or take a photo.
Open it in GIMP/Photoshop.
Create a transparent layer on top of the image's layer.
Use the line tool to "trace" the important lines of the image on the new layer.
(Note: unless you want an asymeterical image, you only need to trace half of it, then copy/paste and flip the copy.)
[Note 2: You may want to trace the image in a color not used in the image so that you can see where your trace lines are. After you're done, you can desaturate/darken the traced lines layer to make the lines black or whatever color. I traced this tank in hot pink.]
Get rid of the original image layer.
Create another transparent layer underneath the traced layer. Color it in underneath so as to not worry about the lines. :)

<3 GIMP

regarding grilled cheese

2009-01-20T10:52:00.002-05:00

1. does anyone have a monkey's paw/know how to make one/know where i could get one?

2. if you couldn't guess i'm teaching that particular story and looking for some music to go along with it. any ideas? creepy mummified monkey paw, dead son come back to life, ect ect ect.

3. there is no three i just like the number.

:-D

Four Criteria for Music Awesomeness

2009-01-18T21:56:00.008-05:00

I'd like to postulate four criteria for "good" music. These are not in order of importance and it only takes one of them to make a song go from mediocre to good.

Technical Mastery-> Here I would place Dream Theater and Mariah Carey. (Note: I don't really like either of them, so I'm not just plugging my favorite artists/groups.)
Lyrics-> Analyze this the same way you'd analyze poetry, as they're the same thing. Poetry was sung before it was written anyway.
Soulfulness-> This is the most difficult criterion to define, as different music strikes one person's fancy but not another's. I personally would throw certain emo, folk, and older jazz in this category.
Beat-> The sole focus here is skillful buildup and release. Think techno/electronica and pop.

I've just about given up art criticism at this point (damn you relativism), but perhaps we can draw some sort of line in terms of a Yes or No to simple criteria like these. As in, "Yes, X-song is good because it has meaningful/relevant lyrics," or "Yes, X-song is good because the second guitar solo is spectacular and the beat always makes me move."
And yes, the soulfulness criterion could be used to save pretty much anything one would wish to make an argument for, but I really can't disinclude it.

Frontpage : websites :: Game Maker : games

2009-01-14T23:16:00.008-05:00

Game Maker is what it sounds like. No programming expertise required. If you passed algebra and can use a mouse, you qualify. I'm up to tutorial 5 of 8 and am very impressed with the ease and flexibility of this thing.

It outputs standalone .exe files. The free version doesn't cut many important features either.
Yoyo Inc. isn't paying me, I swear.

regarding tea parties and spilt milk

2009-01-09T00:26:00.005-05:00

so this is a first from me, hi!

and i'm asking for somthing :)

at the moment i am preparing for a production of TROJAN WOMEN. i don't know if any of you know anything about greek history or mythology but if you do i'm looking for suggestions. i'm attempting to create a character that exists outside of society but who is not crazy. so no cassandra references. at the moment i'm playing with the myths of pandora and atlanta and the idea of being homeless as a way of living a faerie tale. i wont say much more because i find i get better suggestions when people are given more play room.

anyway, its random and probably strange but any ideas would be appreciated! and if you're around west chester march 23-29 come and see it! it promises to be an interesting show.

Teaching Sucks, Part 3: Whatever Happened to the Guild System?

2008-12-18T20:06:00.010-05:00

Why are we supposed to make the general curriculum interesting for the particular student? It's so backwards. We should be training individuals individually for their individual trades.

Employers hire based on* degrees and certificates that are worth nearly zilch, but are supposed to guarantee something. It's so backwards. What if we could snap our fingers and revert to a system like the following:

Masters take on apprentices, but pay them only in knowledge and experience (to do tasks beginning with the menial and graduating into the skilled/complex) until they are competent.
If an apprentice thinks that his master is being unfair by training him too long or too slowly, he can go elsewhere to train, start his own business, or join an existing business.
Hiring (not apprenticeship) has no requirements but performance.

How many times do students ask, "Why do we have to learn this?" They're not wrong. I am a teacher for the next three school days and I say that they're not wrong. Most of the content we learn in school is next to useless. School develops a work ethic, provides social exposure, and teaches general life skills - but so would the guild system, and without all the irrelevant crap.

Edit 12/19/08: Today's xkcd demonstrates my point in bar graph format ever so elegantly.

*Of course employers hire for experience, portfolios, etc. too - that's all well and good, more like what it should be.

A conversation with God regarding my purpose in life... and boners

2008-12-16T21:25:00.003-05:00

I took a listening horn to your word.
"Feed my lambs"
If you give me the food
and you point where to throw it
and you move both my arms
and you release my loose grip,
then I will feed your lambs.
As it currently stands I cannot stand on my own, much less feed and nourish your young, precious children, to whom I belong.
A new mantra I pray will scurry and dig and find its way deep beneath my inadequate being is as follows:
"He [God, Jesus, the LORD, the Spirit, You, etc.] will think well of me!"

---
a week later
---
Speak into me that i may speak into the world. You fill me up only to challenge and shake my foundations of reality. But what do you want from me? How do I feed your lambs?
Give me just one listening ear. I need just one instant of open-mindedness. And we know what an instant is, theoretically. Give me one dimensionless point in my journey through your space-time to experience your guidance. The divining rod in my pants will never lead me to living water. I need your strength to ignore its unwed treachery!

Ancient Reverse Engineers

2008-12-16T19:31:00.010-05:00

We've all heard of the animal-named styles of Kung Fu, right? Crane, praying mantis, monkey, etc. I guess in the back of my head, I've understood that they were based on the motions of real animals. That used to seem kind of lame, or silly in the way that lots of archaic stuff seems silly today. But maybe it isn't.

(Source: original youtube spot)

Note the strategies the two animals use in this PETA-unfriendly vid:

The dog circles the monkey, dashing in for a bite, then backing out when the monkey responds.
The monkey always goes for the head, using its paws/head to push the jaws away and its body to trap the dog's front paws.
They both stay low, mostly.

What a fascinating/innovative idea to mimick animals (I think). The old Kung Fu masters were reverse engineering nature to their advantage.

THC can make you a better person! Today!

2008-12-13T21:50:00.006-05:00

I'm not a birthday person. In general, fuck birthdays. I'm not concerned with getting older, I'm concerned with not wasting time. I had a birthday the other day and it was probably the worst day in recent memory.

I was out helping my brother by putting myself out, like an asshole, something I do, as a general rule, even when it's self-destructive, for anyone, especially family members, when I realized that I was angry - mainly due to life in America/horrifying upbringing/lack of suitable companionship or funds infused with an over-abundance of boredom/confused and angry people to deal with/debt and sadness - suffice to say that life is difficult and though I am usually a cheerful person (despite what you might think by some of my posts :), it had beaten me down a bit much lately and I was looking for an oasis.

So I played some Magic with some good company and felt a lot better. But the moment my pizza-filled amigos passed through the threshold of my tiny apartment I was slipping back into depths of the anger that had possessed me before the game. When Magic fails to restore HP completely you know you're in for a tough night.

Now I feel the need to share the potion that restored my hp/eliminated my status ailments completely

THC

Escapism=Temporary Relief from the battering ram that is life crushing against our faces

America tells us that if you watch movies all day long, you'll kill your eyesight. If you rock out too loudly or too often, you'll go deaf. Game when you're tired of those, and you'll get arthritis. Experience mutual affection, and you'll wound each other permanently. Worship God, and you'll feel alone when you make mistakes. Masturbate too much, your penis/clit might pull off. Smoke too much weed, you might get emphysema or cancer

and never forget what America does NOT want us to know above all else:

it is impossible to be angry when you are stoned. Not even books can do that without exception.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57DdviStOFo

art will inevitably kill us all to death a piece at a time - so too may Mary Jane. But in the meantime may our lives be sweet with the taste of allied, coalition victory on our lips, the sound of a ding resonating in our ears, and the smell of ganja liquidating our clogged, polluted sinuses.

LOOK AT ME!!!!!!11

2008-12-13T12:11:00.007-05:00

Along the same lines as Blaise's anti-writing post is the following comment from an article about some Swedish artist:

"Everyone does realize that most artists are presumptuous attention seekers. They feel compelled to tell the rest of us how they feel, what to think or think about, what they find disgusting or beautiful; art is nothing more than our opinion of their opinion. In the end we are the art. The artist creates in us indignation, serenity, wonder, disgust, love, hatred. Our emotions are the medium. Our reaction is the ultimate expression of their emotions and ideas. They feed us, fuck us, and fuck with us. They enlighten us. They beat us. They poke at our minds and wait in the shadows to watch our responses."
-Foetusnail, Boing Boing commenter

Whenever I begin to create something, I can't help but feel like I'm screaming LOOKATME. As I type this post, as I invited people to post here with me, I have/had the same feeling. Yet something overrides that guilt, whether it be pure selfish desire or a belief that I may by my efforts do some unknown good. Perhaps a mixture of the two.

Vidcon Economics

2008-12-08T19:30:00.016-05:00

Did you ever notice that in the typical RPG town, there is only one smithy, one alchemist, and one inn? Maybe there is a separate weapons smithy and armor smithy; perhaps the rich and poor inn; occasionally a temple or church. If you're really lucky, there's a restaurant or bar.

There's never any competition. The prices are usually adjusted proportionally to the amount of loot the local monsters drop. So, basically, the monsters have all the power. If the local monster communities boycotted hero-fighting, what would the merchants do?

I, for one, would like to see a game where merchants compete for your business. I know this happens in online RPGs all the time, but those are human merchants. Secret of Evermore's marketplace and the Cyport merchants in Sword of Jade are a start, but the "competition" in those is still static; that is, it's just multiple sets of prices instead of just one, not competition-in-action.

Wouldn't it be ... special ... to wonder if you're getting the best price instead of assuming that you're making the necessary upgrade for the next area? For that sake, why does the armor quality increase incrementally by area? Wouldn't bandits all want to head toward the po-armor towns? It'd also be nice to have the smithy talent evenly distributed around the map with pricing by quality. (Waaaah. I want to be rewarded for my endless grinding.)

One day, I'm going to make an RPG. And either I'm going to mock this stuff or fix it.

And yes, "vidcon" is a Barkley Gaiden reference. Play it. I don't even like basketball.

Infinite Dimensions and Bunny Suits

2008-12-08T14:23:00.003-05:00

Little things like infinite dimensions fuck me up something fierce.

Right now somewhere there are huge orgies conducted by all female casts wearing strap-ons and over-sized orange, furry bunny suits.

As a matter of fact,

its happening all-the-time

a wee bout of darkness

2008-12-04T20:31:00.003-05:00

she took the hat out of her pocket and handed it to me. the cold incessantly chewed on my ears, to the point of needing the hat gareth had discarded. his wild harden of curly vines was all the shield his 11 year-old head needed.
the cold no longer bothered my sister, margot. she had already taken the turn with the plastic-brimmed knit-cap. the mouth of the hat surprised me with vivacious elastic as i attempted to adjust the child-sized hat to my rather enormous skull. the brim snapped neatly into my eyes. after 5 minutes of fiddling with it, i managed to wear it in a semi-comfortable manner: backwards.
it's funny how a fabric littered with small holes provides enough protection such that the ears regain heat.
but the second i started talking about the hat posed a challenge to me. write about something else. get to something they'll relate to on a more personal level.
no.
...
how about modern satire? let's throw sarcastic analogies about how out-of-sorts our culture is/has become/has always [insert expletive] been.
maybe i'll just write about my lover and the cinemax-style sex we're not having. the single christian lifestyle leaves little room for promiscuous romps. if i'm ever going to make it in writing from the personal experience platform, romance is not the way to go, unless i plan to write tragedies.
or black comedies.
but i'm not racist or shakespeare.
statistics!
86% of authors who rely on statistics have an instant rapport with their audiences. and with the fake-statistic rate at an all-time low, 88%, my copy-and-pasted memoirs of the vile and mysterious underpinnings of real-life, full of numbers and purported facts, are bound to resonate with angst-ridden teens and skeptical senior citizens alike.
but i hate lying about even my favorite color. how could i possibly defocate pages of false reality with a clean, clear, and under control conscience? a statistical approach would certainly betray the deepest caverns of my soul.
i could get political and preachy... it seems like the only successful comedies these days besides the increasingly thoughtless non sequiturs are the programs with strong political overtones. i'll detail the failures of the current administration, how i would do everything perfectly, and make it sound like doing the 'right' thing is such a common sense no-brainer. of course, the [insert politcal figure], whose I.Q. is most likely in the mid to low forties, lacks the cerebral capacity to comprehend the universal simplicity, effectiveness, and beauty of my idea. i should just... run the world, because i know how you need to live your life.
but i don't even know how to shop for car insurance without asking my parents for help. so... scratch politics.
maybe face doing crap
i of some like
could writing stupid writing
change forever avant in
the by garde columns.

That's just stupid.
Stupid!
my end goal is the production of an original product. problem: the ecclesiastical truth delineating the impossibility of my dream. fighting the inevitability of my failure will only amplify my shortcomings.
dropping goals...
now.

all i have left before me is the prospect of enjoyment. isn't this a masturbatory outlook if no one benefits from my obvious brilliance? i will not write anymore. i will no longer pollute our already overfilled bookstores with another bit of contrived, recycled garbage. i'm not self-important enough.

CSS Mind

2008-12-01T21:50:00.004-05:00

At school, I seat students by grade. This is an idea I got from a veteran teacher there, Mr. Doe. It has a variety of benefits, but one unending problem: how do the students know where to sit, based on their grade? There are two parts to the solution.
1) The students have to know what their ranking is.
2) The students have to know where, physically, they are to sit, based on their ranking.
Mr. Doe and I handle the first part the same way: post the rankings on the wall, near the door. We handle the second part differently, and I only found this out recently, but it illustrates the way this man's mind works. My (static, HTML 2.0-like) solution to the problem was to use tape and marker to number the desks. The students peel up the tape every week, which is a pain. Conversely, Mr. Doe translates each student's numerical ranking (1-n, the whole class) into their table ("A"-"F", each group having 4-6 seats) and then ranks them within their respective table from highest to lowest AND- there is a systematic way to tell which seat at any given table is the highest and which the lowest without any numbering. (I don't know what it is, but it doesn't matter. I imagine it's something like, "start at the seat nearest the door and go clockwise.")

I was speaking to a friend about this discovery and she suggested that learning programming languages probably induces this kind of thinking. I agree, and it makes me wonder: in what other situations can programmer-thinking be used?

I do truly hate to quote an educational theorist, but here goes. Freire said, "Change is my only constant." That's an uncomfortable thought, but systematic/programmer thinking makes it a little less so, perhaps because programming is intended to deal with variables from the start. Another example of this sort of thinking is the use of a password system instead of passwords.

Clever Fake

2008-11-29T18:29:00.007-05:00

There are three common tests for counterfeit bills: the bill's texture, counterfeit pens, and the watermark visible under a light.

While I was working at Regal, I heard about a customer who'd passed us a clever fake fifty. He'd taken a five, bleached off the ink somehow, and reprinted the bill with his printer. He fooled us. The bill felt normal. The counterfeit ink stayed yellow. We only later realized we'd been duped, when someone held the bill up to the light and saw the face of Abe, not Ulysses. Apparently he's not the only one who does this, either.

time to sound smart.

2008-11-23T17:13:00.004-05:00

i feel as though i am amongst a group of fine writers, and am scared to look like a not-good writer. maybe i'll just put my poetry on this thing or something. and by poetry, i mean groups of near-sentences missing most essential punctuation! and rhymes sorta!

wrote this on the way back from a marching band event earlier this year after i'd felt like i let the band down:

it's so hard to view anything that i do
as anything other than a shade of failure
even though i still teach and borderline preach
to measure our lives in successes and faults cured
---
it's not out of spite but of a lack of might
that the measure i suggest n'ere comes into view
and while the Lord works with mysterious quirks
my number of worthwhile achievements feels few
---
and don't say i'm worth something
because i know that i am
but chemicals in my head
tell me i'm just a sham
and i fight it each day
that i walk on this earth
praying that one day soon
i will finally feel worth

On Writing Routines and Inventing Fun Activities

2008-11-18T23:12:00.004-05:00

Creativity reduces to the clever recombination of elements. Some elements have the properties "fun" or "funny"-- and any recombination in which one of these elements is included will also thus gain these properties, given that it is not diluted by the inclusion of too many other elements (problem of overcomplication) OR by an element which has the neutralizing and highly subjective "danger" property.

Contentment kills progress

2008-11-14T17:24:00.003-05:00

I was walking out of my local Genuardis, hands full of groceries, toward my vehicle this afternoon when I suddenly realized what a useful tool contentment is for the affluent, and what a terrible means self-imposed oppression for the poor.

As a child from a highly religious single parent with a fixed (broke-ass) income many things were forbidden to me for reasons I didn't comprehend. One that stuck out to me as i traversed the gloomy, puddle ridden lot was Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Mom said it would awake sinful desires in me. I think she was afraid I would covet that which I could never hope to attain.

What the fuck is that? Why didn't Mom encourage me to study hard as a means of attaining whatever? She is a product of the church. They taught her through social/religious indoctrination that she could never hope to attain anything better than what she'd already known - and further than that - to hope for something better, to attempt to improve her situation was a covetous sinful path.

If it is easier for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a donkey to go through the eye of a needle, then God is a fascist classist who inspires dread in the poor and rich alike.

Shifty motherfucker

Loans & Korea

2008-11-12T07:38:00.005-05:00

In America, from day 1 we make money, borrow, buy, pay back, etc. basically until the day we die. In Korea it's the opposite. They save, buy, save, buy. So basically, financially, I'm at a loss being here, since I don't have much saved up, on top of the fact that I'm currently paying back my tuition cash. I'm getting a sweet apartment and I need the cash by this Saturday, but since I'm foreigner and because of Korea's financial culture, it's near impossible to get a loan.

I wonder how America has got into such an intense borrowing culture? Well, we can see the results now, though, can't we? First the big mortgage crap, our financial institutions all failing, world currencies flipping out, mang...

Oh, on the flip side, I got a new computer. It's got an Intel Core 2 Quad cpu, the model's the Q6600, rated at 2.4ghz, but overclocked to 3, plus a GeForce 9600gt. It's pretty insane, I've been waiting 5 years to retire my struggling laptop. I'm gunna give it a fresh install vista and keep it next to the tv, hook up a wireless keyboard and mouse, and use it as my media center thinger, we'll see how that goes tho haha.

*edit - here's a new website i'm working on for ya'll to critique (chew up) haha.
http://www.prodikl.com/calgaryplays/layout1

Security

2008-11-11T12:23:00.000-05:00

No lock is safe from lockpicking. As long as we think of security in terms of lock and key, nothing will ever be secure. We've got to transcend lock-and-key thinking about security somehow. I don't know how.

Edit: Is it possible to change the properties of the possession or the means of its ownership (without damage) so that a lock and key aren't necessary?

Indie RPGs

2008-11-10T22:30:00.012-05:00

In my strivings to attain nerdvana, I have come across several worthwhile independent RPGs developed in various (non-RPGMaker) engines. I mention it now because I am nearing the end of Sword of Jade, a philosophy-packed game built with OHRRPGCE. What a hidden masterpiece it is! I actually care about the characters. I want to talk to townsfolk and explore every corner once more, because the game feels so alive. It's a bit buggy, but I haven't been able to put it down and I've got 20 hours logged. Did I mention that there are no random battles?

Also worth mentioning here are Diver Down, a short science/fantasy hybrid built with Verge 2, and Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, perhaps the greatest RPG ever made (Game Maker).

Teaching Sucks, Part 2

2008-11-01T18:29:00.006-04:00

Some friends have suggested that I pursue teaching college. The problem with that is, what would I teach? Not English. I feel that I have nothing to say about literature, despite my enjoyment of reading. I can figure out and explain what the author is trying to say and how they're saying it and then follow with, "I think that's cool/neat," and "I feel that way sometimes." Is that all there is to teaching literature? Is it a sort of story-guided group therapy session? What happened to the magic of Mr. Doyle's senior English classes? Or was even that an illusion- one composed of his magnetic personality and high school nostalgia?

As it stands, I'm in a position where I don't even have to face that fear. I teach my creative writing classes like algebra classes; SAT english is even more formulaic; English 1 has too many behavior problems to teach at all, let alone discuss.

I am stressed and depressed. I spend 5-10 hours a week sitting and doing nothing, just to destress myself.

Yesterday, I got another paycheck, which will go mostly toward my student loans. Freedom is over the horizon, but it's a distant horizon.

Teaching Sucks

2008-10-22T22:10:00.004-04:00

I hate this job, but I am going to stick it out for the rest of the year.

1) I don't believe in school. I didn't when I was a student and I don't now.
2) The resistance I get for everything is wearing me down. When this year is over, I will be a very strong person.
3) The entire system is strained. By participating in this system, I allow it to drain me like "Rasp" from FF3/6J.

I hate this job. Sometimes, I think of it as penance for the good times of college. That helps a little.

Best Snowball Fight Ever

2008-10-20T21:26:00.000-04:00

There's nothing like hitting someone with a snowball when 95% of the snow is gone and all that's left is the remains of the giant parking lot snow piles. It was totally OK two weeks before, but they're so pissed now.

Time

2008-10-13T16:32:00.004-04:00

If there were no time, we would have no reason to not do everything. Time is limited and therefore, we must ask ourselves before engaging in anything, "What is the purpose in my doing this?" and determine if that purpose is worth the time invested in it. Responsibility is this process done well.

Falling

2008-10-12T00:31:00.006-04:00

I leapt out of a plane today. Or rather, I was shoved out of a plane with a stocky, middle-aged skydiving expert strapped to my back. The experience was more confusing, disorienting, and uncomfortable than scary. I did, however, have two moments of distinct, powerful fear: when I first saw the plane and when the buzzer rang that meant it was time to jump.

During the freefalling part, I had my legs in the wrong position, which caused a wild/dizzying spin. I had some difficulty breathing because of all the wind hitting me in the back of the throat. When the expert released the parachute, the harness snapped me into an awkward position that put a lot of pressure on my chest.

And now for the clichés: it was amazing, everything was so tiny down below, the freefalling was exhilarating despite the confusion, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. The difference between knowing theoretically and knowing experientially is immeasurable. I mightn't have said that two years ago.

Macbeth

2008-10-09T20:21:00.005-04:00

This is an excerpt from a conversation I had on Facebook recently:

"And yeah isn't that strange about saying something first and then realizing you meant it? Kinda brings up the Macbeth question doesn't it? Did we mean it in the first place or did we come to mean it as a result of having said it and then project that feeling back onto the memory of saying it? Or does it really matter?"

How much of my life is like that?

Self Knowledge

2008-10-03T20:16:00.005-04:00

Surfing the internet is something we do alone right now. Sure, we send links, but that's after the searching/finding process is done. Suppose there were a way to do even that collaboratively? Not-so-random thought of the day.

On to my main idea. Self knowledge interests me. I am, as Brindley once pointed out, quite knowledgeable about me. Ironically, I don't know how I got here though, and I'd like to. Is this just the product of intelligence and years of introspection or were there key influences? I'd like to know if this is reproducible in others. Because it's really nice.

I spent two hours last night searching for a passage in Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber that sort of illustrates what I'm talking about. When I read this, I said to myself, "wow, that's exactly what that feels like." It's from Trumps of Doom, chapter 3:
"Grief and anger shrink my world, and I resent this. They seem to paralyze my memory of happier times, of friends, places, things, options. Squeezed by the grip of intense, unsettling emotions, I grow smaller in my singlemindedness. I suppose it is partly because I have discarded a range of choices, impairing in some measure my freedom of will. I don't like this, but after a point I have small control over it. It makes me feel that I have surrendered to a kind of determinism, which irritates me even more. Then, vicious cycle, this feeds back into the emotion that drives me and intensifies it. The simple way of ending this situation is the headlong rush to remove its object. The difficult way is more philosophical, a drawing back, the reestablishment of control. As usual, the difficult way is preferable. A headlong rush may also result in a broken neck."

I want to name a child Merlin now.

M.I.A.

2008-09-05T17:26:00.009-04:00

I think I may have a third favorite musician, next to Imogen Heap and Metallica. The following is from an interview on http://www.hotashes.com.au/index.php?c=archive/yr2005/int_mia/mia:

Ash: You’re pretty open about your opinions on terrorism….
MIA: Yeah, well it is happening.
Ash: Ok but you said that terrorists are being dehumanized. If they are using terror and violence why should they deserve anything less?
MIA: Well the thing is I don’t condone violence or terrorism but at the same time I really want to be a fair human being and I was to listen to both sides of the story. If one of our methods is to just go and get them, then the opposite end to that is listening to what they have to say. It’s not really giving power to a terrorist, that’s not really what I am trying to say. Every time there is a war on terror there are civilians caught in the middle who are used as bait, and that’s who I want to represent and talk about, because that’s the closest thing to my experience. It’s not terrorism, it’s being a civilian stuck in the middle of that shit. Hip-hop thrived on the thinking that if you start feeling like an outsider, then turn your back to the world and start your own shit. If you apply that to what’s going on politically, that’s quite dangerous. I think it’s more dangerous to let that happen then to actually confront it and talk about it.

Flocks, Herds, Schools, and Media

2008-09-01T17:05:00.005-04:00

I was going to write a post last night about how stupid it is that we have different verbs for the different ways we experience the arts/media. {Note: by "the arts/media", I mean literature, art, music, videogames, theatre, television, film, and the web.} I was going to say how it was unnecessarily complex and that we should simplify it by using a single verb for all of our experiences with media. I was going to recommend "to exe" as that verb, short for "experience". Then, as I was typing an example, I ran into a problem:

Example: "I exed Star Wars this morning."

We lose information if we use what would have been my suggestion. We lose it because of proper nouns. A single proper noun can have multiple media-types associated with it. Star Wars is a movie, a book series, a videogame, even a historical event (in another context).
I was going to compare the unnecessary complexity of the media-verbs to the same problem we have in English with groups of animals. We really don't need a different word for "group of birds" and "group of buffalo" as demonstrated by this sentence. My comparison would have broken down and I see why now: with the animal groupings, there are no proper nouns. No information is lost by replacing, herd, school, flock, pack, etc. with group.

What I want this to be~

2008-08-31T01:04:00.008-04:00

In this blog, I want to create more than just an archive of my thoughts and experiences. I'd like to create a space for interaction. I am thinking strongly of removing the openID registration requirement so that anyone can post comments (and then hope that the bots won't eat me alive.) Heck, maybe someone could co-author this thing with me. That'd be cool. Any takers? (Blogger allows up to 100 co-authors!)

I hope that in choosing Google as my webhost, that this blog will last until the apocalypse.

Finally, I hope that I can provide an interesting read for you (or that I have, if you're reading all the backposts and stopped here, at the beginning.)