nessus's Diaryland Diary
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I was born with the wrong sign, in the wrong house, with the wrong ascendancy.
I fucking love music.
It's what makes this all worth while.
From Kate Micucci parodying contemporary pop music (This Party Took A Turn For The Douche) to well-produced melodic dance music (Feel It In My Bones) to Depeche Mode songs that are inextricably linked to their respective music video in my mind (Wrong).
Particularly electronic music. Just the thickness and the purity and simplicity of synthesized sounds.
What I don't appreciate is ghettoization of electronic music. The advent of sequencing was a double edged sword. It (potentially) allows for incredibly lush compositions, but it also robs music of vitality and spontaneity, and so it isn't at all suited to live performance.
I feel like electronic music's still in its infancy, almost a century later.
5:05 p.m. - 2012-01-27
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Ouroboros (Part Fifteen)
He awoke to find her standing at the foot of his bed. She was on fire.
He wanted desperately to look away but could not. Her mouth moved but he couldn't make out any sound and the conflagration burned in silence without consuming.
The closet behind her shifted, gradually morphing into a narrow brick-lined hallway, stretching into infinity, illuminated by a sickly green glow at its derivation barely visible beyond the stacked cardboard boxes and a curtain of t-shirts emblazoned with Japanese cartoon characters. A humid sulfurous breath wafted from the hall as it solidified.
There was stillness and then abruptly Sydney was thrust violently backwards, her arms outstretched towards him, her mouth a perfect O, a look of terror upon her face glimpsed briefly before she receded rapidly down the hall like a candle dropped down a well until all that was visible was the feeble green glow.
Will struggled to right himself, still tied to the bed frame straining against his handcuffs before collapsing. He reached down and probed the tenderness just below his ribs, the source of his discomfort. For the first time he felt something beneath the skin, a mass. He looked up. A strange sound emanated from the hall.
Something was approaching from the point where Sydney had vanished. A small black silhouette against the preternatural glow. He watched it for some minutes.
It had a halting, inhuman gait, as it scuffled towards him. As it drew nearer detail resolved.
A robot, its “face” obscured, massive antlers sprouted from its head, scraping the brick walls as it moved towards him, creating the sound that reverberated off the damp stone walls.
It emerged from the closet, towering over him looking like nothing less than a pagan idol. It wore a mask of human skin, and from beneath its eyes shone white. And on its chest, crudely scrawled in blood, spelled out “OAIE”.
The machine stood there motionless.
He looked at his handcuffs and back to the robot. It remained still.
“Set me free.” he commanded tentatively.
He cringed as the machine reached over, grasped each cuff in astonishingly human-like hands, and effortlessly rent the shackles in two. Then it stepped back, assuming its previous station.
Cautiously, Will rose to his feet. He gave the robot a wide berth as he made his way over to the closet, his eyes never leaving the machine. It did not react.
After he was reasonably certain the robot would not pursue, he turned his attention to the hallway. The rounded bricks sweat condensation. Small puddles formed between the cobblestones in the floor.
For what seemed like hours he walked, the only sound his echoing foot falls, announcing his presence.
The tunnel grew even narrower and shorter, and eventually he was forced to crouch to proceed. The unnatural light ebbed and flowed, and at points he found himself plunged into Stygian gloom, unable to see his hand in front of his face. But the light returned, and the constriction eased and eventually he came to a massive wooden door with iron braces ending in fleurs-de-lis. There was nothing else to do. He grasped the wrought iron handle and pulled.
A vast room lay beyond, and in its center a colossal demon sat upon a Mephistophelian throne crafted from a thousand human skeletons.
6:38 a.m. - 2012-01-26
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Married To The Eiffel Tower
http://vimeo.com/19783541
Such a weird thing; women in what they consider to be loving and sexual relationships with inanimate objects such as the Berlin Wall or the Eiffel Tower.
Just thinking of it from an anthropological perspective.
I mean, yeah it's weird, but it doesn't hurt anybody and it makes them happy. Most of them seem to be able to function in society, more or less. One of the women became an Olympic gold medalist archer as a result of the attraction she felt towards her bow.
Also strange that the phenomenon is apparently restricted to women, all self-identified OS are female.
I'm interested in any relation it may have with autism, and non-traditional interactions and communication with the world.
It occurs to me that it may be connected with an over developed sense of aesthetic, as form and architecture seem to be a major component of their attraction. And aesthetic itself is such a nebulous concept to begin with.
Looking ahead I wonder what, if any, implications this might have for the inevitable development of sex doll robots of increasing sophistication and realism, though that has been traditionally a domain of males.
And it may be easy to just dismiss all of this, but I am a strong believer in the primacy of the quiet quest humans are engaged in to find some meaning and joy in an otherwise cold and indifferent universe. And I imagine each one of us has some sexual proclivity that others would find repulsive or weird or silly.
We are all just animals, governed largely by base instinct, and we do a lot of things that don't make sense in a desperate effort to satisfy these various psychological compulsions, and so long as they do not harm anyone else and remain non-coercive I have no problem with them.
And yes I realize if I want to be consistent I should really lay off making fun of furries, even if I find their particular fetish profoundly stupid at times. I know I'm far from perfect.
1:50 p.m. - 2012-01-25
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Polkaroo!
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1119315--leo-howard-coneybeare-86-polka-dot-door-creator-remembered-for-quick-wit
Reading the obituary of a man I must confess I was never truly aware of (even if I was quite familiar with his artistic output) I was struck by how casually they treated the fact of his homosexuality, and ideally that would be how the subject would always be approached.
Here was a man who simply met another person with whom to share his life, to stave off the loneliness of existence in this indifferent universe before returning to inanimateness.
From the obituary it sounds like they were deeply in love. They were together for 40 years and seemingly it was love at first sight, and all this was at a time in history when being gay was even less accepted, even more dangerous.
In 2007 after being together for over four decades they were finally allowed to be married, an important symbol to both of them.
Then his husband passed away in 2010, and I can't help but think at least he didn't have to separated from the man he loved for very long.
And to me this obituary's matter of fact presentation of this gay man's life highlighted why the recent furor over the ambiguity surrounding gay marriage laws in Canada was so damn important to so many people.
And why I will never fucking accept any excuses for anything less than total equality under law for gay couples, and for homosexuals, bisexuals, or transgendered people in general in our society. No separate but equal bullshit. No way in which the law legally defines one person as being different from another based solely on their sexual orientation.
And why I cannot wait to see the day when hateful people like Rick Santorum find absolutely no purchase for their bigoted rhetoric from any right-thinking individual. A day when those views are consigned to history and as difficult to conceive of as opposition to interracial marriage is today.
12:20 a.m. - 2012-01-24
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I think I may try to write my "Stargate" story idea. Change the names, and maybe do it up as a graphic novel if I can find an artist.
10:36 p.m. - 2012-01-22
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This is a really cool documentary of a group of people who spent a year living in Iron Age conditions, completely self-sufficient.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRs-zRoBIc4
5:44 a.m. - 2012-01-22
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Signatures fold in octavo.
Made a SoundCloud for my band:
http://soundcloud.com/the_ennui
Has rough mixdowns of two songs that will be on the album, as well as live recordings and demos.
12:56 a.m. - 2012-01-20
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Ouroboros (Part Fourteen)
A cartoon demon sat on top of the diner napkin holder in front of him, a worried expression on its face. He disinterestedly watched his own face in chrome reflection of the napkin dispenser.
Light brown skin, messy black hair. A week's worth of stubble. Personal hygiene had been neglected in the weeks following Sydney's death.
Removing his HMD (the demon vanished), he rubbed his eyes and sighed. People would always ask him why he was wearing eye-liner and he'd long since grown tired of explaining that he wasn't; his eyes were just naturally like that. Often he'd just walk away.
He fixed the collar of the button-up dark grey shirt he wore, and with his sleeve he wiped the fingerprints from the lenses of his HMD and after replacing them dismissed a reminder for a missed appointment.
The remainder of the school year passed quickly, though he was scarcely aware of anything going around him. A fly landed on the back of his hand and it was some moments before he shooed it away.
Eventually he was able to mourn, though he still found himself doing a double take any time he saw a girl with blonde hair like hers. On the bus. Walking down the street. It was terribly uncanny.
Alone at night he'd lose any semblance of composure whenever he found something of hers stashed away in his dorm room. Finally, the cinder block walls were mercifully absent of photos of them together.
Friends had tried to help, but there was little anyone could do. They brought pizza and tried to rouse him out of his stupor with irreverent comedies.
Two weeks after the funeral he was sitting in a 50s diner, trying and failing to focus on the graphic novel in front of him while toying with the last of his sourdough toast. He fussed with a grease stain on the corner of one of the pages as the fly buzzed around his head.
Boston Dynamics had being trying to contact him for the past week. He'd instructed his Agent, Belial, to ignore any incoming calls from them and any digital correspondence remained unread. Now the Agent stared at him apprehensively, superimposed over reality through the magic of AR, appearing six inches tall.
Behind him a robot waiter shuffled awkwardly along the black and white checkered tile, refilling patrons' coffee, never spilling a drop for all its blundering. It was done up in the style of a 1950s b-movie sci-fi robot, somehow matching the diner's aesthetic despite the anachronism. It stopped at his table.
“WOULD. YOU. LIKE. MORE. TEA. SIR?” Its voice was a halting synthesized monotone, quite unlike contemporary models. A white light behind its “mouth” pulsed as it spoke. He looked up into its square face. The fly had landed on one of its “eyes” and was assiduously grooming itself.
And something inside him snapped.
“FUCK OFF!” He thrust his chair back violently and stood up. He grabbed the napkin dispenser (and Belial tumbled off onto the table—the attention to detail was superb) and threw it at the robot's head. It bounced off harmlessly. Then he shoved the robot as hard as he could and it staggered backwards but remained upright. Everyone in the diner was staring at him and the cook and one of the human waitresses had emerged from the kitchen. He stood there breathing hard for a few moments before walking out of the restaurant.
Outside it was cool, having rained earlier that afternoon. Homeless and unemployed lined up around the block for the soup kitchen across the street. The next block a building wide display ran an ad for the latest 3D printer boasting an unbeatable resolution and improved consistency.
He glanced down, the demon was at his feet, having followed him out of the diner. Behind him the waitress was trying to politically explain the necessity of paying for his meal but her voice was a buzzing in his ear.
Then something changed. It was a subtle shift in the middle of the afternoon. The faux neon “OPEN” signs in the windows of various businesses blinked out. And the traffic lights went dark. The cars in the automatic lane skidded to a halt. He looked and the advertisement was gone.
And in the corner of his vision was a blinking message: “NO SIGNAL”
9:15 a.m. - 2012-01-19
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http://io9.com/5876698/meet-55-cancri-e--the-oozing-exoplanet
55 Cancri e - Sorta like a gas giant, except composed of supercritical fluids - essentially a state of matter half-way in between liquid and gas.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8968840/Earth-twin-Kepler-20f-detected-orbiting-star.html
Kepler-20f - same size as Earth, but orbits closer to its star than Mercury does to Sol, and resultantly is about as hot as Venus. Kepler-20e in the same system is even hotter.
http://www.astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/News/2007/08/Largest%20extrasolar%20planet%20found.aspx
TrES-4 - gas giant 70% larger than Jupiter.
So it's looking more and more like there are (at least) hundreds of radically different types of planets and moons.
It's so strange to me that there could be that much variety with what would seem to be relatively similar initial conditions (thickening of the interstellar medium collapsing into a star, burning off much of the matter and leaving behind the detritus).
The variety within the our own solar system astounds me.
Earth, just right for liquid water, temperate, full of life.
Mars, cold, but still possessing an atmosphere and weather patterns.
Jupiter, gas giant, radiates more energy than it absorbs from Sol.
Uranus/Neptune, "ice giants", with a slushy fluid mix of water, ammonia, and methane.
Europa, liquid water ocean beneath many miles of ice.
Io, most volcanically active body in the solar system.
Titan, thick atmosphere, liquid methane rain and oceans, extremely active "hydrological" (hydrocarbonological?) system.
1:39 a.m. - 2012-01-18
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Compiled everything I've written so far:
Beyond The Pillar Of The Shadow Of The Earth
Part 1: http://www.slolum.com/ACOELOUSQUEADCENTRUM.html
Part 2: http://www.slolum.com/Ouroboros.html
4:52 a.m. - 2012-01-16
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The recent uproar over same sex marriage in Canada may have been the result of shoddy sensationalist journalism on the part of the Globe And Mail, but I think the result can only be described as positive: 1. Any and all ambiguity surrounding such marriages has been clarified, and the laws are actually going to be amended to grant even more freedom to such couples, 2. The Canadian people sent a very strong message to the Conservatives that they will not tolerate any attempts to repeal those freedoms, and if any Conservative MPs had been toying with the idea they certainly are no longer.
5:29 a.m. - 2012-01-14
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Watched a bunch of Stephen Fry In America.
It's just so beautiful all the ways to be human.
Also neat seeing the US from an outsider's perspective, like how I would experience it.
I've only been along the west coast: Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Montana, Idaho. All the States I've been to are touching.
Interesting the very real ways in which the United States is exceptional, unique, not all of them good.
5:13 a.m. - 2012-01-12
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I feel like that entire facet of my existence is just fading away, like an emaciated skeleton composed of filaments sitting in a neglected room. It has no relevance to my life. Increasingly it's not even that I'm lonely, because lonely would imply the possibility of something else. I have these dim recollections I cling to, what it feels like to be caressed, to embrace, but they are quickly becoming caricatures of human interaction, informed by their pop culture manifestations more than anything.
9:13 p.m. - 2012-01-11
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Ouroboros (Part Thirteen)
His throat was raw and he could taste iron.
He had spent most of the day screaming. Still no response. He reckoned it had been at least a day now since he'd last heard from the inhabitants of the farmhouse. He thought he heard a thump and perhaps some moaning originating from upstairs some time around noon, though he might have imagined it.
The robot passed by his window frequently throughout the day and would stare at him blankly when he ordered it to free him; evidently it had been instructed to disregard his commands. Even the robot had now retired to its recharge station beneath the tarpaulin for the evening.
The handcuffs offered just enough slack that he could stand next to the bed. Thus was he able to relieve himself in a wastepaper basket and wasn't forced to lay in a soiled bed, though he hadn't eaten much anyways. The watery porridge the night before had been the first thing he'd eaten in... four days, he realized. The smells of the rabbit cooking upstairs the previous night had been maddening.
The numbness in his extremities had returned. Dangerously low blood sugar had effortlessly conjured a migraine and spectral auras superimposed over his FOV like some queer breed of psychedelic AR. The ache on his right side below the ribs was still there. It had never left.
He couldn't think of anything he could potentially use to remove the handcuffs.
It was conceivable that he might drag the welded steel bed frame across the room to the door, but he strongly suspected the door was locked, and besides, he doubted whether he possessed even the strength to manage even that.
His mind wandered.
8:10 a.m. - 2012-01-10
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Decided on a title for my book:
Beyond The Pillar Of The Earth's Shadow
It will be divided up into three sections:
I. A COELO USQUE AD CENTRUM
II. Ouroboros
III. The Life Of Alim Ansari
7:56 a.m. - 2012-01-10
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So I've decided to just start writing the new story even as I struggle to organize the ending of the last one.
8:59 a.m. - 2012-01-09
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I have a hard time expressing how much I hate people like Rick Santorum. These people are fueled by nothing more than bile, fear, and hate. There is nothing positive in them. I cannot wait until people like him are consigned to history.
3:31 a.m. - 2012-01-07
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Saw David Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Really good movie. Went in to it intentionally not knowing anything about the series.
The story surrounding the author is almost as interesting; he was a revolutionary communist, helped train an all-female squad of Ethiopian guerrilla fighters, received death threats from far right neo-Nazi groups, was a huge sci-fi fan and his first stories were actually science fiction, and wrote the 3 books in the Millennium trilogy and died before they were even published.
***
I have not been having a good week. Contracted food poisoning somehow, and spend the entire night throwing up (it's been years since I last threw up and I had forgotten how thoroughly unenjoyable it is).
Since then I've had persistent digestive issues and if they don't end soon I may go see a doctor.
***
A friend I haven't seen in years came over and I finally had a chance to try out Dead Space: Extraction for Wii. It's a really good game. Technically a light gun game, but it doesn't feel like it. Feels way more fleshed-out, and is seemingly quite lengthy; we had to stop when he went home.
Then I watched an animated movie set in the same universe. They put a lot of effort into establishing the canon for that game (the original Dead Space).
7:06 a.m. - 2012-01-06
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That wasn't fun.
Got food poisoning. Threw up a lot. I ache.
Went to the archery range the following day still feeling pretty awful, but had made plans to go with friends.
Now feeling a little better.
1:07 a.m. - 2012-01-04
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Made quite a bit of progress with the villain and what technologies I want to explore in the new story.
I think I can build a fairly believable antagonist who has reasons for doing what they are doing. Also how they are able to.
5:56 a.m. - 2012-01-02
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I want to fucking tear you apart.
Can't remember the last time I had New Year's off.
I know I had 2000 off because I remember calling my friend to inform her that the world did not end.
But beyond that...
Working tonight at Hi Fi, but I have next week off. Should be good for some archery and video games.
Sorta looking forward to having some time off this month, even if it means finances will be a little tighter.
Hopefully finish recording the Ennui album then hand it off for mixing/mastering.
Put a bunch more books on my KoBo Touch ebook reader last night. Bought one book off of Amazon without realizing that they are loaded with DRM. Was able to find a program to remove the DRM, however, so I could convert it to .epub format.
Don't really feel bad about downloading ebooks because almost all of them are stuff I legitimately own or are by authors who are dead. My favorite author alone I've bought the hardcovers of his last 8 books when they came out.
I *like* supporting artists. Just not so much publishers/record labels. If I can buy something directly from the artist I always do.
6:23 p.m. - 2011-12-31
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Been playing Zelda. Looks like I'm going to have a lot of free time this month: so far only one non Friday/Saturday gig in January that I'm aware of. I've also bought a ton of games from the Steam Holiday Sale already, so I should try to work through some of my backlog. My total library on Steam has to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 120 games now.
My room mate/my sister's boyfriend just got his bow back from his sister's place so we're gonna try to get down to the archery range at some point. He's also offered to help me get my gun registration/licensing; even though he's vegetarian now he used to hunt and has a couple of guns (including a .30-06) being stored at his dad's. I just want a .22. I'd be lying if I said that part of the motivation isn't for when civilization collapses, but it's also fun just to shoot, and way easier than archery.
Yup.
4:51 a.m. - 2011-12-30
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I shouldn't have had those hamburgers...
7:06 p.m. - 2011-12-29
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Y'know what? I want hamburgers.
5:08 a.m. - 2011-12-29
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More cool story ideas, including the phrase "The Shadow Of God On Earth". I'm thinking the chapters for the third part will each have titles, and at least some of them will include quotes.
Building up the transhumanist character as a foil for a being that is truly transcendent.
Trying to get a feel for each character's motive, what they want. Going to be tough juggling multiple time periods, epic grandiose plot lines, and more personal experiences with emotional resonance.
7:34 p.m. - 2011-12-27
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Bought an Aperture Science shower curtain. Should fit the decor a little better than the periodic table one I'm currently using.
Didn't go for a walk on Christmas Eve this year. Circumstances were different; the house wasn't empty, we have a house guest and my room mates aren't out of town.
Been playing The Missing Link DLC for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Pretty good so far, though I can't help but feel that it would have been better reintegrated into the main story.
Story ideas continue to swirl. Thinking one of the characters will function as a believer in transhumanism, despite my own personal misgivings. I'd like to try to do a slightly different take on it.
Steam Holiday Sale hasn't been great this year, but there's still a few more days to go, so we'll see.
4:30 a.m. - 2011-12-26
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So the US Navy did its traditional first kiss thing and for the first time ever it was two women. I don't mean to downplay the significance of that fact, and the progress it represents.
Both girls are fairly conventionally attractive, which is to say they fit rather well into the popular Maxim-influenced lesbian male fantasy.
Now, I don't know what the previous couples looked like. I imagine the Navy consciously picks photogenic people for this thing. So the Navy is probably acting consistently here.
But that particular male fantasy bothers me, though I'm not suggesting anyone who subscribes to it is a bad person or doing something wrong or should feel guilty.
But in my experience it tends to be heavily fetishized, and the women who recreate it in mainstream pornography are almost never actual lesbians.
Which establishes this precedent. This manufactured ideal.
I could be way off base here, but I'm strongly tempted to interpret the highly fetishized lesbian fantasy as a dismissal of genuine lesbians' sexual orientation, because men seemingly never fail to find a way to insert themselves into that scenario, at least in their mind. I don't mean to imply any of this is conscious or deliberate, but I think that could be a result.
I mean, "hot lesbians" are generally socially acceptable.
But notice how that first kiss was not a pair of guys. It represents progress, but we have a ways to go.
3:53 a.m. - 2011-12-22
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I know I should be concentrating on my current story but lately I've been spending time plotting the new one.
Figuring out all the characters, their names, trying to do a better job of fleshing out their personalities ahead of time; if the reader is meant to like these characters why would you want to be friends with them if they were real people? What are their politics? Favorite food, even? I'm finding it somewhat difficult to manufacture charisma, though.
Spending time on Google Maps trying to get a better idea of where everyone is in relation to one another, how long it would take them to travel from one place to another.
I've been fortunate that most of the setpieces that I had a vague desire to include based purely on aesthetics will probably fit rather organically into the whole (ie: offshore windfarm, iceberg ship, an aviation boneyard that is less than an hour's drive from Mojave, etc.)
I've decided that all 3 stories will be collected into one volume, and that that will serve as a single novel with 3 stylistically dissimilar parts.
First part is told entirely linearly and from the perspective of a single character.
Second part alternates back and forth between present and flashbacks, but still only a single character's perspective.
And the third part will be from multiple perspectives and will likewise oscillate between past and present, in fact 3 different time periods.
Yup.
3:22 a.m. - 2011-12-21
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So ronery.
Not much of a victory when a tyrant dies of being fat and living a pampered lifestyle while traveling in a heated train car undoubtedly surrounded by obscene luxury. A man who ate caviar while his countrymen literally starved to death, not just for a few difficult years, but for decades.
The idea that tyrants get what they deserve is nice, but all too infrequently borne out by history.
So while bin Laden and Gaddafi died in an appropriately pathetic manner, justice never caught up with that little fuck.
1:47 a.m. - 2011-12-19
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Happiness V Saddness.
In addition to sound some of my duties include lights and multimedia at my one job.
We have two DVD players and a video mixer with effects we use to combine two different sources (I still have no idea what the difference between a chroma key and luminance key is) to be played on two projectors we have set up.
Often we'll have cartoons playing. Lately we've been showing a lot of anime, namely Akira, Ghost In The Shell, and Ninja Scroll. Sometimes I'll put on old Max Fleischer cartoons like Superman, Betty Boop, and Popeye.
I'm not sure where these DVDs come from, but they just show up and I play them because I get sick of the old ones.
Which is all a very convoluted way of explaining why I am now downloading the old 80s Transformers movie because it randomly showed up at work and I put it on (but at work obviously I can't hear any of the dialogue so I still have no idea about the plot). I remember some of the imagery quite vividly from my childhood, but none of the character names and again nothing about the story. In fact I wasn't even sure I had seen the movie as a kid because I honestly couldn't remember anything about it.
So yeah, things are alright. We painted the living room/jam space and it looks nice. Work is going well. I'm more comfortable with myself and confident in my choices than at any other point in my life.
But the loneliness is still there. I mean, at this point it's pretty much become background noise, I'm so used to it. I don't know why it's so hard to meet new people, and I suspect it will only become harder as I get older.
I've gotten to the point where I don't second guess myself when I decide not to pursue one of the very rare instances where a girl responds to one of my messages on OKCupid, because I know it wouldn't work out. If, after 3 dates, we still are unable to manage a decent conversation it's never going to happen, and I will not settle for a relationship where we can't even have a substantial conversation.
Really that is my only prerequisite, everything else, like finding goth/punk girls cute, or redheads, or Arab or Indian or Métis girls attractive, all of that is just superficial. Sure, it'd be nice, but that's by no means a requirement or even something I actively consider while trying to meet people.
Oh well. I guess I'll watch Transformers then bed.
3:26 a.m. - 2011-12-17
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Well, Hitchens is dead. Not surprising. Cancer is a hell of a disease.
I dunno, he was definitely the most abrasive of the "new atheists" (he was 62 years old). Personally I felt he pushed the envelope farther than strictly necessary (I'll always remember his cheeky suggestion that Abrahamic prohibitions against pork originated in trying to stem cannibalism) though that could have had something to do with his proud deceleration of "antitheism".
Conversely he was one of the few voices in the secular community that gave equal time to eastern religions in his condemnations. So he was nothing if not consistent.
His support for the Iraq War owed more to that consistency than any love for neoconservatism, and he noted that he was despised by both the left and the right political establishment.
I respected his willingness to admit he was wrong when faced with evidence to the contrary, his famous about face on the subject of waterboarding being a great example.
11:28 p.m. - 2011-12-15
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I'm hot gossip.
For some reason I find the Robots In Disguise album Get RID really nostalgic, even though I only heard it for the first time earlier this year.
It's a nice feeling.
Some strange interactions with humans these past few weeks:
-some asshole walks up to me at work and asks me if I love my parents. He has a bet going with his friends and I guess my haircut/clothes mean I must have had a messed up childhood. Or something. He must live a rather sheltered existence if I'm his idea of a freak. The bassist from K-Os overheard and couldn't believe it. Then we talked about Skinny Puppy because he's friends with Dave "Rave" Ogilvie.
-on two separate occasions while in Vancouver old people came up to me to ask directions to the Skytrain. Apparently me with a mohawk and big black leather trench coat was the most approachable person there. Also funny because I don't really know the Skytrain system, at all.
9:27 a.m. - 2011-12-12
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She's in the bathroom, she pleasures herself.
Went to Vancouver.
Bus ride there was decent. Watched all of Archer season 2 for the first time on my iPod. Works surprisingly well in the context of a long bus ride.
Was cool having cell service in Vancouver. Because I'm with Wind, it's exactly the same in any city that has Wind coverage, so no roaming charges or anything. Coverage was really good too, only ever dropped in subway tunnels.
She Wants Revenge were good. They sounded really good, The Venue (that was the name of the place) had a great system and their sound tech did a good job. Didn't know any of the songs Peter Murphy played. Didn't really care for it.
ohGr put on a good show, but the turnout was a little less than I was expecting, and the PA at the Rickshaw still sucks. Really bugs me that Skinny Puppy are playing on a PA that is substantially less powerful than the one in the small club I work in.
I think the sound tech did the best with what she had, and his vocals were always clear, so it wasn't bad, just it felt a little weak.
That was the first time I've ever seen a show where both the front of house tech and the monitor tech were female. I think the monitor tech did a good job too, because of the three times I've seen Ogre perform this was the first time where he wasn't pissed off about his monitors.
Yeah, female sound techs = hot.
Got my friend to read through most of my story and give some critique and suggestions. Now I have some ideas to make it even better.
I missed my bus on the way home, so I had to wait at the bus station for like 6 hours. Got a lot of use out of my ebook reader.
When I got back to Calgary I decided to walk home, like 6 kilometers. Was surprised that it was warmer in Calgary than in Vancouver, though it appears to be cooling down.
12:21 a.m. - 2011-12-07
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In Vancouver for a couple of days.
9:49 p.m. - 2011-12-01
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I really wonder what kitty dreams are like...
There was a scene in the television series Angel where one of the characters is taken to the library of the unfathomably powerful interdimensional concordance of demonic entities, The Wolf, The Ram, and The Hart, who in our dimension appear in the guise of an influential law firm, Wolfram & Hart.
In a small room, atop an otherwise uncluttered desk sits perhaps 6 leather bound books.
Incredulous, the character turns back to stare at his guide. The guide assures him that it is the most complete collection of arcane knowledge and occult tomes that exists in this dimension.
The guide picks up one of the books and the pages appear blank. He closes it, speaks the name of the book he is after, and ink bleeds into the pages forming the text of the desired book; it can remotely access any text in their possession.
That is what having an e-ink ebook reader is like.
6:02 a.m. - 2011-11-29
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Bought an ebook reader. It's a lot like an iPod. Bit of a learning curve, little eccentricities you have to adapt to to be able to get it to display the correct metadata (author, title, cover art).
Just like an iPod, it's immensely satisfying seeing the little cover art show up for each book. Currently populating it with everything I can think of, nearly all stuff I own legally, even!
Also got a case for it that looks and feels like a book. My ideal case would be River Song's blue book in Doctor Who, however.
Hoping to get some use out of it on the long bus ride to and from Vancouver next week.
1:59 a.m. - 2011-11-28
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Ouroboros (Part Twelve)
William observed the grief of others. Friends. Relatives.
It wasn't that these responses were at all foreign to him, it was just that, thus far, it had lacked the proper catalyst.
He hadn't been there when it happened, so it had no context. None of it seemed real. A particular species of numbness had taken up residence.
The open casket had been the first time he'd seen Sydney since losing sight of her at the protest right before things had gotten out of hand. Amidst the surreality of the next few days, he was only peripherally aware of all the news stories comparing it to the Kent State massacre.
It had taken all his remaining strength to approach the immaculately varnished coffin. Laid out before him, in a dress she'd never be caught dead in- her eyelids looked... wrong, somehow. Thoughts of taxidermy entered his mind unbidden.
William's eyes involuntarily migrated to her slender pale neck, but he couldn't discern where the bullet had entered; the morticians had done a good job. Her blonde hair appeared vaguely straw-like, and the skin on her arms looked normal, but he simply couldn't bear the thought of touching that formaldehyde-soaked flesh. His head swam as he exited the small room at a brisk pace.
Guilt washed over him as he steadied himself against a wall. He'd actually felt disgusted back there. There could hardly be a less appropriate response. Why couldn't he be like normal people? Why couldn't he just be distraught, red eyes looking to the sky for answers?
Because he had not yet processed it. He couldn't begin to think about all the days he wouldn't be able to spend with the woman he loved because... it just seemed like a sick joke. Even after seeing the body, it could still all be part of some elaborate hoax, he felt.
He half-expected her to be there when he got home from the funeral, and then he'd be able to vent to her about how awkward and unpleasant the memorial service had been, how much he disliked certain members of her extended family who had never cared for him, and how glad he was to be back with her.
He did not yet understand intuitively that she was gone, so saying goodbye made little sense.
Taking a moment to compose himself, he surveyed the room.
Small clumps of people speaking in reverent tones. Insubstantial music played on cleverly concealed speakers. No one had noticed his failure to emote. They were all wrapped up in their own sorrow, strangled by it.
He had talked briefly with Sydney's sister Jessica. He envisaged her exposing him as a fraud, yelling at him and throwing the funeral home's burnt coffee in his face. Part of him wished she had.
The well was dry. All that remained was drought.
So he walked from one oak-furnished room to another, many of which were curiously empty. For no other reason than it seemed like someone aught to make use of them, he sat on the benches provided, lest they go to waste.
Then he wandered outside to be serenaded by the ominous mains hum of the overhead power transmission lines, the overcast sky perfectly suiting the ritual they were engaged in.
Fourteen days later the United States Of America ceased to exist.
6:46 a.m. - 2011-11-23
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Breakthrough for plot point for new story (really fuggin' cool aesthetic thing), and next scene of current story is almost done!
2:28 a.m. - 2011-11-22
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Third attempt at writing this same scene. Went with something less cliche, more drawn from my own experience. Seems like it it'll be more interesting as a result.
3:09 a.m. - 2011-11-19
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Should.. should I start writing a second story before I'm even finished writing the first?
Inspiration and such...
6:15 a.m. - 2011-11-16
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We can hide away for days, pretend the world has ended.
Bought laundry detergent for perhaps the second time in my life today.
Somehow I've gotten this far by always sponging off of my room mates and using theirs, but now we've moved the laundry room to the back porch and I have my own separate washing machine/dryer combo.
Hoping to make significant progress on constructing an alley kitchen in the coming months.
****
Also bought a box of mandarin oranges. Yumm.
****
I dug up hermit crab again, who continues to hide underground for like, a month straight without eating as far as I can tell. Not sure how she's still alive. I made a better seal on the lid and sprayed a lot of water in the cage and now she's sitting on her heat rock.
****
Got Mario 3D Land. Fun game. It's a lot more like the 2D Mario games than the 3D ones, which I like. The structure of Mario 64 never really felt like a Mario game, returning to the same level 10 times to get enough damn stars to progress.
****
Tomorrow going to mail the MIDI controller, as they've generously agreed to fix/replace it even though I voided the warranty.
****
Going to Vancouver to see She Wants Revenge and ohGr next month. The concerts were 2 days apart and I figured I should really take a weekend off for a change. Greyhound there with friends, though I'll be on my own for the return trip.
As a result I've been listening to the second She Wants Revenge album a bunch lately, trying to become familiar with it/hopefully end up liking it as much as the first one. Then, if I have time I'll do the same with the third one I suppose.
****
Been giving serious consideration to collecting the novella, the short story, and the sequel I'm currently planning into a single book, with three parts. Would mean waiting until the sequel is done (which means I have to finish the short story first).
Talked to a friend who is quite talented and she agreed to do illustrat
3:44 a.m. - 2011-11-14
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Kitties. Kitties never change. Across the gulf of language and time there is that shared experience. The reason I love kitties is the same reason the Egyptians worshiped them.
6:36 p.m. - 2011-11-11
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Ouroboros (Part Eleven)
He awoke with a vague awareness that something was wrong.
They had cuffed him to the bed frame before they went to sleep the previous night. Outside, nonmigratory birds sang of morning.
“Hello?” he called out. No reply was forthcoming.
Blinking in an effort to clear the sleep from his eyes he looked around. Shafts of sunlight crept along the wood paneling of the far wall, illuminating the dark cave of a room. He could now discern a fair amount of detail that hadn't been apparent last night.
A closet at the foot of the bed was filled with outdated fashions, including cheap animated t-shirts and various wearable electronics. What appeared to be a vintage Soviet ushanka hat was stowed on the top shelf. Cardboard boxes filled with 3D-printed dinnerware pitted with imperfections peeked just above the guard rail of the foot of the bed.
On the wall immediately to his right and near the ceiling was the small window that admitted the dimming light as the Sun slipped behind some fast moving clouds prompted by the high winds. A residue over the majority of its surface had collected a coating of hair and dead flies. Probably used to feature an adhesive solar panel. Beneath the window was a poster for a band he'd never heard of, and what were once animated sections like the guitarist's arm were now a featureless grey void of hemorrhaging pixels.
A pair of LED wall sconces on either side of the headboard were empty sockets. Inside a recessed shelf in the headboard a green leather bound book with illegible gold leaf text leaned against an old Bible.
Along the far wall old books and readers piled beside the door, next to them a stack of obsolete computers, cellular telephones, and flex screens with their corners dogeared from the application of countless thumbtacks. A purple frayed dog leash with knots tied in it hung from a nail in the wall.
In the center of the room a stained emerald circuit board pattern rug broke up the monotony.
A thick layer of dust textured everything as the light slowly pulsed with the movement of the clouds outside.
He imagined Greg as a young man, accumulating the detritus of a life.
And how much of this stuff had no meaning in the radically changed world they found themselves in? No purpose. Absolutely no value. How plastic long held notions of worth really were.
Greg seemed like a decent person in his estimation. After William had repaired the robot the two had shared the last of a bottle of homemade raspberry wine the older man had been saving. Will fiddled with the cork while he'd listened to Greg's stories.
Ten years prior he and his wife Gloria had purchased the acreage in Garfield County and moved there from Bellevue in an effort to escape the growing congestion of the contiguous city. With an extensive background in heavy farm machinery, he had hoped to eke out a modest existence selling hardy genetically engineered crops to local farmer's markets, and with the robot helping out Greg figured he could limp the rest of the way to retirement, optimistically reckoned to be at about the age of 75. The economic outlook hadn't looked quite so bleak back then, and Gloria had managed to save quite a bit from her years as a real estate attorney.
When the shit hit the fan the pair had been giving serious consideration to packing up and moving back to the city. The business had never taken off and they ended up wasting a lot of their dwindling savings in a desperate attempt to keep it afloat well past the point where they should have reasonably conceded defeat.
Shelly, the black haired girl who had interrogated Will earlier had also been the first to arrive. She'd lost reception on her terminal and pleaded with the couple to stay the night as the weather worsened. She worked for the energy conglomerate that owned the Lower Snake River Wind Project and had been conducting an audit.
In the following days the others had arrived. Shelly had taken it upon herself to organize them, and, finally, to turn away the additional mouths that showed up in the dead of winter when all the canned food was gone and they had been forced to shoot and eat one of the horses.
Owing perhaps to an overindulgence in wine that night, Greg, his creased face screwed tight in the wavering glow of a solar powered LED lantern, had confided in Will, in halting syllables, to having, on more than one occasion, overheard the woman weeping, alone in her room following such incidents. The far off look in Greg's eyes and emotion conquering his voice betrayed a paternal instinct ordinarily hidden behind layers of world-weary facade.
Shortly thereafter William had been escorted to his makeshift cell.
“Hello? Anybody?” His ears strained for any hint of a response. Nothing. “Hey, guys? Wanna maybe let me out?”
A shadow momentarily eclipsed the window outside. His heart raced until he realized it was only the farm hand robot attending to its various duties.
He felt the worry ferment in his belly. What the hell had happened to them? Where were they?
Twelve hours later and still no response he was downright terrified.
5:32 a.m. - 2011-11-08
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Lots of progress done on the next scene for the short story.
Just need to iron it out then I'll post it.
7:18 a.m. - 2011-11-07
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I remember one time I had this job vacuuming a skyscraper for a day. Owen's sister worked there and we needed a job, so we figured 'What the hell?'.
It was really weird, catching all these glimpses of parts of other people's lives. Floor after floor of cubicles, with pictures of their family or comics they had clipped from the newspaper. Their work shoes stowed neatly beneath their desk. Empty board rooms. Break rooms.
Often I was the only person on a given floor. It was a little creepy. I passed the time by singing along to my Discman.
Finished by cleaning the top floor. It was just like in a movie, with the massive solid oak doors leading to this ominous desk.
Then I quit. There's no way I could have done that day in day out. No disrespect to the people that do.
4:35 a.m. - 2011-11-06
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Games are neat.
Finished playing through the Deus Ex series. Good series.
One of the few series that was able to evoke more subtle emotions in me.
There's this one point where one of the characters is likely going to die, except you *can* save them, if you're quick enough, good enough.
Due to a combination of factors (the weapons I had, where my last save point was, etc.) I wasn't able to save them, even after attempting to do so over a dozen times.
I really liked this character, and now they were dead. Up until this point I had been trying to go through the game without killing anyone except when absolutely necessary, specializing in non-lethal weapons, but following that incident I made sure every single one of the assholes responsible for that character's death didn't make it out of there alive.
After that point I was angry and started taking more risks. Someone tried to blackmail me in such a way that it endangered my life, so I shot them. I took it out on other unsavory individuals whom I might have let live in the past. My entire play style changed because of that event.
It felt almost like the cliche point in an action movie, "Now it's personal." I built up an arsenal of powerful weapons and took out anyone associated with those creeps mercilessly.
All 3 games offer interesting moral dillemas, 3 different endings in the first game, 4 endings in the second and third games.
The choices for Human Revolution were especially difficult. There was no obvious right answer. All of them had merit, but they were radically different and would seemingly affect the course of human history.
5:44 a.m. - 2011-11-03
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The serpent sea is calling out your name.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is probably one of the most philosophical games I've played. Eidos Montreal did an excellent job of capturing the general feel of the Deus Ex universe.
There's a point at which you go through the computers of this Fox News-like broadcaster, and the emails and memos are all instructing staff on how to massage the stories to reflect the network's official stances, firing employees who fail to do so, etc. It's really cynical and blatant, and you just know that's how Fox News operates in real life.
*****
Been giving even more thought to the sequel to my novella, as well as how to tie it into the unfinished short story.
I want a globe trotting feel to it, I've always enjoyed stories like that, like Indiana Jones.
Locations I know will be featured:
-Vancouver, under siege from American refugees.
-San Francisco and the Seastead properties just beyond US military-occupied San Francisco Bay (great chance to include commentary on extreme libertarianism)
Then I'd like for it to all come home to Dubai somehow.
All complicated by the fact that it's really 2 stories, the life of Alim Ansari, starting with his childhood right up to his death, and then the "present" 5 years after the events of the novella and coinciding with the time frame of the short story. It's sort of a murder mystery where you're simultaneously learning who the victim was and coming to care about them.
I also sort of know who the villain is now, but there will be plenty of red herrings and ambiguity.
Characters I want to include:
Alim Ansari - father of Fatimah
Fatimah Ansari - main character from the novella
Boudicca - Fatimah's Agent
Averroes - the defacto ruler of Dubai and all of its interests
William Glass - the character from the short story. I'm not sure if he'll actually appear or if he'll only be mentioned
Nakusa - a 23 year old Indian girl who at the age of 6 sustained massive brain damage because of neglectful parents
I still need to decide on a name for a homosexual Indian man in his 40s who works for a PMC often used by Dubai.
5:43 a.m. - 2011-11-01
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My cat smells like wood chips for some reason.
7:47 a.m. - 2011-10-31
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Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.
Had a dream last night that included a girl I had a huge crush on in jr. high. She was ridiculously smart. Her father was a huge advocate of the wonder plant hemp.
So I found her on Facebook. She's a lawyer now, married, living in Toronto.
Haven't seen her or spoken to her in damn near 15 years.
I am having a very difficult time realizing that so much time has elapsed.
It still feels like only a few summers ago I was getting ready to leave for Edgefest with friends in a limo my mom hired for us all, me wearing these green shoes I just found in our house (probably a gift from my grandmother), and a matching green plaid shirt.
Heh, and the subsequent getting left behind because my mom got drunk and left without us, and the resulting expensive cab ride back to my mom's place.
The 90s still feel fresh in my mind, distilled into a few powerful images:
-The black and white poster on my friend's older sister's bedroom door of hairless GUESS models.
-The first time I saw the cover art for the Moist album Resurrection, which I borrowed from that same friend.
Now, coming back to that girl, part of it feels like a lost opportunity, even if in reality that ship sailed a long time ago. There's a great episode of Louie about that.
The passage of time could almost be described as all of these potential futures being closed off, one by one. Of course those decisions by their very nature open up new potentials (most of which will similarly never be fulfilled), this infinitely branching, and pruned, tree.
I also can't help but compare my life to those of my friends. Attempt to get a sense of how much or how little progress I've made.
I see these people, who've, hell, gone through law school, or earned a PHD, or gotten married and bought a house or whatever and I wonder.
I mean, I'm reasonably sure that I'm on the right path for me. I don't think I would find those lives fulfilling, but I do still wonder what it'd could have been like. I assume that if I had applied myself I could have gone to university and gotten whatever degree.
But is that perhaps part of the makeup of my character, that disinclination to do so? And would it have proved a fundamental fault in the foundation of any such life, sabotaging it?
And this life is inevitably marching towards that terminus. I try to populate it with as many happy memories as possible along the way.
Oh, I just remembered she used to love Collective Soul.
9:26 p.m. - 2011-10-27
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Got Dojo sounding really good last night. That was some CD quality shit right there. Possibly the best sounding set I've mixed all year, certainly the best I've ever got them sounding. Too bad Clea wasn't there. No cello.
AND they finally remembered to bring CDs to a show for once, so I got one. That'll be going on my iPod.
Also did sound for Ladyhawk, who were headlining. Didn't even realize that I'd actually heard one of their songs before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6H4FWmPjRg
*****
Finished Deus Ex: Invisible War. Not nearly as bad as people made it out to be. It simplified some things, streamlined others. Biggest complaint would be the reduced Augmentation/Biomod slots.
Started Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Takes a bit of getting used to. Really nice graphics/art style. Had to fiddle with the settings a bit to get an acceptable frame rate (goodbye v-sync!).
8:45 a.m. - 2011-10-26
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Found $20 outside Mac's after work. That was nice.
Got home and there was a skunk in my front yard, so I stood there for 10 minutes wishing the skunk would leave so I could go inside and eat my sammitch. I assured the skunk that I had no absolutely no interest whatsoever in eating it.
Then the skunk emerged, saw me, did that scary arched back thing they do right before they spray you, and ran back inside. I waited a while longer, and then eventually decided to risk it and ran inside and enjoyed my yum sammitch.
Deus Ex: Invisible War ain't half bad.
3:21 a.m. - 2011-10-24
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Ouroboros (Part Ten)
The demonstration turned ugly.
Following the apparent detonation of a car bomb in the underground parkade beneath the square (gasoline powered vehicles were no longer permitted in underground parking facilities, but batteries could still be overloaded if one knew how to disable the safeties) things began to deteriorate rapidly.
SPD herded a throng of livid students, trade unionists, and unemployed along the avenue north east of Red Square using a combination of tear gas and aerial drone-mounted Active Denial Systems.
White smoke still emanated from the stylized red chimneys of the parking garage, looking like nothing less than the burnt ballots of a papal conclave.
Culled from the pico cameras of hundreds of civilian HMDs, everything was being broadcast over the Internet in high resolution 3D. Millions watched events unfold.
Police badge cam and areal surveillance drone recordings would eventually leak as well, likely exposing a number of agent provocateurs. Information was no longer sacrosanct.
Simultaneously, over a number of public AR channels industrious trolls from all over the Internet inserted ironic and obscene animations and memes over top of the violent scenes in real time. On one of the more popular channels a 50 foot tall Marilyn Monroe with a Hitler mustache danced the can-can behind a phalanx of riot police. She wasn't wearing any underwear.
It was the fifth confrontation between police and demonstrators in as many days.
Sydney and William had been watching the protest until they were swept up in the stampede as the mob retreated from invisible pain beams. The ADS had the not entirely unintended side effect of disrupting all but the hardiest of mobile electronic devices, effectively preventing flash mobs from coordinating and somewhat limiting the extent of incriminating footage.
As the group spilled into the corralled section a lone groundskeeper robot had the distinct misfortune of lying directly in the protesters' path and soon became a focal point for their frustrations, a symbol, and Will watched as the enraged anti-automation crowd tore it apart with their bare hands. He shuddered at the primal savagery of it.
The police responded by firing tear gas directly into the crowd, in an attempt to disperse them. A tear gas canister landed directly in front of him and he instinctively turned to run.
A chorus of screams erupted and he was pushed roughly from behind and thrown to the ground. He saw stars through watery eyes and the chlorophyll scent of fresh trod grass commingled with the acrid smell of the tear gas, most of which had mercifully been caught in the prevailing wind.
Someone's boot came down hard on the back of his neck, temporarily lost its footing, and slid down his right shoulder. Will suddenly found himself fearing for his life. This was what it was like to be trampled to death, he thought, as dozens of feet stomped inches from his face.
Then he thought of the canals of New York City. He'd never gotten a chance to see them in the flesh. He'd often day dreamed of taking Sydney on a holiday there, hiring a gondola and proposing to her under a full moon.
And then it was over, the crowd had scattered, and slowly he got to his knees. He looked around but couldn't see any sign of his girlfriend.
And above the din he heard what sounded like firecrackers.
4:58 a.m. - 2011-10-19
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Minutiae.
Got an AC adapter for my guitar MIDI controller. Must modify the MIDI controller to add a jack for the AC adapter. Think we'll begin recording vocals next week.
Been feeling pretty good overall. There's been plenty of work, paying down the credit card.
Lots of progress on renovations, back porch will be fully converted into a laundry room very soon.
Then I will begin work on the downstairs kitchen, and hopefully start eating more healthy as a result.
Been watching Breaking Bad. Good show.
Been listening to an audio book of Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks before bed each night. It's been quite a few years since I first read it.
1:39 a.m. - 2011-10-19
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Slough off your skin and gasp at the frozen star.
5:05 a.m. - 2011-10-14
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Have some of column A, try all of column B.
So here's how I see the whole Occupy Wall Street... thing:
I think it's a mostly organic response of a populace that finds itself without as much economic security as it had enjoyed in previous decades.
Subsequently or in tandem, established leftist factions, career activists, and the like have attempted to steer the protests towards their pet concern (notice the somewhat schizophrenic mission statement released last week).
Mass demonstrations never occur in countries with sedentary, comfortable populations. Without the recession this never would have happened, nor would have the demonstrations in the UK (the recession was likewise the final straw that tipped the risk vs. reward scale in the Middle East, allowing Arab Spring to happen).
The Occupy Wall Street group in particular, no matter how much establishment political interests such as Obama or Adbusters may try to exploit it, is at least as organic as the Tea Party.
Which is to say that neither movement would have been tenable (and thus co-optable by people like the Koch brothers) if there weren't some genuine underlying concern there (the economy since 2008).
Yes, both movements have received massive support and financing from decidedly non-grassroots organizations who fit more comfortably into the existing political machinery, but that doesn't discount those movements as a whole; they did not manufacture wide-scale dissatisfaction, merely channeled it.
Similarly both movements do not necessarily behave in accordance with their stated goals, and neither is likely to achieve those goals.
Both include many fringe elements who end up discrediting the group as a whole, and neither feature very many individuals even capable of comprehending the enormity of the problems they are trying to solve.
Partly by design; not even economists understand the economy anymore, it has become impenetrable, and efforts to predict or influence its movements end up looking more like the shamanistic pantomime of a superstitious people, reading entrails and sacrificing goats to their Bronze Age Semitic gods to curry favor, with about as much success.
The average person in North America is simply unaware of, unable to understand, or unconcerned with most of the specific issues being brought up by these groups, whether it be income inequality, corporate influence, expansive government, etc. which isn't to say that both movements don't have valid points.
4:17 a.m. - 2011-10-13
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Got some ideas for the next scene in "Ouroboros".
I love including throwaway lines that refer to something unfamiliar to the reader but in a way that it seems perfectly normal to the characters as a means of highlighting changes that have happened in the world in which the story takes place.
Should have the new scene up within the next couple of days.
"A COELO USQUE AD CENTRUM" ( http://www.slolum.com/ACOELOUSQUEADCENTRUM.html ) is still being edited.
I'm thinking once that's done I'll include "Ouroboros" in whatever print version I have done of "A COELO".
I picture hard cover, red faux leather, gold leaf. Might be expensive, but such is vanity.
6:59 a.m. - 2011-10-11
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\"You're my bummy dummy.\"
Y'know, my life's not bad at all.
I enjoy by almost any metric a high standard of living. Roman Emperors eat your heart out.
I've seen truly monumental events; the world on the brink of nuclear war which could have meant the extinction of my own species as well as many others, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the invention of the Internet.
True, I will have just missed the advent of immortality by a century or so, but it would take a while to trickle down to folk like me anyhow.
And most of the time death doesn't really frighten me in the least. I think about it a lot, how one day I simply won't be here. And yeah, it can be a little disconcerting to realize that everything I do has no objective meaning, and whatever self-ascribed purpose I offer to satiate my anxiety will never truly satisfy in the same way that a fictional metaphysical top-down imposed meaning would.
But such is the way of the universe.
Given the ridiculous extremes, the conditions under which 99.9% of the universe exists; hard vacuum, a hair above absolute zero, gamma ray bursts, neutron degeneracy enabling pressures, quasars and the like, I'm lucky my life isn't one described by constant pain.
I exist within this thin envelope of (more or less) hospitable atmosphere on a small rock at just the right distance from its primary so that a sunny day is pleasant instead of lead-melting or dry ice snow day.
A bunch of other little squirmy bits of protoplasm navigate this globe in tandem with me, some of them even share my home.
All of us, hurtling through space at relativistic velocities our queer meat computers can't even begin to comprehend, a scale beyond imagining.
And I'm able to find things I enjoy, things that I find fun. Music, fictions, video games, the company of cute girls.
So yeah, things are decent.
2:41 a.m. - 2011-10-09
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Went to the zoo. Saw minkeys and tigers. Got a picture of a condor in mid-flight.
Elephants have really big heads. Like, an elephant's head is bigger than all of me.
Yeah it sucks that they can't all just be in the wild, but when the alternative is extinction I very much support the conservation efforts of zoos.
***
Paid off most of my credit card.
Just in time to buy more leather jackets and MIDI controllers n stuff.
4:18 a.m. - 2011-10-06
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I once was what you are, you will be what I am.
The last few days I've been ironing out my "Superman" graphic novel idea.
I'm pretty confident I could wring a good story out of it.
I'm thinking the catalyst for everything will be the kid coming into possession of a nondescript copper ring discovered in the wreckage of a Roman galleon off the coast of Tunisia. Cast in the shape of an ouroboros, the only peculiarity would be the ring's usually high density, weighing almost half a kilogram.
The ring it turns out is an artifact from an extremely technologically advanced civilization. It grants the wearer the ability to warp space, and every "superpower" flows from that.
Being able to warp space sufficiently would allow the user to effectively teleport, to cut anything in half or crush anything with tidal forces.
The ring has a built in artificial intelligence (AI would be a trivial matter for any species that could create the ring, like a microchip in a greeting card) that can react more far more swiftly than any biological agent could, and would automatically shield the wearer from projectiles, lasers, dangerous levels of radiation, etc. It would also be able to interpret the wearer's intentions.
The user would not be able to fly per se, but they could, say, teleport 40 000 feet in the air, if they wanted. They would then begin to fall like normal, but the ring would automatically preserve their life by teleporting them again before they hit the ground, though they would conserve momentum, and the ring would have to flip them upside down thus flinging them upwards. At the peak of their trajectory, as gravity slowed their ascent to zero, the ring would initiate one final teleportation and land them safely on the ground, having shed the kinetic energy.
The kid would use the ring initially to teleport across the world. To go anywhere he liked. By doing this he would gradually develop empathy, an intuitive awareness of how awful much of the world is, how many people are suffering, and how much of it is the result of corrupt governments and individuals.
From this he would be motivated to try to fix it.
He would immediately realize incomparable value of the ring, and know that every government and military on the planet would kill to possess it, a technology far more potent than any nuclear weapon, harnessing enough energy to destroy the entire planet, the entire solar system.
Thus he would succumb to the need to conceal his identity. He would piece together a "costume" using off-the-shelf components stolen from various stores across the world (preventing anyone from tracing his movements). Not sure what it'll look like yet, but like fencing mask, wetsuit, gloves, etc.
A strong thread of paranoia would develop as he becomes very aware of closed circuit cameras, social media, and government and corporate Internet surveillance.
And so he would begin to take out dictators and warlords, in an almost mindless rage in reaction to atrocities they had committed.
There would be a huge psychological toll following this initial round of assassinations. After which he would begin to question everything he was doing.
Nothing gets better. Dictators are replaced or their countries fall into chaos. He starts looking for other villains, the ones who are responsible for the initial conditions, the men who own the world, who toil in skyscrapers, yet nonetheless have blood on their hands.
The ending would be quite bleak. There is no easy way out once the world is made aware of the existence of this technology except one.
3:54 a.m. - 2011-10-03
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Talking to my cat, doing a bad William S Burroughs impression, explaining to her through parable the dangers of pinning all her hopes and dreams on a single prerequisite, in this case, meowing.
1:50 p.m. - 2011-10-01
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You've got to lose love if you want to find love.
Show was great.
So Hot Female Sound Tech was working again tonight. Didn't think I'd ever see her again honestly.
She has such great fashion sense; lots of tattoos, skinny black jeans, old partially laced Doc Martens. Last time I saw her she was wearing a Ministry hoodie. I know her name now and apparently she just got out of a 5 year relationship (I'm sorta astounded how that last bit of information just randomly filtered down to me), but yeah, she lives in Toronto I assume. Anyways, she did a great job, and made me re-evaluate the merits of mixing a little quieter.
It's sorta nice that cute girls exist in the universe.
***
Came home to a freshly killed mouse just outside my room. My little hunter. I live with this thing.
***
The other night:
-bar tenders throwing ice cubes at each other, escalating to water from the soda gun.
-bouncers gathered around reading aloud a purloined romance novel.
***
Not going to be going to my friend's wedding after all. I feel bad about it, but I would have had to miss too much work, and spend too much money getting there (a 15 hour bus ride by myself) and on accommodations just to spend 2 nights in Vancouver, where everyone I know would have prior engagements.
***
Going to do some archery and hopefully go hiking one last time before winter next week, now that I'll finally have some time off.
God I can't wait to get that guitar MIDI controller and start playing around with it. I think we'll have a pretty interesting stage set up, me on guitar MIDI controller, Kat on the modular analog synth with its distinct sound, Elaine on cello. We'd obviously switch it up depending on the song, but it'd be nice to have a somewhat standardized setup.
1:38 a.m. - 2011-09-30
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Who's driving? Oh my god! Bear is driving! How can that be?
Day 3 out of 10.
Got new strings for my violin. Also got a new tailpiece with fine tuners so I don't snap all of the strings trying to tune it. Also some new rosin.
I'm fairly confident I'll be able to learn the notes, but I don't know how I'll ever be able to manage vibrato; it ends up vibrating the whole violin which in turn makes the bow bounce.
Re-recorded some basslines and got everything organized with instrument-specific mixdowns that can be imported into any multitrack software. Co-worker has offered to try his hand at mixing the album, probably give him a shot before we decide on professional studio time.
Looks like the album will have 12 songs. For some reason I thought we had more, but going over all of the demos that really is all we wrote.
Going forward really looking forward to incorporating cello into songs, perhaps even making it one of the main components of our sound.
3:23 a.m. - 2011-09-25
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Tonight at work:
Superman punching a laser. Oh Superman, some day you'll learn that not every problem can be solved by punching.
Some girl asked me if I knew where she could get some cocaine, because I guess I look like someone who would know where to get cocaine?
Witnessed a fight (not exactly uncommon, but usually I just see the aftermath).
3:15 a.m. - 2011-09-24
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I read the news today, oh boy.
Feeling ridiculously accomplished.
Spent several hours on maintenance and upgrades at work today. Cleaned out a small room that wasn't being used and converted it into a sound closet, replete with hooks for cables, a shelf for the mic pack, and a lock that only myself and the manager have keys for. I wanna try and figure out some elegant solution to store mic stands, because the duffel bag with a broken zipper certainly is not that.
I also wired up a stage snake with y cables and zip ties to be used on weekends for DJs so that they don't have to touch any of my live equipment.
Stuff like that goes a long way towards instilling professional pride for me.
Also got a pretty good mix going for both of the bands.
Nine days to go.
2:13 a.m. - 2011-09-23
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