Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Khordas' LiveJournal:

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Friday, June 13th, 2008
12:55 pm	At least when I only update a couple of times a year I get lots to write! Lots of new stuff since my last update.  The biggest is that I've switched jobs.  I'm still working at the hospital, but I've taken a mostly administrative position on the night shift in the substance abuse department.  It's nice to be in a position where I'm not wearing scrubs, and it pays a lot better, plus its full time.  Hopefully that means in the next few months we can start digging our way out of the hole that the recent increases in cost of living have put us in.  Should be bringing in about double what I am now.  I'm really hoping that Mira will be able to quit her job once my paychecks start coming in.  Her boss is a screaming raging asshole, and she's always coming home stressed. After about 100,000 miles in the last four years, my car died on the road.  It's starting to become a habit.  The last one died in iron mountain, again after about 100,000 miles, of a worn out tranny.  This one blew the computer.  Of course these weren't NEW cars, so I've certainly got my money's worth out of them.  The downside is that I've had to resurrect my truck, which has only been driven twice in the past two years.  It took a bit of tinkering to get it up and running again.  I really hadn't driven it since I made a new slave cylinder for the clutch.  I had forgotten how frustrating it is commuting through traffic in a great big stick shift.  At least it gets me there.  I'm keeping my eyes open for something more fuel efficient though, and starting to think that the electric car project that I've been thinking about should move off of the drawing board.  Option number two, which has also been on the drawing board, and was the original reason I picked up the truck a couple of years ago, is to do the FEMA wood gas conversion, and start running it on charcoal.  Unfortunately, after getting under it while tracing wires, and coming face to face with just how rusty and nasty the drivetrain is, I'm not really sure how many miles more it's going to be good for, so it might be pointless to try and convert it. SCA is looking up, and hopefully we'll have more money for hobbies soon.  Met some new folks in the last few weeks who look like they're really interested, so maybe the shire will grow back to where it was a couple of years ago.  I miss having a big shire.  So many of our folks have gotten forcefully shoved back into 'real life' or have dropped into the World of Warcraft that it's been a wonder we're still around at all.  Mostly I chalk that up to Mira.  She really wants to see this one survive. As of may, I'm another year older, and another year closer to lying about my age.  Feeling like I'm in pretty good shape though.  Mira and I have been walking, and getting out of the house on a pretty regular basis, and actually seeing more of each other than when I was afternoon shift.  Looking forward to getting a bit more time in armour as well.  Working on some armour projects so I can fight in gear that actually fits.  I need to get the chainmail link cutter set back up, so that Mira and I can make me up a Byrnie.  Last week I cut out a frame for a new helm and welded it, so hopefully this week I can get the panels dished out and get it put together.  I need to make a basket hilt, a boss for my shield, some joint protection, a gorget...  Basically need everything.  Relying on loaner gear has really set me back. Missing having a game going.  I really need to find myself a group of players again so that I can DM.  I've found myself wandering through game accessory websites, planning dungeon encounters, and such.  Anyone feeling like they'd be willing to make a time commitment?  That's always been the biggest problem:  I've never really been good at writing scenarios where there could be a 'peanut butter jar' to keep inactive characters in while their players were skipping game, or could only show up for every fourth or fifth session. I'm sure that there's more in the way of update, but this is all that springs to mind right now. A. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 15th, 2008
2:03 am	Valentine's day I officially have the world's most awesomest wife.  That is all.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled program A. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 9th, 2007
10:34 pm	more random wierdness... Guess they'll let ya patent anything. I was searching for food patents relating to sauce thickeners (don't ask unless you want me to go off on hours worth of chemisty tangents) and happened across this gem. It took me till almost the end of the last page to realize that the inventor, under the guise of a medication delivery system is claiming rights to the 'jello shot'.  Next time I whip up a batch I guess I'd better pay royalties... A. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 5th, 2007
7:38 pm	I can has a clue? I bet I know at least ONE person who'd go ga-ga over This strange item (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 15th, 2007
12:55 am	You can always tell a zombie... Consider this your bi-monthly public service announcement from Andrew-land. According to my friend C., one way of detecting zombies is that most undead lack mad transmission mechanic skillz. Now back to your regularly scheduled porn-downloading session, already in progress. A. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
1:38 am	blah Wish I knew why I'm the only person I know who isn't getting their ass kicked by life right now. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007
2:19 pm	long awaited update I just noticed that it's been ages since I've posted here. Let's see. We've got a new place. It's a carbon copy of the place I lived at when I first lived on sawyer. The landlord lives in the other half, and she's actually a decent human being. For those who weren't in on the drama around here, we lost the last place when the landlord stopped paying the mortgage and the bank foreclosed. We anticipated that the new owner wouldn't want to just take over, what with the state that the other tenants were keeping their apartments in, so we moved before the foreclosure. Sure enough, the new landlord evicted everyone and changed the locks, so we would have been out on the street had we waited. Still working at the hospital. Lots of hours, due to lots of people being out with injuries, long term illnesses, or pregnancies. We're actually hiring more staff to take up the gap. Never throught that would happen. In the meantime I don't get a lot of time off. Nice paychecks but no time to spend them. Getting some bills payed off and catching up on my student loans. Started getting my tools out of storage and back in one place, so looking forward to doing some metalsmithing and casting again. It's been a while. Haven't lost my touch for rope. Met someone new last night, and had them swinging from the rafters in just a few hours. Helps that I got a good introduction. Thanks C. A. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 15th, 2007
1:52 am	Mr Evil Scary Guy rants at his lurkers. To my lurkers, who stirred up some drama this week. As usual, I've been reminded that I'm the evil corruptor who did lots of people wrong. Grow the fuck up. Everything I did, you asked me to do, participated in willingly, and enjoyed. I have pictures and stories you wrote to prove it. Big fucking glowing smiles while you did all the nasty nasty. I'm getting tired of being the bad guy in all the stories you tell your online pals. If I was just a little bit less ethical, I'd go behind you and show all the stuff I have to everyone you've demonized me to. But that would be wrong, and I'm one of the good guys. Yeah, really. I consider myself one of the good guys. In a couple of memorable cases, I found some people who were basically feral. I gave them a place to stay, because they asked me to. Fed. Clothed. Entertained. I've helped people get jobs, lifted them out of the fucking gutter. I loved them, and I thought they loved me back. I was too gullible. I got used. Even then, it took forever and a day till I realized it, and still I'm not as angry about it as I probably should be. I had a long talk with Heather about this last night, and now I'm just tired of it. I actually understand why it's neccesary to demonize one's exes: It absolves one of any sort of responsibility for the pain one has caused. You stole from me, emotionally and physically, so now I have to be the bad guy, to justify you going on with your life, to justify how you could just change everything that you were, and run away. I remember when I used to be your knight in shining armor. Now I'm the evil necromoncer type. The only place that change happened though, is in your mind. I'm the same person I was fifteen years ago, the same person I was five years ago. My life isn't given to the kind of changes that yours is, and it never has been. When life gets hard, I deal with it. That's the trait that makes me the pillar of strength you once sought out. Now I'm strong, and you change with the breeze. It didn't have to be that way. A. (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 2nd, 2007
3:44 am	Ummmmm. No My goddamn rock solid ghetto shiznit name is Ass Machine Ice. What's yours? Powered by Rum and Monkey. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 29th, 2006
6:22 am	I keep calling this 'random stuff', but it's all generally rantish First, something funny: I dedicate this joke to Erik. It was told to me today by a patient. An old eskimo drives into Anchorage in a beat up car, which promptly breaks down. He pushes it to the nearest garage, and asks a mechanic to fix it. Mechanic says "I have to figure out what's wrong first. That'll take a couple hours, so come back then, and I'll be able to tell you what's wrong". Eskimo walks across the street to the dairy queen, and spends the next couple hours messily eating ice cream, then goes back to the garage. Mechanic says "looks like you blew a seal" Eskimo shouts back angrily "it's just ice cream!" Next something wierd, as brought up by one of my managers. Apparently my manager has a friend who runs a boar farm, where people can pay to hunt wild boars. He was recently in on a hunt, as one of the safety shooters, where a kid wanted to fight a boar with samurai swords. Kid shows up in a trenchcoat, with two samurai swords and a belt with a couple of pistols. They spend most of the day searching out a boar on this huge fenced in farm. The boar charges, kid turns tail and runs for his life, and one of the other safety shooters has to take it down. My manager remembers that the kid's name was Josh. Now I'm wondering... My manager's all over me now, because I'd mentioned the idea to him (he knows I fight in armor with the SCA) of having a traditional hunt. Now he's got the bright idea to film someone fighting a boar with a spear. He said he'd help pay for the hunt if I'd wear a helmet cam. I'd actually mentioned at a meeting about a month ago the idea of hunting a wild pig as a prelude to an event (inspired, predictably, by the 'feast of the boar's head' early in december). The idea has some attraction to me. It would make an awesome arts and sciences project. On the other hand, I'm not going to eat it, so it would HAVE to be related to a feast. It's ethically troubling, to say the least. On the other other hand (running out of hands) these are russian hybrid boars, and run anywhere up to nine hundred pounds, plus tusks, hooves, and stinking piggness of the stinking piggy. Definitely shadow hog material. Things that should not be. Sort of like a bulldozer with tusks and an attitude. You have to sign a waiver. They play videos of the guys who got hurt. They play a video of the guy who made a perfect shot, took the thing's neck half off, and it still charged across a field and tried to jack him out of a tree before it died. If this ever happens, I want a team, and I want to pick the people on it. At the very minimum, people like Cy, Tarrach, and Bear. I know all of them can use a spear, and aren't going to play trenchcoat ninja and run. I'm considering between a spear and a crossbow myself. A team of spearmen might be able to give me some room to reload if I missed, and a boar CAN in theory be taken with spear. Certainly a crossbow would have the penetration needed. Apparently there's an armourish plate of gristle over the shoulders, and down the back, almost to the end of the ribs. Not a lot of places where a spear or bolt will penetrate. Plenty of places where it'll piss off the shadow hog. I'm going to be thinking this one through. It would be one hell of a unique experience, but that sounds a lot like a euphemism for 'stupid' (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 20th, 2006
1:02 am	TrustFlow results for khordas I tried out TrustFlow II for LiveJournal. The following people not on the friends list for khordas are close by: cyveiliog, _eithne_, vampqueenakasha, atarichikk82, starryeyes04, mottimjoi, dark_incubus (50 - 100) darth_craigles, dark_fire_wolf, mysticangel_102, meier_self, darklys, adarksmile, karsynogyn, eeyore_laments, mandikins137, mousee_n_mandy, whole_fn_saiyan, grumpyshoogie, pretendiamcool, fille_de_paris, toymaker, fantazshia, angelsscream, tertius (100 - 150) io_light, idrena2006, egobelt, sylverpyro, deespace, jcrow, elderghost08, mytherceria, nickybolas, blackwolfdragon, vendetta_inc, soaringowl, regulatorymode, pawnofchrist, alkadron, inky815, big_bad_grell, nostrabrianus, lucardadict, faolanamberwolf, dazzlers69, raziel101001 (150 - 200) ( More results below the cut... ) Created by ciphergoth; hosted by LShift. TrustFlow II: Who is closest to your friends list? I know about half of these people. Some of them are 'close to' being friends. A fair number ARE friends, just not on the list of people who find my life interesting enough to want to read friends-only posts. Several of the people here are real honest to goodness jackass mother-fuckers. They know who they are... And as heather just mentioned, looking over my shoulder, at least two of the jackass motherfuckers find the feeling mutual... Just in the mood to cyber-flip-off a few people. consider yourself duly flipped. A. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 10th, 2006
11:33 pm	caffiene, fatigue, and creativity For some reason I spent a goodly chunk of today coming up with a super-hero team and thinking up scenarios for them. Not your average team, these are brought to you in memory of 'the super hero's union of hoboken new jersey', and by 'the flaming carrot', founder of the 'mystery men'. The team is called the 'super best internet friends league'. There's somewhere between a dozen and 20 members at any one time, and they've never met. They go off and have their adventures, and every night they blog about it in a group blog. Some of them even have actual super powers. In no particular order: Astounding Lass Class: human non-super Powers: Can convince others that they're ACTUALLY chatting with a teenage girl over IM. Saves the interesting conversations for later 'amusement'. Can blackmail lonely geeks. Hometown: Warren Pennsylvania, in his mother's basement Quote : "I'm the girl you jerked off with in the chatroom last night, beeatch" Comments: do we really need to comment on this one? Everyone knows a guy like this. Captain Commando Class: human 'blaster' Powers: shoots energy bolts. due to upbringing by very repressed parents, captain commando's seething lust requires special shielding to keep it under control: just like a certain x-man, when he isn't wearing his special shielding (not goggles), bolts of destructive energy stream from a certain orifice (not his eyes). Hometown: Milwaukee Wisconsin, in a small apartment above a laundromat. Quotes: "goddamn my balls are sore!" and "seriously officer, I was just putting my pants back on. Those aren't my skivvies" Comments: currently wanted by the police for questioning after repeated naked phone-booth episodes. Frequently forgets his underwear while changing and leaves it hung on the phone, charred laundry mark and all. Sven of the Fen Class: specially trained human Powers: Like George of the jungle, Tarzan of the apes, and Mowgli, Sven owes his abilities to being abandoned and raised outside his culture. In Sven's case, he was abandoned at birth and raised in a swamp by swedish immigrants in minnesota. Sven can talk to houseplants, increasing their growth rate by ten percent. He also can invoke swedish guilt-based work ethic, where he impresses others with his hard work, high taxes, and entitlments, causing them to work harder too. Additional minor power: due to upbringing in swamp, Sven always knows where to step to not get his feet wet. He also is followed constantly by a giant pink slug only he can see, that lives in his plumbing and is madly in love with him. Hometown: Palmdale Minnesota, in a shack he built himself. Quote: "It keeps following me!" Comments: the plants don't talk back. The Infernal Reveneuer, AKA Mr Tax Class: human non-super, special influences/skills Powers: Due to his position as an intern in various congessional offices and his talent for voice mimicry, as well as his cell phone with lots of nasty numbers on speed-dial, The infernal revenuer can get the IRS, CIA, FBI, NSA, and any local agencies knocking on your door at any time of night or day, in about an hour, asking for your financial records, executing no-knock secret warrants, looking for OBL, sniffing for drugs, etc. Hometown: Washington DC. Quote: "you see, it's important to catapult the propaganda..." Comments: currently investigating The Katzbalger, who owes back taxes, and would make a good 'bitch'. The Katzbalger Class: Possessed human Powers: The Katzbalger is posessed by the powerful ghost of a medieval german mercenary, and is named after his posessor's left handed dagger of backstabbing. At one point this gave him powerful fighting skills, but over time the constant posession has worn out his body, and his spirit's interest in court intrigue has bloomed. Now he rarely uses his fighting powers, but still has powerful abilities to stir up drama and intrigue on LJ. Hometown: Gwinn Michigan Quote: "Here's a copy of their friends only post, where they're talking about you..." Comments: The infernal revenuer is NOT on the Katzbalger's friends list. The Seven Second Romeo Class: Human 'flash' Powers: Moves with incredible speed. Uses his super speed to court, seduce, scromp, smoke, roll over, snore, get dressed, and sneak out, all in seven seconds flat. He isn't moving slowly enough for the people around him to percieve, so outside observers of the female persuasion feel violated, threatened and defiled whenenver he's around. One notable side effect of his powers is that he ages rapidly whenever he's using them, so looks much older and less attractive than he THINKS he does. Hometown: New London Wisconsin, in a trailer owned by his ex-wife. Quote: "Seriously, you should dump him, and go out with me", and "Child support? What child support?" Comments: Better use a second form of birth control. Rubbers break frequently at mach 3. More to come... A. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
10:15 pm	random question, drumming up membeship in my evil horde I used the function that shows who shares your interests. There's only one other person in the whole world who's got a listed interest in 'skerjastrond', and it's someone I'm pretty sure I've never met or seen around. Anyone know 'Lycanthropicone' here on LJ? Poke her and invite her to a meeting if you do. We don't bite... at least not that hard... unless asked nicely... A. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 24th, 2006
11:40 pm	true friendship Heather sent me a forward she got. Anyone ever see the 'friendship poem' thing people have been doing? Might be bigger on myspace than here, but this is clever and a lot more real. 1. When you are sad -- I will help you get drunk and plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you sad. 2. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you. 3. When you smile -- I will know you finally got laid. 4. When you are scared -- I will rag on you about it every chance I get. 5. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining. 6. When you are confused -- I will use little words. 7. When you are sick -- Stay the hell away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have. 8. When you fall -- I will point and laugh at your clumsy ass. Don't ya'all feel loved now... (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 23rd, 2006
7:11 pm	mourning Someone who meant a lot to me died unexpectedly around noon today, while running a race here in marquette. His name was Doug Fix, and I've known him for almost 31 years. Doug was a teacher, a writer, and poet. His writings about the UP were one of the reasons my family decided to move to the area. We were well into building a house when we found out that Doug and his family were our closest neighbors. Our families have been friends ever since. David and Martin, his kids, were some of my closest friends and occasional rivals when I was growing up. Doug served two tours in vietnam in the special forces, spent years as a professional bodybuilder and was one of the most physically fit people I know. He had a strong sense of ethics and a lot of wisdom and common sense. Other than family, he was one of my early role models. I spent the afternoon in the ER today with my family and his. I feel like the world lost someone special today, and I'm really going to miss him. I DO feel that he died doing what he loved to do, in a manner of his own choosing. He'd started the race feeling ill, and turned down a chance to drop out. It isn't his nature to quit anything, and I know him well enough to know that he would have preferred to die facing forward towards his goal. If there was one thing he didn't want, it was to end up as an invalid in the hospital. His daughter in law told me that he'd had premonitions and had been 'talking morbid' all day, so I believe that he made a choice and died in the manner that he lived. A. Current Mood: distressed (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 20th, 2006
6:20 pm	more randomness Quote of the day: Fear my prehensile ear hair, beeeotch (I actually said this today to someone) Meme of the day: the alphabet thingy people are doing [A is for age] 32 [B is for booze of choice] Mountain dew [C is for career of choice] Nurse Practitioner or Anesthestatist [D is for your drug of choice] Tums, maximum strength (that was what the last person said too) [E is for one essential item you use everyday] Rope [F is for favorite song at the moment] Kinky ABC's, by Lords of Acid (fits the theme) [G is for favorite game] Chess [H is for Hometown] Cincinnati OH [I is for instruments you play] Any brass except trombone. Flute. Theremin. [J is for favorite juice] Girl Juice! [K is for kids] Hell no! [L is for last hug] From Heather, this morning. [M is for marriage?] Soon [N is for nickname] Tinker, That evil guy over there, The Corruptor of the Innocent [O is for number of overnight hospital stays] one [P is for phobias] Drowning in mud face down in a rice paddy while bleeding from a bayonet wound to the gut. [Q is for quote] I shall rape your ass with mister shotgun, and you will scream like little girl. [R is for biggest regret] Not dumping some people who deserved it a lot sooner than I should. Being a doormat to certain manipulative and greedy women and friends. [S is for singing] Yay bardic circle! [T is for time you woke up] 2 PM [U is for underwear] Commando [V is for vegetable you love] Daikon [W is for worst habit] Telling important stuff to people who don't care to listen. [X is for number of x-rays you've got] Lots. Way past nightlight stage [Y is for yummy food you make] Heather says I make awesome Pizza. And everything else. [Z is for zodiac sign] Taurus Random shuffle song of the day: Endless Love (from the Gundam Wing Soundtrack) Random cool website: http://scitoys.com/ That's it for randomness today. Look! A chicken! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
1:39 am	Random clarification of purpose Something was indirectly pointed out to me today. Namely, that my motivations don't always make sense to some of the people around me, and thus I come off as evil, manipulative, etc. So here goes. I expect this will bring a few flames and raise a few blood pressures. I certainly hope so. If it doesn't sound like you, it probably isn't. Or maybe it is... I'm a daoist by upbringing and inclination. I believe that the universe works by a set of rules that make things tend to fall into cycles. If one wants to have any sort of success or happiness, one learns to dance within the cycle, basically figuring out how to hear the beat and moving with it, or else one finds that the music is always against them, they clash with the other dancers, and they suck at life. The people I've met over the years have either been on their way up or their way down, depending on their ability to see the ryhthm of the universe. After several disasterous relationships where I did my best to hold someone up while they were by nature determined to find the bottom, I no longer see it as productive to try and help people better themselves. No matter how much effort I put into friendships, no matter how much charity I offer, people will inevitably find thier own level of success. Some people are chaos magnets, and attract failure, and until they make drastic life changes, they always will. Trying to stand between such people and their failure is only going to get me hurt, and I've been hurt that way before. I learn. Another thing that I believe is that very few if any of the things that happen to people are undeserved. The universe is a harsh and unforgiving place, and dishes out justice in the truest and harshest sense of the word. The only way to live one's life in a harsh universe is through self-competence. If you aren't good enough, you're going to get burned, and that isn't anyone else's fault but yours. If you do get burned, you've got no one to blame but yourself. If you don't learn from that, we call that a 'fool' and if you don't take responsibility, we call that 'pathetic'. I once had a 'friend' who would skip the meds that kept them sane, and spend a lot of time looking for the bottom, while telling everyone 'it isn't me. it's the depression'. They chose not to take their pills, and to skip their counselling sessions. They never understood why I, known to them as a survivor of depression, didn't have sympathy, charity, and goodies. This view has only been reinforced by my experience in the medical world. Every disease process has at its roots a failure to take care of one's self. I treat on a daily basis people with adult onset diabetes, which has its roots in obesity. Weight loss and dietary change are a definitive cure in almost every case, but I've got to the point where I never even bother suggesting it: people want a pat on the back and a fucking pill, and they'd rather live with the disease than excercise and skip the cheeseburger and soda. I work with smokers who are dying of lung cancer, and deny to their grave that smoking had anything to do with it. I've become sick of hearing about george burns, as if one example of a long lived smoker undid a lifetime of reasearch. I work with alcoholics dying of liver failure, who we get all dried out so they can go have another drink. They don't think it's their fault either. People will do anything they can and grab at any straw that will allow them to say that the things that happen to them aren't their fault. Wake up! It's your fault. Only you can fix it. The first step in fixing it is to admit there's a problem and that it's your own damn fault. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was going to write a list of the rules I live by here, but about half way through I realized that I've said it before, better. I found that old post, from one of my old anonymous LJ's, and imported some of the better rants to fill this out. Flame on! 1: No one is special. Certainly no one is born special. You are not a superhero or a genius, unless you make yourself into one. Genius, by the way, is about creating masterworks, not about scores on an IQ test. I don't care about your fucking number. Tell me you're a genius and I'll tell you to show me what you made with that brain or shut up and go away. Tell me you're a superhero, and I'll expect you to prove it, not just roleplay it. I don't care if you can be a cat-thing with six dots in brawling and a polearm in a fucking white wolf chatroom. I'll care if you can show me stuff you can REALLY do with a polearm while you shut up about your inner cat. 2: There isn't anyone waiting around just to scoop you up when you fall. Even if there was, that's not a role that works. If you're looking for the bottom, you're GOING to find it. You get one chance at this life. Even for those of us who believe in an afterlife, we don't KNOW. We just have faith, and faith is kids playing 'let's pretend' till we croak it and find out for sure. Live it like it matters NOW. Use your chance. It's probably the only one you get. 3: Be mindful. Live in the here and now. Make things happen. Yesterday is gone forever, and Tomorrow is just a dream. Dreams give us a reason to plan, but they aren't real till we make them so. You could die tonight, with all your dreams unaccomplished, so if you want something, do what it takes. Don't just live in your dreams: living a dream life without any reality is just another way to die inside. 4: The worst thing one person can do for another is to make their life easy. Soften someone's path, and all you do is show them a false mirror of the true world. We're not virtuous or industrious by nature. You can't make someone into a good person by giving them everything they want. An infant who gets that kind of treatment never even learns to ask. Ask a pediatrician or a child psychiatrist: you can keep a child preverbal for years by being too quick to interpret their wants, always rushing to get them what they need. Make them ask for it. As soon as they're strong enough, make them learn to get it themselves. We never outgrow this. Even an adult will become complacent if they are just GIVEN everything they ask for. Compare the stories of people lost in the woods who walk a hundred miles on a broken ankle with a man who has a mild sprain and never leaves the couch because his wife is willing to bring his meals and let him watch TV. 5: Take responsibility for your actions. No one MAKES you do anything. No one CAN make you do anything. If you took some action, said some word, no one acted but you, and you acted by will alone. I don't believe in incapacitation. If you blame your actions on alcohol, drugs, changes in mental status, lack of drugs, etc. then the chain of responsibility always works its way back to you. Your responsibility to know that alcohol makes people slow and stupid, so your responsibility when you got drunk, and your responsibility when you got behind the wheel, and your responsibility when you ran someone over and got your ass in jail. Your responsibility to know that not taking your lithium makes your thinking unreliable, your responsibility to maintain your supply, and your responsibility when you don't take your meds and end up making enemies or hurting people. 6: Pain is a teacher. Pain is our friend. Live a life without pain, and you'll live a life of weakness. Avoidance of pain is an instinct. Fight it if you want to be more than just another monkey. Avoidance of pain is what keeps us from being more that we are. Human muscles are stronger than we let them be. We stop pulling when the pain starts. A mother can lift a car off her children if she needs to. Why? She's not thinking of the pain, not letting anything stop her. She knows what's important. The body is strong enough. Mentally, pain can keep us from doing the things we want to do. We fear that we'll end up in an unfamiliar situation, and that in our fearful minds equals an excess of stress, an excess of discomfort. Pain. 7: When you fall, get back up. Keep getting up as long as you have the strength. If you never stop getting up, you're never really down. If you never stop fighting, you can never lose. If you CHOOSE not to get back up, choose not to keep fighting, then that's your act, your responsibility. You CAN choose to let yourself be weak, if that's what you want to do. This isn't worthy of contempt if its done honestly. The problem comes when someone chooses weakness, and postures strenght, or chooses weakness and blames their weakness on others. This was my primary disagreement with the person I originally wrote this rant for. He postures strength from a position of weakness, and blames his weakness on others. He's just compost, nothing special unless he makes himself so. He becomes something less when he refuses responsibility for himself. 8: The universe tends towards the lowest state of organization. Entities and objects that stand still decay. Keep moving, keep growing, keep changing, or you'll join the compost heap. Sooner or later, you'll end up decaying anyway. Everyone dies. Everything rots. Nothing lasts. At that point, the only meaning your life has is the meaning you've given it. How sad if all that comes to is 'he reproduced'. Most of the claims to importance I've heard sound pretty pathetic in this life. No one cares if you're good at participating in other people's creativity. No one cares if you're good at playing someone else's game. If you didn't make your own impression, leave something of value of yourself behind, then you're nothing in the end. 9: 'Isn't fair' is an illusion created by the way some people choose to think. It may be that a person from a particular neighborhood or of a particular ethnicity has to work harder than one from a different neighborhood or different ethnic group, in order to achieve the same ends. The answer isn't to give up, and claim 'it isn't fair'. The answer is to work harder. If the goal you seek is important enough, you'll work as hard as it takes. If your goal is impossible, you won't succeed. If you don't SET OUT from the beginning to work as hard as you can, you'll never distinguish between the difficult and the impossible. In most cases, if you don't get what you wanted, you didn't try hard enough. Only rarely have I ever seen someone work as hard as they could and not succeed. If you desire to have a hole in the ground, then grab your shovel. Dig till the hole is deep enough. If you stop digging before the hole is big enough, don't say 'digging holes is too hard'. Say 'I wasn't willing to put the effort in. I didn't want a hole that badly'. It is perfectly legitimate to assign value to outcomes and choose the ones that are 'worth the effort'. Just be honest with yourself. If you wanted it, really wanted it, you would have made it happen. 10: Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Death in life sucks a lot more. Unfortunately I know a lot of people who are dead inside. Every time there's a media event with this theme, and there have been a lot of them lately, I hope that it will wake people up a bit. So far I'm batting zero. I guess to some they're just cool ways to make a movie out of a comic book, and the message doesn't matter. In service to the dream, and a whole lot of other stuff too Andrew (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 25th, 2006
3:14 am	lemmingish First, I went out and bought a new machine. That's something I've rarely done, but it's going to be a while till I can get the parts together to build what I want, and in the meantime heather's frankenputer is tanking with predictable regularity. Hence a trip to buy a new compaq. So far it won't play my games, it took two hours to configure my joystick, and it keeps prompting me to register various and sundry shit, which reminds me of how I prefer to install my own damn operating system. On the other hand it's stable, which was what I wanted. Just a bit officey till I can do some fucking around. Considering a dual boot, so I can run my oder stuff. In other news, I took that damn huge meme that's going around. (Click here to post your own answers for this meme.) ✓ I miss somebody right now.  (She's in the other room reading porn and waiting for me. I'm such a fool...) ✓ I don't watch much TV these days.  (I don't own one and haven't for four years) ✓ I own lots of books.  (gotta. no TV) ✓ I wear glasses or contact lenses.  (yep. four eyed freak) × I love to play video games. × I've tried marijuana. ✓ I've watched porn movies.  (Does making my own count?) ✓ I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.  (My last psycho ex thought so... May loki take a personal interest in the workings of her houshold) ✓ I believe honesty is usually the best policy.  (it keeps one from having to remember what lies one told whom) ✓ I curse sometimes.  (Jeesus H. motherfuckin christ on a cross covered in burning shit.) ✓ I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.  (Naah. Same person I've been for the past three decades. Just less innocent and a bit more mellow) ✓ I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me. ( it goes on... ) (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 3rd, 2006
6:50 am	grrrrrrrrrrrrr and arrrrrrrrrgggggg Fucking computer. Hard drive just tanked. Bigtime. Read arm is down on the platters, clanky noises, burny smell, the works. I just bricked my machine AGAIN. Second time this week and it's only fucking thursday. Now I'm on Mira's, after upgradey goodness, which meant putting the nonbricked parts of mine into hers, which just made it totally L337, if you squint real hard and if it was 1992 again. This machine was new when rocks were soft. But it runs... Mira says I should quit now, because it has gremlins and I shouldn't diss the gremlins. In any case, anyone have a nonbricked hard drive taking up paperweight space? Anything north of 2 gig would be much appreciated. In other frustrating news, I found out why I didn't get reimbursed for the rest of my feast expenses. The mistig exchecequer says she gave it to me, from her own funds, then reimbursed herself with the check meant for me. Trouble is, I never got any of her own funds. I wrote a forcefull letter. Mira says it's a bit TOO forceful, but I've been waiting, and now I hear, from someone who I'd trusted, a completely 'didn't happen that way' story about how she gave me the money from her own hand, then wrote herself a check from the account. I have no doubt she wrote herself a check. I don't even particularly have a problem with her doing it that way, if she had actually done it. Mira pointed out that an exchequer reimbursing from her own funds and then writing herself a check to make it up is a major boo-boo. Fudges the paper trail all to hell, and makes it really hard to prove what did or didn't happen. I just want my reimbursement: I can't afford to float that much money for that long. I love Skerjastrond, and I'll bleed red for them, but I can't bleed green. Long ass day already. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 29th, 2006
3:58 am	yet another rare update Lots of new stuff, as happens when I sit down and write about things on a bimonthly basis. Went to WW with heather, and had a lot of fun. Ran into lots of old friends. Helped with an entry for the smith's bardic challenge. Heralded my first tourney, the Defenders of the Dark. Didn't win. Generally had a fun and relaxing time, without all the running around and trying to get into everything. Met up with Grimmund finally. Set up my new tent, in the dark, in about ten minutes, for the very first time, and managed to make it work just fine. All and all, a pretty nice event. Did woodland romp. Cooked a seven course feast for about forty people, and they ate it. Only complaint I got was too much food. I like the reputation of feeding people into submission. Unlike last year, everything worked, and was edible. Last year's goat-type meal was picturesque, but otherwise rather grim. Didn't really get involved in the event otherwise: just cooked. I still have yet to spend a night at a woodland romp. This year it was just a few miles from home. That helped. I'm hopefully going to have the recipes and menu posted at my webpage, along with the stuff from the last several years. Lots more going on, but in a scattered sense. Computer keeps frying, for instance. Sooner or later I'm going to break down and get a new machine. It'll be worth the lessened frustration. Last crash cost me a lot of data. K. (Comment on this)