> Recent Entries
> Archive
> Friends
> User Info
> www.merchi.org
> previous 50 entries

July 16th, 2009

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

04:22 am - Bad I feel so horrible I feel like I'm in a black slow gooey maelstrom drowning and I don't know if I'm going to pass out or throw up or both. I literally feel physical dizziness and nausea. I am so asking for new meds from my doc when I next see him. None I've tried so far seem to be doing anything worth a crap. Current Mood: depressed

(6 comments | Leave a comment)

July 15th, 2009

05:14 pm - Loot From Finncon: * XXL bright pink Animecon t-shirt * XXS white Animecon panties * a bunch of comics single issues: random 2099 stuff, Wonder Woman (Messner-Loebs and Byrne), Daredevil (incl. the Born Again storyline), others... * 18 Star Trek pocketbooks, mostly TNG * Lone Wolf and Cub, Vol.2 * An "art of" style coffee table hardcover about the Drizzt Do'Urden books. I think the pretty maps alone are worth the price. From the post office, my monthly shipment this month included, but is not limited to: * Starman Omnibus, Vol.3 * Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers, Vol.9 -- the next volume will collect the epic Kree/Skrull War storyline * Invincible Ultimate Collection, Vol.4 * JLA Deluxe Edition, Vol.2 * the first issue of Dick Grayson as Batman * the first issue of Batwoman * X-Men Forever #1-2 * the second issue of the new New Mutants series * after a wait of 27 (twenty-seven) years -- the comic book adaptation of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan!! * the final Green Lantern issues before the big Blackest Night event begins in next month's comics I have so much reading to do. Current Mood: bouncy

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

July 13th, 2009

03:15 pm - Station At the Helsinki railway station Internet cafe right now, making a quick post on my soon-to-be way home. Lots to write and post about once I get home but all in all it's been a pretty good weekend. Spent much more money than I'd budgeted to spend, but Wednesday should be a decent sized paycheck day so I can live with it. I don't know if there's been an accident or something on the railway connection because the railway website is showing that all trains from Helsinki to Turku have a bus connection part of the way which was somewhat confusing to see when you're used to a simple functional connection between the two cities. In fact I should go google up further information on that topic, so I'll see you once I get home. Later. Current Mood: curious

(8 comments | Leave a comment)

July 10th, 2009

(2 comments | Leave a comment)

July 6th, 2009

(Leave a comment)

01:33 am - Diet I wonder how long a person can survive on water and plain white rice. Current Mood: hungry

(16 comments | Leave a comment)

July 4th, 2009

(5 comments | Leave a comment)

July 3rd, 2009

05:06 am - Update I don't know why I keep writing these. It's not like anyone can do anything about it. And it sounds like whining. But I feel like if I don't get to vent this stuff out every now and then I'm going to either explode or implode, I'm not sure which. Anyway, until last weekend I'd been off LJ for about 5-6 weeks. Some of you noticed, and thanks for caring. There was no particular reason I guess. Just wasn't in the mood. I had a vacation all May. Didn't really change anything. If anything, when I went back to work, I felt incredibly exhausted and physically completely energy-less for the first week of June. Slowly recovered my physical strength through June, now I'm okay in that regard. Psyche's another matter. I feel like I've slowly been drifting downwards in mood. Nothing serious (yet) but it's like I try and I try and no matter how much I try or how hard I try, nothing ever goes anywhere. And I'm getting so tired of trying. If I could get a little positive feedback every now and then, maybe it'd energize me and compensate for all the downfalls but it seems like it's always minus, minus, minus. Never a plus. And it's wearing me down slowly but steadily. I'm so tired of it all, so tired of everything, I feel so tired and burned out and like there's nothing left inside me. I just want to lie down and close my eyes and sleep until something good happens which will probably be never. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in a crisis, in the sense that there's any urgency. I'm not toying around with a russian roulette gun or anything. I'm relatively stable, but it just feels so...crushing and heavy and black when all I see is a slope downwards and no hope for anything better. I work. Why? For money? What use is money? Money doesn't make me happy. I have so many material possessions I'm drowning in them and I could keep buying more and more and more until I suffocate but I get no happiness out of them. So why do I work? Why do I bother to make money? What do I do with it? There's nobody special to take out for dinner, there's no child to build an inheritance for, there's just me and my bank account and all the money will just be eaten up by maggots like me when I'm dead, whether it be in a year or in fifty years. What use is money? Why do I work? Why do I bother with anything? I feel so tired. Everything feels so burned out and charred and black and pointless. I feel broken inside and I don't know how to fix it. I'm tired of this life. It's not a fun life. I'm not having fun so why do I continue to torture myself? If somebody isn't having fun at a poker table they get up and walk away. Why can't I walk away? I hate this game because all I do in it is lose, lose, lose, and I don't want to play that kind of game anymore. I want to play a game where I can occasionally win, and if I can't have a game like that then I'd rather not play at all. Well, what I want is irrelevant. I'm just life's punching bag. I'm just here to be beaten on and spat upon. Ignored and overruled. I can say what I want a million times over and that won't cause it to happen. My wants are irrelevant. What I want doesn't matter one bit to anybody who has the power to give me what I want. And all through it, I always endure. I don't know if it's toughness or stupidity or cowardice. Maybe a combination of all three. But always I just keep going. And going. And going. It's like when you've been awake for eighty hours running and you're so exhausted you see hallucinations and can't even walk straight and you've got tears coming down your face because you're so tired you only want to be able to sleep for five minutes but they keep bombarding you with sonics or something to keep you from sleeping and all you can do is curl up into a ball and cry and hope for even just one moment's peace to sleep. So tired. If I could just get a break. Man, I wish I could get a break. Something positive for a change. But no. Never. Just more pain, day after day after day. It's so heavy. I just want a break. So heavy. And I'm not sure I even care anymore. As opposed to around the turn of the year. Which is better anyway? To care and be suicidal because the situation depresses you so much? Or to not even care anymore and feel dead inside? Current Mood: depressed

(11 comments | Leave a comment)

July 2nd, 2009

05:47 am - Christmas I've been wondering how I'm going to survive the mental stress of next holiday season. And I finally have a potential solution model. Maybe if I can go somewhere non-Christian, non-Western, they won't celebrate Christmas to a noticeable degree. I'm thinking maybe a month in Thailand from early Dec to early Jan, to dodge most of the crap. Current Mood: thoughtful

(8 comments | Leave a comment)

03:32 am - Clothes It appears that the new Star Trek movie has already produced at least one positive effect for my perspective. It appears from my tentative research that Rubie's (a licensed costuming company) is FINALLY putting Star Trek: The Next Generation uniforms back in stock. They've been sold out for years. I've been scrounging Ebay for ages trying to get them, but it looks like I'll finally be able to obtain them later this year. So, thank you, XI. Current Mood: predatory

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

June 27th, 2009

03:41 pm - Booksmeme 15 books (in 15 minutes, in no order, without thinking about it) that stick with you - via infinitepryde The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman The Icewind Dale Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition Player's Handbook & Dungeon Master's Guide by E. Gary Gygax Dark Phoenix Saga by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin Shogun & Noble House by James Clavell Hunt for Red October & Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy Macbeth by William Shakespeare Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud University Physics by Hugh D. Young and Roger A. Freedman The Call of Cthulhu and other stories by H.P. Lovecraft Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes & Legion of Three Worlds by Geoff Johns, Gary Frank and George Perez The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke Neuromancer by William Gibson

(Leave a comment)

May 14th, 2009

04:13 am Sometimes I feel like the world would be better off if I wasn't around to forcibly try wedging myself in its cogs when I clearly don't fit. Current Mood: depressed

(7 comments | Leave a comment)

May 13th, 2009

02:12 am - Picspam Just a bit of picspam because I just watched this to remind myself of what a Real Trek Movie (TM) is. ;) ( Read more... ) Current Mood: nostalgic

(Leave a comment)

May 12th, 2009

10:30 pm - Update Been very busy. Been on my summer vacation for over a week now, and still have barely had time to catch my breath. It seems like nearly every day I've got something to do, often several somethings. My attempts at producing a social life apparently have worked, possibly to excess. I hope I can scale down my social obligations somewhat. I wanted to pull a bike trip to a neighboring city during my vacation and if things keep being as busy as they have been for the past week, I won't even have time for that. Increasing the amount of social life has also not helped find emotional satisfaction of any kind. Feeling the need for romance, platonic social interaction does nothing. It's like feeling the need for sleep, and trying to satisfy it by eating more when you're already full. Two different hungers. One doesn't fulfill the empty space in the other. Having said that, there's some things in the works and maybe someday, maybe someday... Went to see the new Star Trek film on Friday. Found it to be a perfectly fine action movie when taken as a standalone product, but when compared to the rest of Trek, it doesn't compare favorably. The things that always fascinated me most about Trek were its richly detailed history (irrelevant in the new movie), the idealistic diplomacy to find peaceful solutions through negotiations (the new movie had about three seconds of that) and the science/exploration (and this is an action-fighting movie). So, this movie really doesn't play to what I always liked about Trek. I can watch it, with the same mentality I can watch Schwarzenegger movies, and I'm glad if other people enjoy it -- but for me, personally, the good Trek is before this movie. During the weekend we had a roleplaying game con in the city, and I helped do some work for it, and also ran a D&D game on Saturday evening. I was almost certain I'd get no takers since D&D isn't exactly a fashionable game these days so I didn't really do very much groundwork (I should've done more), but surprisingly I got a full table of 7 people or so when one interested party took care of all the recruiting that I myself was too shy to do. It was a terribly blunt instrument hack'n'slash game -- I would prefer to run a slightly more cerebral and plot-heavy game myself but as I said I hadn't done the groundwork so I just picked a ready-made commercial adventure and ran it -- but regardless, people laughed a lot and seemed to have fun. I was glad, particularly because it's been literally years since I've gotten to run tabletop face-to-face D&D and I was more than a little bit rusty. On Monday we had our monthly meeting of the group that's working on the 2011 science fiction/fantasy/anime convention and we more or less finalized a short list of guests of honor to ask if they'll be interested in attending. So that was one step forward on that long road. Today I had my semi-monthly video evening with J. As usual we went by Filmtown and I bought some new movies. The loot for today was: Contact The X-Files: I Want to Believe The Last Samurai Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End The Dark Knight I've never really watched X-Files except sporadic episodes here and there but I've always been interested, so I'm interested in seeing what the movie's like; haven't seen it before. Have seen Last Samurai before and I tend to be a bit of a Tom Cruise fan, and I also think the film is above his average level of quality so that's a good thing. Pirates 3 is kickass and I'm happy to own it. Dark Knight I haven't seen yet but I will shortly now. Heard lots of good things about it. But the real surprise was Contact. I bought it because it had an interesting sounding science fiction plot -- which is never a guarantee of quality, of course; for example, see my bad experience with Red Planet -- and because it had Jodie Foster, who has pretty much never let me down with the quality of scripts she chooses to participate in. As is usual for her, it turned out this one had a spectacular script. I don't really wanna spoil anything (for those who want to be spoiled about what the plot is, googling "contact jodie foster" provides all the info you want) so I'll just say that the movie would have made for a wonderful Star Trek prequel with just a few minor shifts and namedrops to connect it to the overall continuity. Unlike the new Star Trek movie, Contact brings out the soul of humanity, what we aspire to be, what we could be, and really explores the protagonists' hearts and minds in a truly intelligent, mature script that doesn't take sides and allows the viewers to make their own philosophical conclusions. Some of the talks in this movie reminded me of some of Picard's best moments. What are we, really, and why are we here? For a Trek fan whose favorite captain is Picard because of his idealistic, philosophical, thoughtful bent, Contact was a real thrill. If you liked sitting through Trek episodes like "Measure of a Man", where not a shot was fired, not a single ship exploded, and the whole episode was about Picard in a courtroom arguing for Data's human rights -- I could not give a stronger recommendation to watch Contact if you're that kind of viewer. I think I'm gonna give a watch to that X-Files movie before I go to sleep. Current Mood: busy

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

April 23rd, 2009

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

April 16th, 2009

02:14 pm - Today Today has been a particularly good day. On Tuesday I had a nice pleasant date with an old high school friend, which wasn't today, no, but it did play a part in starting this week off on the right foot. Today I picked up some more electronics equipment from the store which will allow me to advance my electronics projects. I am still lacking a good source for solar cells. If anybody has a tip on where in Europe to buy cheap solar cells, I'm all ears. I need to build a solar charging vest for the summer so I can spend all day biking without my music running out. Anyway, after picking up my electronics, I popped a brief visit by orpana who's always a delight to chat with, and then I was off to my general practitioner doctor, the really nice and charismatic guy I've mentioned before. Today we talked about the results of some blood tests. I'd finally forced myself to go yesterday; I was running on three hours of sleep and I really wanted to sleep yesterday instead of going to the lab, but I had to have the blood drawn yesterday so the results would be in today. And I didn't want to disappoint the doctor by coming to the appointment and saying, "Sorry, I was too lazy to drop by the lab for the bloodwork at any point in the last six weeks of time I've had to get it done." It's probably the sign of a decent doctor when you bust your ass on three hours of sleep just because you don't want to disappoint them. :b Anyway, apparently my blood is all good. No signs of cardiovascular problems or diabetes. I was like, *so sure* that the blood would show I'm two years from the grave, but I got a clean bill of health so that's good. In fact he remarked that my cholesterol is superb and that he very rarely sees numbers like that in Finns. Apparently there's some hope that my pump may have some years left in it. With my eating habits, it's a miracle. We talked about taking meds and how I haven't taken any for the past three months and I've been gradually moving upwards in mood, so we agreed that it's probably a good idea to keep going without pills since things are proceeding in the right direction. Don't try to fix what's working and so on. We also talked about therapy and my opinion was more or less that I'd rather devote my time, money and energy towards building my social life rather than sitting in a shrink's chair. We also talked about fasting; that's one of the many things why I like this guy because he tends to be a bit of a maverick I suppose. He was like, talked a lot about what to do, what not to do, and about his own experiences fasting, and he was like, "A lot of doctors wouldn't tell you any of this stuff. Most of them haven't even tried fasting." He strikes me as a real open thinker and I can connect with that. I love experimentalism and a lot of doctors would just slap you down and give you the conventional wisdom, but this guy is a lot more worldly and open-minded and seems like he's not a sheep at all to doctrine, and I can respect that very much. Now I'm gonna chill for a few hours and maybe play some Civilization; I got inspiration earlier today about wanting to play a game starting in Africa since I never pick there to start my game. In a few hours I'm off to the weekly geek club meeting which is also terrific since I haven't been there for like three weeks so I'm going to enjoy seeing my friends for the first time in a while. Also, the sun is shining and I've got a fridge full of comfort food. (Speaking of which I've picked up 10kg in the last half year due to all the comfort food to make me feel better. Hopefully I can work that back down again now that I can bike again.) I'd almost say, "Life is good." Almost. If only I had somebody to share this with. :D Current Mood: cheerful

(8 comments | Leave a comment)

April 13th, 2009

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

April 8th, 2009

04:04 pm I don't think I've recently posted this one, so here goes this year's post of the funniest animated gif ever.

(2 comments | Leave a comment)

08:46 am - ENT 2x22 STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE 2x22 "Cogenitor" In the past few months I have been going through ENT in order, and this episode made me stop and wow. This is the first time the show has delivered an A-list thoughtprovoking, mature episode that makes you think about the nature of right and wrong. In this episode, Enterprise meets a benevolent race. They're also explorers, they freely offer help -- much like Starfleet. But of course, they have a dark secret, that being that they have what for intents and purposes is a slave race. So far we're talking pretty standard stuff. So, Trip ends up rooting for the underdog and tries to teach the slave to call for her human rights. And that's where things hit the fan. Do they have the right to try to change another culture? When the slave asks for asylum on Enterprise from her own culture, should they take her in and thus denounce the aliens' entire culture, basically proclaiming the superiority of their own culture? In a cliche, overdone ending, Archer would stand up for the slave, and the Enterprise would power up and fight off the aliens and keep the slave, and "everybody lives happily ever after" except for the aliens who are black-and-white demonized and beaten off. Instead -- and I'm amazed they had the balls -- they had Archer decide that they had no right to interfere in another culture's affairs (foreshadowing of the Prime Directive) and turn over the slave. And then the slave kills herself rather than being able to return to a life of slavery. For once, we are treated to a proper tragedy, a true no-win scenario, instead of a "good guys always find a way to make things all right in the end". Archer chews Trip out because if Trip hadn't interfered in another culture, tried to change another culture, one person would still be alive. It's an episode full of wrong choices, and that humanizes the characters a lot when they aren't so damn perfect that they always find the right way. They made mistakes, and instead of coming out unscathed by the skin of their teeth, people paid the price. For the second time in ENT (first time being "Dear Doctor" in first season), I actually felt like I was being treated to the actual complexities of making first contact, instead of an oversimplified pretense made up for starry-eyed eight year olds. Great job. I give this episode an A. Current Mood: satisfied Tags: reviews, st:ent

(Leave a comment)

April 3rd, 2009

03:05 am - Duality It feels like there's two sides of me. On one hand, life feels pretty good because all my basic needs are met and I have some freedom to do what I want. So that sort of gives me a good feeling. On the other hand, every day feels like the one before, nothing really matters, nothing is accomplished except treading water day after day, month after month, year after year. Everything feels static, gray and meaningless. Maybe if I actually finished and published one of my books, it'd feel like a step forward. I've got all May off work. I think I'll try to write then. Current Mood: frustrated

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

March 31st, 2009

(Leave a comment)

(Leave a comment)

(Leave a comment)

(10 comments | Leave a comment)

March 30th, 2009

02:29 pm - Weekend Definitely an interesting and worthwhile weekend. I was off at the "Tampere Kuplii" comic book convention in the city of Tampere which is about two hours inland. Last time I visited Tampere was last summer's Finncon, and for that event, you could see it was happening right from the Turku train station. The train station was crowded with anime-cosplaying thirteen year olds then. This time lots of thirteen year olds were in evidence at the train station but I didn't spot a single cosplayer until I reached the con location. Anyway, the night before the trip I hadn't gotten any sleep, so I'd phoned the hotel and asked about their room situation, whether they figured there would be rooms available if I arrived already in the morning, and they said yes. So I figured, I'd grab the first morning train at 7, be at the hotel around 9, get a room and grab a couple of hours sleep *then* before heading to the con, since I wasn't able to sleep during the night. So, I arrived at the hotel around 9, and -- no room. Well, I circulated around the nearby shopping center Koskikeskus for an hour and a half, killing time, getting some breakfast, then went back -- no room. I was like, fuck it, I'll just head over to the con without sleep rather than wait here for a room. As an aside, I believe the last time I was in Koskikeskus was on my fifth grade school trip when we came to the Särkänniemi amusement park and also had some time to run around the city as well. I remember they had the Transformer Broadside (the one who transforms into an aircraft carrier) on sale at one of the stores in Koskikeskus and I wanted to buy it but for some reason didn't -- probably as a fifth grader I didn't have the money or something. The con was held at a locale which used to be an old Finlayson factory area; now it's been turned into a shopping center/art and culture installation. Logistically it was a bit disjointed, but it was okay. Sometimes I wonder, there are so many places in modern cities devoted to looking *back* to how things used to be. I wonder what it would be like if we had equally many art and culture installations looking *forward* to how things *could* be. History appears to be much more appealing to the modern pragmatic man than futurism. Which, well I understand the importance of history, I'm a big believer in Santayana's words, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But still, without wanting to demean the importance of history, I wish mankind would have a little more ambition, a little more drive, to go forward *as well*. I grabbed a couple of lectures at the con -- the one I'd most wanted to see was something along the lines of "character design for comic books" by Janne Kemppi, and I was fairly satisfied with it although it was perhaps a little too elementary for me personally. To just about every generalized statement I kept thinking inside my head, "yes, BUT you could make an exception if you did it like THIS..." and so on...I think I've designed too many characters; I'm into breaking the basic rules now more than I am into the basic rules themselves. Still, it was delightful to see the turnout for the talk, all kinds of people, old guys, young girls, all kinds are interested in character design and that was very heartwarming to me as a proponent of people learning to write non-cheesy fiction. After lectures, I grabbed dinner with a friend, and I was very satisfied with the "Speakeasy" restaurant. They had some great potato waffles for starters, a big bowl for only 5 credits. I was satisfied enough that I returned on Sunday for lunch. After eating, I finally went to get my hotel room around like 6-7pm and relaxed there for a couple of hours before heading off to the evening party. The evening party was pretty packed and I saw a lot of familiar faces there, but the general atmosphere made me feel pretty old. For one, drinking is such a big focus; for two, the music was way too loud for my tastes. I didn't really feel like drinking this weekend so maybe I shouldn't have gone at all. And I hate it when music is so loud that you can't hear what other people are saying. I suppose when going out drinking, some people *prefer* not to listen to their company and just nod and pretend they're listening, but I'm a weird person in that when I go out to socialize, I would actually like to *hear* what is being said. So that was also a bit frustrating. Then again, I did have great company so it compensated for a lot of the negative factors. Anyway, I eventually got back to the hotel and got to sleep around 5 or so, which meant about 38 hours awake, which is close to my record. Got up around 9 in order to make it to the hotel breakfast before it got crowded, so running on about 4 hours of sleep. Decent breakfast. Then a little chilling and a shower. Headed back to the con, bought a heart yuri shirt for the amusement value, said hi to everybody who was hung over from the evening party, I fortunately enough wasn't hung over at all due to a conservative amount of consumption. Hooked up with another friend for lunch at Speakeasy and we made plans to play some City of Heroes once I got home. Grabbed the 4pm train to Turku, slept all but 5 minutes of the trip, grabbed a taxi home because I was too tired to walk ten minutes to the bus stop, got home, played City of Heroes for a few hours, then crashed to sleep, exhausted. Slept 14 hours, woke up, caught up on Facebook and now I'm writing this. Overall definitely an eventful weekend and definitely a worthwhile trip. Current Mood: exhausted

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

March 27th, 2009

11:51 pm - Offline My weekend plans have been confirmed. There's a comic festival in Tampere, about two hours away. If I'd had to go alone I probably would have stayed home and enjoyed some "me" time because god knows I can use some and I feel kind of exhausted. But I'd also asked a friend to come and I just received a "yes" reply so it looks like I'll be heading there after all. No rest for the wicked. Man, I'm really pushing myself with this trying to be social thing. It's very tiring. But I'll probably be glad I went once it's over and the walking and traveling will be behind me. One of the talks I want to hear is on "Character design for comic books", that's as early as noon so I need to hit the train station around 9am at the latest, so it's gonna be a long day ahead of me. Eh, I dislike train travel, it's so dull. I can never concentrate on reading either with the constant noise and people going back and forth and the train stopping and starting all the time. I'll probably take something along though just on the off chance that a miracle will happen and I will be able to concentrate. Hmm, I still haven't read Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" omnibus. As good a choice as any I suppose. Then again, I also recently got John Byrne's "Next Men" hardcover. Hmm, hmm, hmm. Choices, choices, choices. Maybe I'll catch a movie tomorrow evening to relax. Among others, they're showing "Slumdog Millionaire", "Laputa - Castle in the Sky", "Watchmen" and "Valkyrie". My choice would probably be Laputa since Ghibli movies have rarely disappointed me, but I'll have to ask my friend's opinion as well. So anyway, I'm gonna be off over the weekend; I may or may not check in depending on whether there's a public terminal at the hotel, but at the latest I'll be back Sunday evening. Current Mood: tired

(Leave a comment)

(Leave a comment)

March 26th, 2009

05:49 am - Review I've been wanting to gather my thoughts on my condition -- I'm hesitant to call it "depression" because I feel I've noticed some crucial differences from those with genuine depression, but that's a discussion for another day. I wrote a lot about the reasonings behind my condition at the height of the crisis a couple of months ago; it's lessened since then, but I am not healthy yet and I do feel the situation merits keeping an eye on. Back then, I was at about 1%. Nowadays I'm around 20-35% depending on the day, which is a massive difference. One of the things I find most interesting is that a lot of my core thoughts, reasonings and beliefs are still the same. This, to me, implies that they were not prompted or affected by emotional distress but are based on proper logic. They are brain-thoughts, not heart-feelings. The latter I would expect to change as emotional mood improves, but the former I would expect to remain the same. One of those core beliefs that have remained stable despite my mood improving -- and which, therefore, I believe to be based on facts and logic -- is that I am a low-demand commodity. I keep getting rejections: "not social in the right way", "not athletic in the right way", "not sexual in the right way", whoever I talk to it always seems there's something wrong with me, from their perspective. (And it is also notable that it seems that one thing wrong seems to be enough to disqualify me entirely, as if people were looking for perfect 10s.) Whether we're talking the last three months or the last thirteen years, that's a common denominator. I am of a type for which there is oversupply/underdemand. When a company deals with a product that there is no demand for, the product gets cancelled. I'm not willing to be cancelled quite yet, I want to at least give a try to living the summer to the fullest and see if that changes anything. But a long-term solution must be found; things cannot keep going like this. As far as I'm concerned, I can only see three broad-strokes long-term solutions: a) cancellation of product b) product is altered to a form which is more in demand c) a miracle occurs and the product is obtained by a rare consumer who accepts the low-demand product as-is Of these, I think a is ultimately the most likely option to occur one day, b being less likely because permanently altering brain patterns to become a wholly different person is a herculean task to say the least, and c is the least likely of all. It's just a matter of how long we're willing to give the product to achieve either "b" or "c" before we go the "a" route. At the moment I want to try to enjoy life through summer at least if I can manage to do that. If my thoughts are still along the same lines even though my mood has increased from 1% to 25%, then it could be extrapolated that my thoughts would remain the same even if my mood hit 100% if logical thoughts are separate from emotional feelings. However, it will be interesting to continue to monitor the matter and, if I reach milestones at 50% and 75%, to see if my thoughts remain roughly the same at those points as well. Thank god I at least don't feel as bad as I did a couple months back. Continuing to monitor... Current Mood: tired

(22 comments | Leave a comment)

March 25th, 2009

08:35 am - Sleep I wonder why I almost fall asleep on the bus, yet when I get home I'm fine and awake. My hypothesis is that the particular vibrational frequency of the bus resonates with the part of the brain that induces sleep. I wonder if one could build a vibrobed that would match the vibrational frequency and easily put a person to sleep. It could have sensors that detect when one has fallen asleep and then shut off the motors, thus conserving energy. Current Mood: curious

(9 comments | Leave a comment)

06:43 am - Cold Seriously wtf, it's nearly April and it's still throwing -10C (14F) at me. It was trending upwards above the freezing point last week, now it's throwing this crap at me? Give me my spring, dammit! Current Mood: angry

(6 comments | Leave a comment)

March 24th, 2009

(5 comments | Leave a comment)

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

March 19th, 2009

06:00 am - Record I'm really finding it difficult to believe this, but I woke up 18 hours after going to sleep. I've never slept that long. My previous record was like 16 hours, and that was after 42 hours of being awake. This time I hadn't even been awake for particularly long so I have no idea what prompted this. There must be something unusual going on because this is so far off my regular sleep patterns that it can't just be a statistical accident. Well, I can't figure out the cause, but the effect at least hasn't been bad. I met a real nice redhead and we had a fun time together. Plus, 24+ hours without eating got my weight down to a several week low. Maybe this is just a case of not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Current Mood: awake

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

March 16th, 2009

09:33 am - Battery I've used the cell phone battery analogy before and I intend to keep using it. Situation review. Most of Nov and Dec I spent at less than 1%. In retrospect I think that's probably the worst I've ever been. I don't know if it fulfills the official qualifications for a breakdown but it sure felt like one and it looks like one when I think back on it. In Jan I started to very gradually recover and this phase continued to about mid-Feb. It was very slow and I think I reached about 8%. Once Valentine's Day was behind, which was about a month ago, I started recovering faster. In the last month I've gotten up from ~8% to where my mood tends to hover around 25-35%, depending on the day. Yesterday morning I had a bit of a relapse back to sub-10% readings but I'm pulling myself back upwards from it. At the moment, I'm hopeful and optimistic. If I keep charging at the rate of approximately 10%/month then I should hopefully be back to normal around Sep-Oct which hopefully means I'll be able to put some energy to schoolwork next semester. Still not the kind of battery that you'd want to take along if you had an active day ahead of you, but, at least, things are headed upwards; no matter how slowly it is, it's still up. Current Mood: tired

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

March 15th, 2009

07:28 pm - What's Your Personality Type? You Are An INFP The Idealist You are a creative person with a great imagination. You enjoy living in your own inner world. Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships. It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close to you. But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop. In love, you tend to have high (and often unrealistic) standards. You are very sensitive. You tend to have intense feelings. At work, you need to do something that expresses your personal values. You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist. How you see yourself: Unselfish, empathetic, and spiritual When other people don't get you, they see you as: Unrealistic, naive, and weak What's Your Personality Type?

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

March 11th, 2009

10:45 pm - Time God damn it, you guys did it again, didn't you? Changed DST settings at a different time than we do. I was wondering why the stock market closed an hour early. Current Mood: annoyed

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

07:44 pm - Dream Well, that was just about the nicest dream I have had in a long long while. A fancy dinner date with Marina Sirtis, Deanna Troi's actress. Thank you, subconscious, for getting my day started with a smile. Current Mood: happy

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

March 10th, 2009

11:30 pm - Watchmen You know how most of us have things in our lives -- movies, books -- that we really should have read/seen, but somehow always managed to slip through the cracks. For me, that list includes classics like E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Back to the Future, 1984, Citizen Kane...and Watchmen. Well, the movie is now out, and there is a very real chance that I may end up going to see it at a moment's notice any day now. So I figured, it was time to finally read the book. I cannot tolerate having an inferior version -- which the movie is likely to be -- spoil any surprises in the superior version. So I made it a point to read the book before seeing the movie. To facilitate this, I had had the foresight last fall to order the Absolute Edition of the book. It's been sitting around on my shelf, but the other day I finally went through it. I'm not going to give a review of it because I don't feel like it right now (and besides, I feel most everything that there is to say about Watchmen has already been said many times over, given how talked-about it is). I'm just running off at the mouth because I thought I'd mention I finally got around to reading it. I will say that I can see its artistic merits, but personally I have dozens of stories I've enjoyed more (which isn't to say I disliked it by any means). I give it a solid A, but there are lots and lots of A+ books out there, for my tastes at least. What are some of the stories that you've had on your list of must-reads/must-sees for years, but just haven't gotten around to them yet? Current Mood: tired

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

04:53 am - TNG I'm not really a big fan of mundane soap operas, but I have to respect the fact that General Hospital has been continuously on the air for 46 years and running. This popped into my head as an example to illustrate the fact that you don't have to like something in order to respect it. And why I was looking for something to illustrate that, was because of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I mean, I know it's not exactly the best-rated science fiction show in the history of man. You might think it's utterly mediocre, or even outright *bad*. And sometimes it was, I confess that. But a same bunch of people -- a unified cast -- making it to the big screen four times is still a pretty exclusive club in Hollywood. They made four feature films -- that's nothing to sneeze at. Whether you liked them or not, that's still an achievement. Heck, that's as many as there are Rambo movies. Or Indiana Jones movies. And those are pretty notable cultural icons. And TNG managed to squeeze out as many movies as they did. They out-filmed Robocop, Back to the Future, Mad Max, Beverly Hills Cop, Karate Kid and many others solidly ingrained in public memory. Plus, on top of all that, seven years -- almost 200 episodes -- of television. I like to think that it was not a forgettable achievement. That they left some kind of a cultural impact. That some people will still be remembering Picard, Riker, Data and the rest 20 or 40 years from now. Sure, it was a spin-off, and sure, it benefited from being a sequel to The Original Series. But it must have been pulling its own weight, too. You don't last seven seasons and four feature films just by riding somebody else's coattails. I miss that group of people. Current Mood: nostalgic

(Leave a comment)

04:11 am

(Leave a comment)

March 9th, 2009

04:35 pm - Old You know when you're getting old when you go to a store and seriously browse hammers, screwdrivers and toolboxes. Workbenches make me think of fathers who dick around in the back yard. :b Now, on to aligning my field coils... Current Mood: working

(5 comments | Leave a comment)

March 6th, 2009

(Leave a comment)

March 5th, 2009

01:48 pm - ENT 1x25 STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE 1x25 "Two Days and Two Nights" The crew of the Enterprise takes shore leave on the vacation planet Risa and get into all kinds of things. I found the most interesting thing to be the disparate way in which male/female shore leaves were depicted. Trip and Malcolm go to a night club and act like little horny immature teenage boys, get mugged by a couple of trannies and tied up in their underwear humiliatingly. Meanwhile, Hoshi encounters a sensitive intellectual man who shares her interests and they spend time together, have a little fling and part amicably. While I strongly applaud the fact that a woman was shown having a one night stand without being punished for it by the writers, I'm somewhat dismayed at the men being cast as frat boys who needed to be taken down a peg. It used to be women weren't allowed to be sexual without being portrayed as whores, now they're saved but in return it seems men aren't allowed to be sexual without being pigs. I look forward to the day when everybody is allowed to be sexual without being negatively portrayed for it. Another aspect that bugged me about the episode was that one of the actresses (Phlox's love interest) died shortly afterwards of a heart attack, at the age of 36. :( I wish things like these didn't happen. Whenever I read these things it always feels like time is running out for me too. I'm certainly not the healthiest person alive. People say I should just be patient but it's difficult when I see things like this happening around me. None of us is guaranteed we'll live to 50 or 60. How can I not feel pressured to rush when I could die any day? Human bodies suck. I want a robot body. :b It's a shame somebody so talented had to die so young. I really liked her interaction with Phlox, I thought she managed to convey a very convincing chemistry. :( RIP Kellie Suzanne Waymire Current Mood: uncomfortable Tags: reviews, st:ent

(Leave a comment)

08:35 am - ENT 1x23 STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE 1x23 "Fallen Hero" Archer and crew are put on a mission to escort a Vulcan ambassador to Point A while they're being shot at by the ambassador's enemies. This was actually a surprisingly cool episode. Not because the plot was in any way particularly thoughtprovoking or complex (which is the usual reason for getting high marks from me) but because they really pulled off tension-creating in this episode. I mean, we all know the Enterprise won't be destroyed by the enemies, but the episode still managed to get me to the edge of my seat biting my nails during the high speed chase sequence. They managed to make the viewer really feel the strain on the ship and how it was starting to come apart. Managed to get me breathing quicker. And I'm not sure I've ever seen Vulcans come off as badass as they did at the end there. A pretty solid B+ episode. Current Mood: satisfied Tags: reviews, st:ent

(Leave a comment)

02:50 am - ENT 1x21 STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE 1x21 "Detained" Wow, neat. They used subtlety for one scene. I didn't think they could do that on Trek. ;) Otherwise though, this is a pretty painfully heavyhanded parallel of Japanese-American WWII internment camps. Could they be trying any harder to make the situation a direct analogue? I do like that they left a few things open at the end, instead of doing the usual thing where all loose ends are tied up happily. Current Mood: amused Tags: reviews, st:ent

(Leave a comment)

March 4th, 2009

10:25 am - Cartoon HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE 1x01 "Diamond Ray of Disappearance" This show is every bit as awesome as I remember it being. This episode, specifically, was not one for the feminists, though. :) Current Mood: satisfied Tags: he-man, reviews

(Leave a comment)

March 3rd, 2009

(Leave a comment)

March 2nd, 2009

05:44 pm - RP The level of literacy among this one particular messageboard's "roleplayers" makes me want to cry. A pathetic example of what happens when there is no quality control at all. Yes, I admit I am a snob. I suppose I've just been spoiled by MU* roleplaying. Current Mood: irritated

(2 comments | Leave a comment)

February 27th, 2009

(Leave a comment)