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No forum topic just yet, I'll set something up for the entire Nano series a little later.
It's a ridiculous holiday to celebrate over here. Free candy. Thats what kids need. I really dont wanna know what'd come out my mouth should the little shitlings show up on my doorstep.
The annual moustache growing month is upon us again, and even though Im not registered anywhere, or taking sponsors or anything like that, I'll shave my upper lip tomorrow morning and let it grow, without a single shave, all month. Everything will taste of hair by the end of it. Also, imagine me with my beard and no moustache.
Eight days to go until the NZ elections. I know who I'm voting for. Five days, however until the infinitely more interesting American elections. Up until I saw how McCain acts at his speeches and interviews, and despite the ridiculous choice of VP running mate, I would have said "four more years of old, white men." Hes so close to senility, its not funny. I can just see him sitting on the White House front porch with a .22 yelling at all the young lobbyists shouting "goddamn kids, get off my freaking lawn!" while Palin hides under a desk somewhere because she actually has to deal with the Russians (who she forgot existed cause she cant see them anymore).
And THAT, Ladies and Gents is why I have the word Cynical tattooed on my arm. Vote Obama (if applicable) cause even if he does get assassinated a week after he takes office, at least there is someone with a bit of experience sitting in the wings, ready to take over.
Lastly, starting tomorrow, I'll be writing Ruminations. I'm gonna split it into two sections. One to be posted over at my LJ concerning the more objective (and less ranty) nature of the universe itself, dealing with mathematics, light, distance, time and the likes and a more ... Relaxed (read: I'll be yelling) section here on humanity itself. I havent come up with an update schedule, but it should be two or three times a week.
I've also been thinking about other things too, things that will come up after November is done. When I have a leetle more free time.
Ectes out.
See, I got this tattoo on my arm (I swear this is all true) a couple of Wednesdays ago. Its the word 'Cynical' across my bicep. I'll get photos sometime soon, even though some of you have seen it already. Anyway, last ...I dunno, Thursday? Friday? One of them, I wore a shorter sleeved tshirt than normal to work, so my new tattoo was uncovered for the entire day. People saw it. And some of the younger kids, the ones with the single and double syllable vocabulary, kept asking me what it meant. Without looking it up, try and define cynical with using my name. Its insane!
Oh yeah, Mum, Dad. I have a new tattoo.
Im hoping that sometime this week I find out if I have a new job at work, meaning I can work four ten hour days, giving me permanent three day weekends.
As for Nanowrimo, Im stuck on a few ideas. Drop a comment in the forums with what I should write from the following ideas
- A piece called "Ruminations On The Nature Of The Universe And Humanity". A piece that is as fictitious as a subjective view on the universe can be.
- "Six". A new idea of mine about a dystopian future with immortals and psychics. My favourite type of characters.
- "Origins". A prologue to the events in The M68 Project. Ha! I knew Id come back to that one!
- "All In Your Head". A story with aliens and mind possesion. A fun story.
- A sequel to the unfinished novel I started when I was in the military, The Other Place.
Bleh. This is why I dont write very often. Two of those ideas have come to me since throwing my hat in the ring for Nano. I keep getting distracted by other ideas and more pressing matters. Still, points for trying?
I probably wont post anything for Nano here on ectes.net, but over, under a filter on my near-abandoned LiveJournal. There should be a post there asking for people who want to read it. Go there, comment etc etc
One last thing, I probably wont leave it for the better part of a month before updating again.
What video you ask? Well, I'll tell you. See, the local paper, The Press, ran an article on Jon Stewart last week and it reminded me of how watchable he is. I'm not overly fond of American comedy, simply because it resorts to smut far too often, using crude language to hide the lack of depth in the actual content.
Jon Stewart, however, is decidedly different. His facial expressions, his way with words and his quick wit have made him the most trusted face in political journalism. Yeah. That's right. A comedian. The irony, she is gorgeous.
So, the video I'm waiting to load is the 18th of September's episode of The Daily Show.
Another thing before I sign off, I have once again decided to throw my creative hat into the ring and enter NaNoWriMo. Third time in as many years I'll have entered, and this year will hopefully be a winning one for me. We'll see though. More details to come soon.
We'll start with work. Firstly, I'm now officially a fulltime employee, which means more hours and time and a half OT, which is a rather tempting prospect. Also, Im 90% sure I'll be able to get May and June off next year to go over to the States to see Chris and bring her back here for a bit. So, thats a massive push on the happiness meter. Onto other business...
People all over the globe have been talking in some fashion about this powerful particl accelerator under Swizerland and France, the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC. If you listen to the loudest group of people, you'll learn that on the 10th of September (OMG THATS TODAY GUYS!!!) it will be powered up and the world will end.
Uh, no. Sorry. Wrong. Guys, this behemoth has been on for the last two months (give or take). Today is the first uni-directional (thats the important bit right there) complete rotation of it. That is, up until now, theyve been firing their particles a part of the way round the accelerator, testing bits of it at a time. And only in one direction (at least, one at a time).
Todays test is the first time these particles will be fired in one direction only around the entire 27km circuit. Seeing as it is only going in one direction, there is no chance of it colliding with anything and thus, none of these doomsayers predictions will come true.
If all goes according to plan today and everything works well, the geeks over there will then start firing particles in both directions at once. Thats when we should actually pay attention to what theyre doing. And that wont be until 'later on in the year'. I'm sure we'll get more dates of interest as they are announced.
I'm not overly concerned. They claim that they have more chance of finding the face of God than creating anything that will destroy the planet. Comforting thought for an atheist.
PS, Tia? Those comics coming soon?
PPS, the rest of you? Make use of the forums. Is what theyre there for.
People's obsession with death. Specifically the particular obsession with staving it off.
Death is a fact of life, the one thing we cannot and really, should not change. We're all going to die, and if you believe in a fate/destiny dealy of any kind, then your time is already written, so what's the point of sitting connected to tubes and machines for month on end trying to outlast some creator's great plan for you?
That being said, I dont want to die just yet, but I know that I will one day. Whether its tomorrow or the day after I turn 102, I am going to stop living. I hope I do not have to suffer the humiliation of dementia like some of my family has. Nor do I wish to be subjected to the tubes and machines mentioned above.
I do hope my life is one I enjoy living. That is the only thing that matters. We're not here for long so we should enjoy what we have and when our eggtimers finally run out of sand, we should all smile knowing that we had a good time and hope we helped and inspired others to do the same.
Something else I found was this. Its a short video detailing a portion of theoretical physics. In particular, the ten dimensions. I wish I had more of an understanding of this kind of research so I can make a more indepth comment on it, suffice to say it is fascinating and well worth the watch if you can twist your point of view in some very original ways.
In other news, my plans to leave New Zealand and move to the USA have taken a turn for the worse. Without going into any kind of detail, the entire process of getting a Visa is too costly and complicated for me to give it a serious whack right now.
Related to that, I'll still be heading over there in May for a while to take in the sights and sounds of WA. Only as a holiday but hopefully more will be made of it as things go. I'm not giving up, but my mind is open to other possibilities.
I mean, it's just not Dagg if it doesnt have the Gumboot Song on it.
Everything is mass produced to such extent that there are millions of copies of everything. And what was rare is now digital and once again there are millions of copies of it, albeit they're all still labelled **RARE** on the P2P servers.
A direct effect of this is that noone applies value to these things. It's always 'if I lose it or it breaks, I can always get a new one'.
Welcome to todays disposable society, where trends and phases rule out over value and craftsmanship.
Personally, Id much rather have something which costs a little bit more, but is unique than the same shit everyone else has.
From what I can tell, you have to sign up before you can even see the boards themselves. It's been a long time since I had to administer any kind of forum arrangement, so, bear with me while I get it all sorted.
In the meantime, there is a contact type thingy now at the bottom of this page, if you have any issues with the forums or anything else on the site, leave a message there and I'll do what I can when I get the message.
Still some stuff to add to it, which will be added over the coming days. Slappy should be coming back from his little trip a little later on. I don't know where he went, but I'm sure he'll have lots of interesting stories to tell.
M68 will get a little bit added to it
The about page will be mostly relating to the philosophy behind this site and all that junk.
So, sit back and enjoy. And junk.