Simply put... today sucked. There were certainly a few good moments, but the fact of the matter is that many things seem to be slipping away. Even at work which recently has been an anchor in my life, there have been changes. Ones that I simply don't care for. Yeah, I say I'm ok with it and if things go according to plan none of it will matter, but that is still a big "if".
i have visions of going into a much darker place. further down that road which melancholy has taken me before. not visions really, more like flashes of darkness. momentary deprivation of senses. no light, no outside sounds, no feeling. it is so peaceful, but never lasts for long. questions abound, accusations are made. truths are told.
i get to sleep now. my eyes close and provide me the light to see you again allowing me to awaken for another day. sweet dreams.
Demi and Ashton sittin' in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
Women dating younger men seems to be on the rise. No pun intended. Now I'm not particularly disturbed by this fact unlike the recent trend in the UK of something called
dogging
and is being done in parks throughout the country. What bothers me is that the article was titled "Survey: Women Over 40 Seek Younger Dates" which is darn close to my age bracket *sigh*... but that's not the troubling part. The part that bugs me (besides no 40+ women checking me out) is that the article is being released Monday in the new edition of
AARP, The Magazine. Yeah, the organization for "old people". Or that is at least how I used to categorize them. How on earth did I get to the point where an AARP article sparks any interest at all? Hmmm, maybe I should be holding onto some of these Viagra ads just in case. I should probably ask the
SFSI...
For those like me which have practically no color sense, I stumbled across a great little (and free) tool written in javascript to help you out. It even has suggestions if you are dealing with audiences of folks with common types of color-blindness.
For now, you can color me green with envy.
It has been a while since i've done word association from over at Unconscious Mutterings.
This has got to be the coolest picture frame to date. It is an 8x10 sized digital picture frame (essentially a laptop screen) with a hard drive and a wireless (WiFi) ethernet card.
The current picture frames include a 1.2 GB hard drive for storing photographs that are displayed on the LCD. Part of the space on the drive is reserved for future software upgrades. Wallflower's software includes a drag-and-drop program for transferring photos from a computer to the picture frame via WiFi as well as including configuration options. The highest resolution LCD offered by Wallflower is 1024 x 768. If you (manually) resized your digital camera's larger images to that resolution, you could store about 12,000 photos on the hard drive.
The software even enables you to load URLs and the pages are displayed and refreshed periodically. That's way cool! Imagine having friends over for a get together and you could display the web sites/blogs of your guests, interleaved with photos. Lots of interesting uses.
When @stake got rolling in our around 2000, they seemed like a company that "got it" when they managed to entice Mudge and others in L0pht [Heavy Industries] to team up with them. Mudge and his crew brought a lot to the table for the company, but snagging security expert Dan Geer was quite the coup d'etat. Now they have jettisoned him after he and several other well-known security experts have voiced critical concerns over Microsoft and their software products.
Reliance on Microsoft Called Risk to U.S. SecurityThe report, unveiled at the Computer & Communications Industry Association's meeting of industry leaders and government officials in Washington, D.C., saying that Microsoft is now the number one target for malicious computer virus writers.
The nature of the platform that dominates every desktop everywhere is such that its dominance, coupled with its insecurity, cannot be ignored and is a matter of corporate and national policy. -- Daniel E. Geer, Jr.
I have personally always been impressed with Dan, ever since our conversations back in 1990 (along with Henry Mensch) regarding Project Athena. He's a brilliant man, attacks problems objectively and with clear goals in mind. @stake's release of Geer smells like they've gone totally corporate and are kowtowing to the mighty Microsoft.
I hope the community takes note. I know when I read @stake white papers from now on, I'll be wondering what the writer may have omitted or watered down in order to keep their job.
An '80s icon, Robert Palmer rose to fame on the strength of singles like "Simply Irresistible," "I Didn't Mean To Turn You On" and "Addicted to Love," whose MTV videos featured the singer accompanied by a backup band of babes in shiny black outfits, slicked back hair and bright red lipstick.
Palmer tragically died this morning in Paris, France of a heart attack. He was 54.
Not since their search for the holy grail or the events of April 20, 1979 have we had a need to use such force. But they have returned.
Run for your lives, run for your lives!!!!!!
Fascinating. Deeply challenging. Ennobling. Haven't we all wanted to be a scientist at some point? A mad scientist at least? Oh come on, admit it. It's a job that would make your family proud. Accepting the Nobel Prize, discovering a cure for disease.... being a fart sniffer. Fart sniffer? Yes, well, there are some less impressive jobs out there too. This month's Popular Science has an article on the Worst Jobs in Science. Strip away those imposing titles and advanced degrees and you'll find some rather distasteful and at worst unbearable work. But someone has got to do it.
It has been a while since I've been to the "wanna be on my website" site. I contributed a small story when it first started, but never managed to get back to see newer pictures. On August 10th Caryn submitted an image that captured my attention. I don't know what it is about this image that caught my eye, but it did, so I wrote a short story to accompany it. Actually, mine is the second story, so you'll have to scroll down a little. Mine starts...
I stumble into the house after a night out with the boys having thrown down a few pints over the course of the evening. Now usually she would be fast asleep as I climbed the stairs and headed to bed, but tonight was different.
Why, AC... Icons are just like people. They have certain needs and...
Dating and relationship trends have changed over the years and technology has certainly had a hand in how things are done. The Philadelphia Inquirer had an article today -- Breaking up isn't hard to do: Hit 'send' -- about the regression in dating where couples are looking not just for the clean and easy way of getting into a relationship, but the same in getting out of one.
Ever wonder what a political debate without words would sound like? I never really thought about it myself, but thanks to Language Removal Services, now I know. Sounds like alot of heavy breathing and um.... well, i think you just need to listen for yourself.
Canada is looking much more appealing every day folks....
For the first time since Harris Interactive began asking the question in 1985, more than twice as many people now name professional football (29%) as their favorite sport as mention baseball (13%). Read More...Hockey comes in 8th behind hoops, auto racing, college football, college hoops, and golf. Peaked at 5% in 1994 but has since fallen off to 3%.
Lots of things in the news today. Or perhaps I'm just stretching for things to avoid doing real work. At least some of the things I've come across do apply to work, but of course many don't. Read on...
California Enacts Toughest Anti-Spam Bill
Actually, the
NY Times article about this is much better, but it requires registration. Essentially CA is looking to open up the courts and force marketer's to prove that the recipient explicitely allowed the sender to mail them. I despise spam as much (if not more) than the next guy, but don't our courts have better things to do? The truely problematic spam/uce is being sent from off-shore or hijacked servers anyway. Now whether this gets passed and survives is another matter.
Do Not Call
Along the same lines, a federal judge has ruled that the Federal Trade Commission overstepped its authority in creating the national "do-not-call" list against telemarketers.
Club for Caucasians stirs up Freedom HS
Is it ok to exclude the percieved majority when you're a percieved minority, but it's not okay to exclude the percieved minority when you're the percieved majority? A student attending [ironically] Freedom High School in Oakley, California is battling that issue right now. Gee, now I wonder what my "white boys college fund" would have been met with had I ever earned Bill Gates type money. *sigh*
Another example of this sort "finding it after the fact" phenomenon is Jeremy Z. pointing out the keyboard on amazon priced at a mere $1,000,000.00. He even snagged pictures to prove it. However, this one was not a fark!
I just finished Barrel Fever, a collection of stories and essays by satirist David Sedaris who has delighted me for years with short stories on NPR. I think some of his newer work is better, such as Me Talk Pretty One Day, but I have no real complaints.
In fact, today at lunch I had what I consider a Sedaris moment -- a moment which was similar to something David describes in one of his stories. In Barrel Fever Sedaris describes a time he was a window washer and two window installers came into the room and were "talking shop". As I sat with friends eating my sandwich today, two guys were talking on and on. Well, one was talking on and on, the other was stuck listening a lot.
"When I install PVC, I only use Type M", he said as his companion listened. "I've never used type L and never will", keeping his thought going, "unless I have to. Then it's a case of I install whatever they bring to the job. But when I'm building a house, I only use type M". The tall thin man with the 50's looking glasses wearing paint stained overalls rambled on.... "When I have to do that, I slip it back just past the elbow and apply a little heat and then the epoxy -- that's the way I do it and it lasts forever. Make sure you give it a little twist when you slide the coupling over it too. That makes a big difference you know".I can't even begin to relay some of the jargon I heard from them today. As I shook my head and snickered, one of my lunch companions noted that was what we probably sound like talking about technology. Sigh. Probably so.
And so the last lunch with JEG went -- a final tri-tip sandwich at the Redwood Keg and a Sedaris moment. Pretty fitting actually.
I was a bit skeptical at first, but this flick was a pleasant surprise in the end. Confidence is about a sharp and polished grifter, Jake Vig, that swindles $150k from an unsuspecting mob boss (played by Dustin Hoffman). Rather than trying to hide, Jake and his crew hook up with his past victim to try and pull and even bigger heist.
The movie's flavor was something you might expect from Tarantino, several twists and turns and the timeline periodically moving about. While the movie itself was hardly novel, it's worth the watch especially if you enjoyed movies like "The Usual Suspects" and "Reservoir Dogs".
"Now count to ten and ...."
i've had a few things bouncing around my head for days and weeks now unable to complete the thoughts. fitting don't you think? rather than letting them sit and age hoping for the equivalent of a fine wine, i've set them loose. maybe someday i'll gather them back up and make something of them. maybe someday they'll gobble me up and make something of me.
i close my eyes and all i see, me with you and you with me
two souls apart that should be one, heart beats slowly, it used to runit burns. i yearn. lost track, who's turn?when i listen close, i hear your voice, it's not the sound, it's my choice
fucked life. wrong wife. cuts deep. no knife
i feel the touch, i know the smell. memories strong. my eyes do well
looking left i see the shore, in my arms, wanting much morehold tight. lost sight. trying hard. all my might.
not fair. i do care. i love you so. a life to share.
When I listen to broadcast radio, it is almost always a local NPR station. After a disappointing loss tonight, I got to listen to This American Life on my long drive home. If you get a chance to listen to it (produced 9/19/03), give it a listen -- it should be on their website within the week.
After listening, I've found a new respect for Johnny Cash of all people. His romance with June Carter -- from beginning to end -- was one for the ages. They achieved the seemingly impossible, particularly given the time, their families and backgrounds.
I Fell Into A Burning Ring Of FireAnd if you listen to the show, the lyrics to Ring of Fire will make a lot more sense too. There is quite a bit of irony in Johnny Cash's version to boot, but I'll leave that research to those interested.
I Went Down, Down, Down
And The Flames Went Higher
And It Burns, Burns, Burns
The Ring Of Fire
The Ring Of Fire
I have survived the day, but the night is just beginning. Those that know me can imagine the discomfort of my afternoon spent with 91 strangers. A festive event which also forced me to wear [gasp] pants and a shirt with buttons. I compromised and wore a polo -- and frankly, I think I looked pretty spiffy. The blue was a good color for me today. The hostess hassled me quite a bit -- only like a few people can (and get away with it). As often is the case, it left me wondering...
I'm betting people are forwarding you links just like I get forwarded every day. Some are funny, others try to make a statement. I've included a number that I've gotten recently that for whatever reason, I've decided to share here.
You really know it is time to get away from the computer for a while when you see the Yahoo! News headline Ancient Amazon Settlements Uncovered and immediately wonder who was sued by Amazon and what patent was in violation.
A recent read reminded me of this poem by Earnest Hemmingway.
The age demanded that we sing, and cut away our tongues.
The age demanded that we flow, and hammered in the bung.
The age demanded that we dance
And jammed us into iron pants.
And in the end the age was handed
the sort of shit that it demanded.
since i generally don't find the time on tuesday's to post, perhaps i've gone a bit overboard answering all of these memes today. you be the judge...
Tuesday Top Five Acoustic Songs
Tuesday is Chooseday
Would you rather...
Always be tired OR always be tense?
tired. i'm tense enough as it is.
Have to eat five peach pits OR half a pound of watermelon seeds?
watermelon seeds. smaller!
Always speak in rhyme OR not hear every third word spoken to you?
not hear every third word, i can ask people to work around that.
Eat a small can of cat food OR seven lemons (seeds, pulp, juice, and rind)?
lemons. yum.
b-da, b-da, b-da, b-da.... that's all folks.
Every now and again you run past a post that makes you nod in agreement and makes you wonder why you weren't able to express the same yourself. Today, Patti posted Threaded Circles which does that exactly...
If anybody had ever really asked me the question, at any point, over the last 30 or so years, I probably would have said, "No, I don't like who I am very much." More to the point, I didn't like where circumstances have landed me, and how I have to live my life because of where I am in my life.Unlike Patti, I'm not sure my answer would be much different today, but she has given me something to think about and perhaps I'll be lucky enough to get to that point too.
...more...
Rrrraaaaaarrr! I'm sorry, I just had to let that out. Please. Continue on. There's nothing left to see here. Go ahead. Move along. Shoo!
[grumble, grumble, sass-a-frass'n, grumble]
Jamie Zawinski always manages to dig up some interesting things. His post this afternoon definitely caught my eye when it quoted:
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
Pretty interesting huh? In typical jwz fashion, he also includes a bit of code for generating scrmabled text to test the hypothesis. Apparently this idea/message is floating around in various forms, but it's still pretty cool.
the days continue to pass, but not one of them goes by without my mind wandering. my memories of past days and future desires are reflected in everything i see and do. i can hardly watch a television show without there being a reminder... songs sing out to me from nowhere... conversations overheard at lunch... even the occasional spam whispers...
i swear some minutes i think i'm going insane. even the word "nudge" has changed for me, albeit only in pronunciation. so much has changed, but has it been enough?
here are a few things that are floundering about my head that i've been unable to shake. i'm not even sure i want to...
I've said some things I'd rather not have and have pushed her away. Despite that she has remained the voice in my head. A voice I've been unable to drown out. One I don't want to drown out.
My jaw dropped to the floor as I sat on the couch staring at the time, wanting it to move more quickly. "This isn't a suggestion or recommendation", she said keeping her voice very professional, "just something to think about and I'll tell you why. You stay here and continue as normal, AC, you go off to [location omitted] and see how it goes." My heart raced -- "Did I just hear what I thought I heard", I thought quietly to myself as I sat there trying not to smile at the very idea. She continued, "Why? Because I would bet that within 6 months, probably less, the excitement would wear off and ..."
Listen, late last night, I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi took my girl away
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
"I read this note", she said, "it's so sad. The person sounds very sad and unhappy. It makes me want to cry". I sat stunned.
I enjoy quotes, particularly ones that help me express how I feel or an opinion I have at the moment. This Mark Twain quite was recently given to someone else and it caught my eye -- "Never try to teach a pig to sing it wastes your time and annoys the pig". I'm not quite sure what to think about that.
So I watched the movie Two Weeks Notice last night. I'm not sure how or why I picked that movie, but I did and [*gasp*] I enjoyed it. Generally speaking, Sandra Bullock is a turn-on for me, so the risk of seeing this chick-flick was pretty minimal, but as it turned out it I identified (in small ways) with several parts of the movie. The helicopter ride drew a tear, not because it was sad, but because I recognized some rather special sites. Thankfully there was nobody to notice and tease me.
It was one of those movies that I'm probably seeing and reading far too much in, such as my fear that I identified with George Wade (played by Hugh Grant) in the movie a bit too much. Not the charming and wealthy part -- the sadly irresponsible and his wit.
Lucy Kelson: You are the most selfish human being on the planet!
George Wade: Well that's just silly. Have you met everyone on the planet?
Lastly, since weeks end on Fridays and with my more personal posts still in draft, I figured I may as well post up my answers to this weeks
friday five.
Well, they say deaths come in threes, so we have another threesome. Edward Teller a few days ago and now Johnny Cash dies at the age of 71 followed by John Ritter at a mere 54 years of age.
So I'm told at WWYS -- Your soul is worth £7611. For your peace of mind, 87% of people have a purer soul than you. Hmmmm. That converts to $12,137.25 ($16,626.13 Canadian for my friends up north). Anyone know of some sort of soul-cleaner product out there so I can increase the value and sell this puppy on Ebay?
Get your your own quote at WWYS.
Who will save your soul when it comes to the flower
Who will save your soul after all the lies that you told, boy
Who will save your soul if you won't save your own?
-- Jewel
In remembrance of 09/11/2001
Voices, Stories from 9/11 and Beyond
Photos from Now, Voyager
i've tried very hard to be good, to do good. one would think things couldn't get worse, but it does. i've stepped back from my best friend and love of my life.
with a cyndi lauper tune now running through my head, one would think it doesn't get worse, but it does. some rather personal writing was discovered and dropped on my desk this morning. enotalone.com. well, i guess not.
the skeletons in my closet parade out one by one leaving said closet nearly empty, one would think it doesn't get worse, but it does. you find that your daughter is now cutting.
Sadness does not inhere in things; it does not reach us from the world and through mere contemplation of the world. It is a product of our own thought. We create it out of whole cloth.
-- Emile Durkheim
Edward Teller, who worked on developing the first atomic bomb and played a key role in the U.S. defense and engergy policies for more than half a century passed away yesterday at his home on the Stanford University campus.
He was a member of the Manhattan Project that created the first atomic bomb and later emerged as the foremost champion of the vastly more destructive hydrogen bomb. Teller was also a vocal advocate for creating a second national laboratory -- Lawerence Livermore Labs.
As reported by Yahoo! News...To see life as it is, rather than how it should be -- that is madness!
Don Quixote, in Man of LaMancha, from Cervantes
You are on a journey today, selflessly considering the needs of others and doing everything you can to bring loved ones the comfort they need in such distressing times. Be strong in your efforts and while I know it isn't top on your list right now... please, take care of yourself. All of your friends and those that love you so dearly will be thinking good thoughts for you and your family. May enough of that energy reach you and help carry you though to do the things you need to do.
Recently I was asked to take the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II and the results were as expected. Like the Myers-Briggs, I came out as an INTP. This time; however, I got far more feedback about the weight of the scores, what some of the classifications mean and how my personality may be effecting my life and relationships.
Here are some of the things my evaluator highlighted for me to consider. To make some of the quotes make sense, I'm a Rational / Architect.
Architects are, however, even-tempered, compliant, and easy to live with -- that is, until one of their principles is violated, in which ase their adaptability ceases altogether. They prefer to keep their desires and emotions to themselves, and may seem insensitive to the desires and emotions of others, an insensitivity that can puzzle and frustrate their mates. But if what their mates are feeling is a mystery to them, Architects are keenly aware of what their mates actually say and do, and will often ask their mates to give a rationale for their statements and actions. (pg. 207).
...rather, dating for Rationals is a sometimes difficult search for a person they deem worthy of their personal investment. ...Once Rationals have made their search and decided on a mate, they are unlikely to have a change of mind. (pg. 241)
...they come face to face rather quickly with a major problem in their marriages. It is frequently, and sadly, the case that Rationals are misunderstood on one important point by their spouses, who will accuse them of being cold and unemotional, and of seeming distand and unconcerned with their welfare. NTs, for their part, are amazed that their way of relating and loving can be seen by their mates as aloof or uncaring, for they know what powerful passions surge within them, and how keenly interested they are in their mates.
... But there's the rub, because many husbands and wives feel humiliated having to ask their Rational mates to pay attention to them, or give time to the family. They want their Rational mates to think of them and care about them of their own volition, without having to be remineded -- as a spontaneous expression of love. And so they will wait with growing anger for the NT to offer interest of affection, and when this fails, they will accuse them of thoughtlessness or indifference. This is an all-too-common impasse in Rational marriages. (pg. 243)
So there we have it. Now I have to go find this book so I can see what my best pairing is, the photocopy of pages I have begin to compare the pairings, but is far from complete.
So, what temperament are you?
For more information about this "stuff", check out www.keirsey.com.
I haven't done a meme in a while and they can often be a good distraction, so here goes my Three for Thursday, this weeks topic is Kissing.
Sometime before 37 B.C., the Roman poet Virgil penned the words Amor vincit omnia which translates to "love conquers everything". With no fault of anyone other than myself, I'm left feeling a bit of a fool for believing too strongly in this axiom.
Lest I make it sound otherwise, love does conquer.
It allowed me to put aside many fears and to share more than I ever considered possible. To share intimate thoughts, dreams, and desires. To do things I would otherwise thought to be impossible. That ability alone, my dear readers, is worth the price of admission alone.
Of note Virgil also said -- "Fortune favors the brave", which are not words that bode well for an anonymous coward such as myself.
Ya know. There is AA if you hit the booze, DA if you are stuck on drugs, and even SA if you are addicted to sex -- dontcha think there should be an LA. Well, an LA that isn't a city in southern California filled with all the other single letter followed by an A types. eh?
Hi. My name is AC and I've been in love.
Hi AC
It has been about 14 hours since I told her that I loved her.
Hang in there man. You can do it.
I'm on the wagon now. Do they call it a wagon because it's so damn uncomfortable? Love train would have sounded better and more comfortable, but I guess that's not the point. Anyway, I'm sitting on the edge of this wagon and despite voices in my head screaming otherwise, it is probably for the best. I'm sure I'll fall off from time to time. Who am i fooling? I'll probably jump off a couple of times.
I'm not bitter. I wish her only the best. If there is such a thing as fate or destiny, then what has happened was supposed to and if it was meant to be, it still will. What is clear is that it wasn't meant to be today. Who knows, maybe it's never, maybe it's tomorrow or somewhere in between.
Lastly, as i move forward, backwards, and sideways, if you are anticipating me naming names and otherwise filling you in on all the juicy details -- forgetaboutit.
I wanna be loved by you,
just you and nobody else but you
I wanna be loved by you
alone poo poo pi doo
I wanna be kissed by you
just you, nobody else but you
I wanna be loved by you
I couldn't aspire
To anything higher
Then to fill a desire
to make you my own