Current obsession: Cold Steel Trail Hawk

Just look at those clean lines. Brilliant form and function. And for around $20, it's hard not to buy one just to try it out.

First, I was hung up on hawk vs hatchet, but once I defined the differences, it was a lot easier. A hatchet is better at splitting, heavier, and well suited to hang out in camp. While a hawk should be lighter, and handier so you carry it more on the trail, and have an easier job bridging the gap between hatchet and your camp carry fixed blade. I made the decision to pick two tools best suited for two jobs, as opposed to one that was OK at both. If you'd prefer the single tool solution, you might consider the rifleman's hawk, which is one of their heavier hawks.

Once I defined my objective in bringing a hawk as portability, the other hawks cold steel offers didn't hold much appeal. There is also a significant modding community for these light, inexpensive tools, which makes them even more appealing, even if you only drop $20 for a piece you can put some elbow grease into, and hang on your wall.

The only reason I don't have one with me right now is because I have the cold steel kukri machete and the cold steel special forces shovel, which I still think needs a saw side. After I defined the objective for the hawk, it became clear the others were not perfectly suited for the position. Also, I was unem-fucking-ployed, and as much as I love getting a bug up my butt about some lovely piece of edged metal and buying it on the spot, we gotta eat.

I wasn't always a fan of cold steel products, but they've really stepped up their designs while maintaining a price point that makes complaining about them harder than buying them. I will stick with their simple designs (usually anything that relies on a roughly cut hunk of metal), but I haven't touched any of their folders or anything from their "premium" line. I might be able to talk about them more seriously when they stop prominently featuring fat dudes in suits throwing spears at car hoods, or demonstrating how anything that's made of metal will go through sheet metal with enough force. Seriously guys, dial back the sensationalism. (he said, as he bought more cold steel products)

Also, this is awesome;


I gotta get out to the desert.

Oh yeah, the edge will likely need touching up, and a hex screw keeping the head on the handle is bullshit. Reprofile the edge, and take the screw out. A hawk handle is larger on one end to keep the head on. (apply directly to the forehead)

Eira's Quest part 2, Big Room Bollocks

When we last left our hero, she was below the Big Room, half-dead, blind, and lycanthropic! You could say she was having trouble seeing what a hairy situation she was in! (ba-dum tschh!)

Back downstairs, I confirm I'm still wearing the ring of warning and wait silently, afraid a clot of hill giants will round the corner and throw boulders at me at any moment. Luckily, the blindness wears off, and I'm able to wait until healed, and return upstairs with a new plan.

As soon as I emerge, I read a scroll of teleport, hoping I don't get dropped near that group of chickatrices. Luckily, I get sent to the other side of the map. Whew. Good thing I didn't have to take out that group of chickatrices. I take one step, and... The pyrolisk casts its fiery gaze upon you! Shit! Where the fuck did that come from?! I attempt a retreat, hoping the conflict will run it into some other monster, but it just keeps on staring at me. After a few turns, and a few near misses due to my displacement, I manage to take out the pyrolisk. But I'm low on health, most of my scrolls have burned up and potions have boiled and exploded (goddamnit), I'm on fire, and oh yeah, I'm stuck far from the staircase in the big room with no more teleports. Just when things couldn't get any worse, You change into werewolf form! AHHH FUCK! I FORGOT I WAS LYCANTHROPIC! I was going to wait until I was lower on health to pray! The transition tears through my precious cloak of displacement and my armor. Now I'm a weak werewolf, against a wall, low on health, and no armor. Oh! summon help! I wait a few turns to get my energy up, and summon help. I'm instantly surrounded by wolves who came to help, but they too, attack me viciously. Shit! Really low on health now! Way to leave conflict on! I quickly remove the ring of conflict, which first stops my pack of wolves from attacking me as I'm near death, and second makes every monster left in the room make a bee-line for me. I noticed I'm overburdened, and quickly drop any nonessentials so I can make a hasty escape. Lets see if I can figure a way out of this...

My wolf pack takes a few monsters down before dying surprisingly easily, but at least I can put my ring of conflict back on. I'm still low on health, and looking to make my way back to the staircase as a plains centaur and a winter wolf close in on me. While I'm waiting for them to close in on me so I can make some moves around them both, the centaur starts firing its crossbow, and the winter wolf starts shooting its ice beam at me! Fuck this shit! I retreat from my position, hoping I'm fast enough to make it around these monsters, and notice that as I leave my spot, there is a pile of stuff I didn't expect. Shit! I dropped my weapons too! I can't wield anything in this form, can I? Shitshitshit. I gotta go back. Already three spaces away, I return to the line of fire to grab whatever I needed to survive until I changed back to my human form.

Dodging crossbow bolts and ice beams, I make it back to my pile of stuff. Ok, what's here? I need my sword and daggers, *crossbow bolt* and this gray stone, I guess, it probably doesn't weigh much *ice beam* and definitely this wand of lightning, hey wait! I pick up the wand of lightning in my werewolf mouth, and level it at the centaur and winter wolf, making short work of them. Whew! Ok, still need to get out of here, but conflict seems to be less effective than it used to be. It's long past time to get out of here.

Quickly dodging through fighting monsters and missiles, I'm still nowhere near the staircase, and the pack of chickatrices are alternating between turning nearby monsters into statues and making several troublesome moves toward me, when I (luckily?) discover a level teleport trap! Hopefully I'll go up a level so I can go up to level two or something, and get another cloak of displacement. I'm momentarily blinded by a flash of light, and... Went down a level. Oh well, it's still better than where I was, trapped in the big room. I'm somewhat close to the stairs, and this room seems pretty protected. I quickly pray to my god to cure my lycanthropy, and he graciously cures me, but I wasn't low enough on health to heal me. Wow. That was almost terminally stupid. Forgetting I had lycanthropy, and that changing form would destroy all my sweet armor? Geez.

I wait around a bit to heal up, and check my inventory. I've got that cursed cloak that I think is good. It's a "piece of cloth," so I'm pretty sure it's invisibility, but no other armor to speak of... Oh yeah! Those green dragon scales! I put on the loose dragon scales, which helps my armor class a lot less than expected, and put on the cursed piece of cloth, which turns out to be a cloak of protection, but I didn't notice any AC improvement. This is far from ideal, but it's better than nothing. I'll worry about removing this cursed cloak later. I futz with my inventory a bit and heal up enough to venture back to the up stairs. The up and down stairs on the Big Room level are pretty close together, but I can't remember how many were in that area when I was there last. Or more importantly, where those chickatrices were! I still don't have any lizards, and a simple touch from one of those would end my quest!

I continue making my way back to the familiarity of the up staircase area, when I find a neutral altar! Sweet! Now I can sacrifice to my god, get a prayer back in case of some other stupid move, and possibly get Mjolnir! I hang out for a bit and sacrifice a few small monsters that come by. Fuck this, I'm zapping my wand of create monster. I greedily zap the wand and a damn plains centaur appears! Ok, maybe I should have waited until I healed up a bit! I eye my inventory for a way out, and realize that what worked before should work now, and zap it with my wand of lightning, killing it instantly. OK! Lets not try that again! I drag the centaur onto the altar, and sacrifice it for a little luck, but I need more monsters. Understandably gun shy, I leave the wand of create monster alone, and opt to wait around, healing, and trying to coax monsters into the altar room. One room over a hill giant breaks down the door. Shit! I don't need this right now! Please don't throw a boulder at me! It'll block my way back to the altar room! I quickly vacate the corridor for fear a bolder might block it, and luckily, this hill giant didn't seem to have a boulder. It very clearly passes on several opportunities to throw one at me, and closes in to melee me, which is definitely what I prefer. That's it, a little closer... Then it throws a boulder at me. AH FUCK! *WHEW* Dodged it! No longer afraid of boulders, I close in on it, and take it out. The next corridor has a lot of items in it for some reason, I check the pile and see the grave of a dead wizard, and all his kit. Well, most of it is probably cursed, but beggars can't be choosers!

I grab everything that looks useful and check the cursed status on the altar. Most of it is cursed, but some isn't. Quite a few cursed rings, and a pair of cursed leather gloves. I briefly consider the danger of those chickatrices, and decide to put them on. Woot! They lowered my AC by 3! There is an uncursed amulet, but I'll try it out later. My amulet of reflection is too important to me right now. Ok, time to try on some of these rings... Oh wait... I can't take off my cursed gloves to change rings... Genius. Wait, I'll just sacrifice some more and pray, and maybe I'll get lucky. How about this cursed potion? Potions are heavy, and even cursed, they don't usually have game ending consequences. I quaff cursed potion, and discover it's a potion of gain level! But cursed potions of gain level literally make you gain a level. I float up and through to the ceiling, and back into the Big Room! Genius... Well, at least I still have my ring of conflict on, and I found some scrolls of teleport. Here we go!

Back on in the Big Room, I see that I'm actually in a pretty good spot. Pretty much on the opposite side of where I was before, so I'm far from where the monsters were, and they will have to fight their way through each other to get back to me. This might actually work out better than expected! I take a step, and land in a polymorph trap! SSSSHHHIIII--wait! The scales are merging with my body? I'm turning into a green dragon! The transformation destroyed my cursed cloak of protection, and pushes my cursed gloves off of my hands! So... win? Hey! I can breathe poison and lay dragon eggs! Sweet! Never mind, not enough energy since I just transformed, but now I wonder how fast I am... Hey, I seem pretty fast! I dance around the chickatrices, making them run into other monsters, and contribute further to my Big Room statue garden. After the Big Room is pretty clear, I retreat downstairs to relax for a bit, and try out my new form.

[to be continued]

Tired of America? 15 reasons you should seriously consider leaving!

Confounded by Tea Baggers fighting for the right to work themselves into an early grave?

Can't comprehend why people fight against free government services?

Astounded by America's low standard of living compared to other nations?

Baffled by the disagreement over the government providing basic human rights like health care, food, and shelter?

Exasperated by the violence and hate of this nation?

Tired of The Corporatocracy systematically destroying the American middle class?

Outraged by the American peoples' persistent stupidity at the polls?

Disgusted with the unabashed consumerism of this country?

Plagued by religious zealotry?

Hopeless over The Wealthy Bankers' control over you and the government?

Crushed by the poverty, debt, and hardship the chase for the almighty dollar has gotten you into?

Had your fill of The Working Class?


Well, maybe it's time for a change then! Obviously, we all would prefer to stay and fight for change, but that might not always be the best choice. Would you rather fight for your life, or live your life? What about your children? If you're tired of all these things and more, here are 15 reasons why you should seriously consider moving to another country.


1. Americans are sheep.
The Tea Party is funded and driven by Rupert Murdoch and Fox news. It sprang from nowhere by sheer will of media. Now they rise up against basic human services such as health care. These people will forever be pawns of the media, and they will vote because they were told to be angry. You need to be in a more enlightened country with more enlightened people who care about humans instead of corporations.

2. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
This is the system today. The rich are the ones who run the government with bribes and backroom deals. Do you really think they're going to let you change it? There's an old saying which goes, "If voting could change anything, they'd make it illegal."

3. Obama was the last hope for real change, and the corporatists and made sure he failed. Can anyone really stand against them?
He was the true Hope for Change. But they stopped him at every turn. Even from within his own party. He was the best shot this country had, and they practically lynched him for trying to be that agent of change. Obama was a once-in-a-lifetime guy, who would possibly stand up for the same things after they saw how he was destroyed by the people who are really in charge of this country?

4. America's foundation is in capitalism and greed.
There is no question that America was built on hundreds of years of greed. It is predisposed to be capitalist and corporatist. Why try to change a country whose foundation is the opposite of the change you want, when there are other countries that only need a few manageable changes to become as close to a utopia as humans can achieve?

5. If America really does make the switch to a more socialistic form of government, how effective will it really be compared to European nations?
The political infrastructure is not built for a new economic system. This kind of change requires a lot of time to pull out all the kinks and stops. There is no way America will be a more effective socialist nation than other countries that have had centuries time to get it right.

6. The Constitution guarantees there will always be guns and violence in America.
The second amendment is the second amendment in the constitution, and repealing it was made to be intentionally difficult. In fact, given the current level of divisiveness, it's unlikely we'll get enough consensus to make any amendments in our lifetime. There will always be guns and violence in America. Why fight one of the most powerful documents in this country, when other more enlightened countries have already banned guns?

7. If the military industrial complex really is in control of this nation, what can you really do about it?
Certainly, they are hiding their true power to keep the masses believing they are in control of a democracy, but if they are ever revealed, what can a small percentage of the nation armed with small arms do against tanks, jets, and bombs? There can be no victory against them.

8. The Evangelical Christian Right will always have a stranglehold over this country.
Lets face it, Pat Robertson says jump, and the voting masses say, "How high?" Recent events have proven their power has not diminished, and will likely continue to grow. They're not going anywhere. How can you honestly hope to fight so many of them?

9. If your wildest hopes and dreams for this country really do come true, there will still be over 40% of the population fighting it at every turn.
Why choose the path of most resistance? These people won't change their minds, and they'll use everything available to oppose you at every opportunity. Why fight them? When you could just go to a country that is already where you want it to be?

10. Don't stay just to spite your opponents.
"Because leaving is exactly what they want me to do, so they can take over!" is not a valid reason to stay. Are you really going to keep playing against a stacked deck just because you don't want to give them the satisfaction? This isn't a game. This is your life. You should be living it in a country where they believe what you believe. Not hitting your head against a brick wall because it looks like you may have made some superficial progress. Besides, keeping you engaged in futile arguments is an effective method of keeping you from leaving. Especially when coupled with someone telling you that you actually have a chance of winning.

11. There is no such thing as "American Exceptionalism."
The idea is jingoistic tripe. What's exceptional about people starving in the streets and children not being able to get health care coverage for diseases they are born with? This country is no more special than any other, and claiming so is nothing short of delusional.

12. America was founded by puritans, and will always be run by puritans and religious zealots.
The history of America is clear, and it continues to shape it hundreds of years later. It will never change.

13. Even with the most perfect set of circumstances, the change you're trying to make in this country will not happen in your lifetime.
Why not make the change now, move to a more worldly country, and enjoy it, and let your kids enjoy it? Why choose to fight for change all your life in a country that resists it, only to have your kids fight for it all their lives, so your grandkids must fight to refine the changes in a country that only barely resembles your dreams? Is this really what you want?

14. Get out while you still can.
When people start realizing that the American Dream is dead, and they are nothing but loan interest slaves, do you think the people who are really in power are going to let them leave? Who will work to fund their billions in profits? America will be locked down under the pretense of something terror related, and no one will be allowed to leave.

15. If you truly can't see enough good in America, why torture yourself by staying?
Family can move, and those reluctant now will have the benefit of someone already living in the country of your choice when things get really bad. Minds will quickly change when they see what's coming.


Disclaimer: I'm a capitalist, and don't believe any of these 15 reasons, but I've argued with countless people who do.

I've told them that if they really believe all these things they should leave. They usually take this to mean that I want to eliminate them as competition, and take over the country with my ideology, but that's not my goal.

If you believe any of these things, and are truly honest with yourself about them, you should seriously consider leaving the country so you can live more happily.

Many of the people I've argued with I consider friends, and I want my friends to be happy. I don't care about winning, and neither should someone who believes any of these 15 things. What we should all care about is being happy. Sadly, many of the people I've argued with will never be happy in this country. Why struggle and be miserable when you can just move someplace where things are more to your liking?

I think this country, though far from where I believe it should be, is near enough to where I want it to be for me to stay and fight. I stay because I believe it's possible to win. If I believed the same things as many of the friends and acquaintances I've argued with, I would leave, and the above reasons are why.

Please don't take this as a push toward the door, but as an honest representation of what I would do, and why, if I believed as you did. Don't let your ego get in the way of your happiness, or the happiness of your children.

It's hard to start fresh, but it's worth it to live the life you really think you should live.

Start with little steps. Get a passport if you don't already have one. Take some vacation time. Visit some potential countries. See how you like them.

Please don't just dismiss this as misdirection from someone who disagrees with you. I've been honest with you, so please be honest with yourself. Wouldn't you be happier in Europe or South America?

Eira the Valkyrie, and the new stratagem

After a series of promising, but ultimately dead characters, I started reading some ascension posts (posts about winning), and saw that these players were playing kind of fast and loose with their characters. It was risky to dive to sokoban for reflection or all the way to the castle for the wand of wishing, but both of those things exponentially increase your chances of surviving to mid-game. So was it more dangerous to go straight down to sokoban as soon as possible for reflection, or was it more dangerous to meander about, trying to stay alive long enough for the Random Nethack God to figure out a complex set of circumstances that ends in my death? I'd been playing each character like I wanted to keep it alive, but they're all very notably dead. Could being more risky be technically less risky? Only one way to find out. I switch back to the class I have the most experience with, and roll new Valk.

Eira the neutral human Valkyrie enters the Mazes of Menace...

---

I started out pretty well, found a shop with two cloaks of displacement for only 66 zorkmids. I couldn't buy one fast enough. I then, rather uneventfully, rushed down to sokoban, and solved it with little trouble. The amulet of reflection was mine, and at level 5 I was protected from a good portion of the insta-deaths Nethack can issue. Maybe there's something to this new strategy... Should I make a run for the castle? Why the fuck not?

I continue down, and find a few rings I can't check for cursed status with a pet because they've all died due to somesuch Nethackery, so I just hold on to them in the hopes of finding an altar. A kitten attacks, and I toss it some tripe for a cheap cursed item ID, and abandon it. Don't look at me like that. You knew what this was. I test out the uncursed rings, and find they are conflict and warning! Quite a find. Warning will show me where nearby monsters are, and how nasty they are. Very useful. Conflict will cause all the monsters on the level to fight each other. Extremely useful in certain situations. Later I happen across an uncommon find; a grey stone. It could be a few things, only one is bad, so I test it to make sure it's not a loadstone, and pick it up. Hey, could be a luckstone... Yeah, and a djinni could fly out of my ass and grant me three wishes! It's probably flint. Maybe even a touchstone. I'll check it later, but there's no harm in bringing it along. Despite the unlikeliness, I carry it in my immediate inventory as if it were a luckstone. Just wishful thinking, I suppose.

Further down I enter a new level, and begin searching for the downstairs when I suddenly stop. I furrow my brow and stare. Why the fuck is my ring of warning telling me there is a 5th level dangerous monster around the corner??? The ring of warning uses numbers to show how dangerous the monsters nearby are. If you can't see them, but are near enough, they show up on your map as the number. 5 is the highest I've ever seen warning go, and now I was seeing it extremely early in the game. This can't be right. Its gotta be a chameleon. Just be cool, back away from whatever it is until it changes into something easier to kill... I take two cautious steps toward the upstairs, and think I might have just dodged a bullet. I take another step, and it teleports into the room with me! It's a fucking Arch Lich! It casts a spell, and I'm surrounded on all sides by serious monsters! Among them an ettin zombie, two hill giants, and a goddamn green dragon!

okokok, don't freak out. Check your inventory for something to get out of this. I've got two scrolls of teleport, one cursed, one not. The cursed one will change what level I'm on, and the uncursed one will just move me around on this level. I'd rather deal with the chameleon now, so lets try the uncursed one first, and keep the cursed one in reserve. I read the uncursed scroll of teleport, and wind up two rooms away. I quickly put on my ring of conflict, and make a run for a corridor so I can deal with the monsters one at a time when they show up.

I hear noises from elsewhere, hopefully that ring of conflict is doing something. As I stand in the corridor, two "2"s show up in the room in front of me, but out of my visual range. I poke my head into the room, and see a cockatrice and a scorpion. I didn't know a scorpion was a 2... I back into the corridor and ready the few daggers I have for that cockatrice, when the 2 changes into a 1. I poke my head out, and see a small kobold where the cockatrice once was. It's the chameleon! Kill it while it's still weak! I rush over and kill it, then make my way the scorpion. On the way I see a 2 and a 3 making their way over to this room, so I dispatch the scorpion quickly, and fall back into the corridor. The corridor is at a bit of an angle, so I might be able to see what it is before it has a straight shot at me, so I back into the next room, which turns out to be a leprechaun hall! They're still asleep, so they won't bother us, but if things get hairy I can wake them all up, and with the ring of conflict, they should make for a good distraction. But this room is still a dead end. I hide around the corner, double check my inventory, and wait for the 2 and 3 to make their way to me.

The 2 enters the corridor, and I poke my head around the corner, and see that it's an ettin mummy. I should be able to take him... them?.. It. I position myself so I can hit it as soon as it sees me, and wait for the 2 to round the corner. As soon as its heads appear, I attack. It was tougher than I thought, but I killed it. The 3 suddenly makes a bee-line for me, I'm still at 2/3 health, so I need to know what it is. I wait until the 3 is in the corridor in a position where I can look safely, and peek around the corner. Green Dragon! Ok, it's kind of early for me to try to take one on. I know I have poison resistance... Fuck it. I've got a potion of full healing and a wand of digging in case it gets to be too much. No guts no Glory. I wait for the Green Dragon to get in range, and bash it with my long sword. It takes quite a beating, and gets my hitpoints down to the teens, but I drink the full heal potion, and finish it off in a few more turns. Sweet! Now I have green dragon scales that I might be able to turn into dragon scale mail!

I continue clearing out the rest of the level, and pick up a large cat as a pet. I open the door on the last room in the map, and it's full of chickatrices! I check my inventory and confirm I have a lizard corpse, but no gloves... I try to close to the door, but a chickatrice hops into the doorway! I have no reason to fuck around with these things, so I'm out. I back out of the corridor, slam the door behind it, and lock it. I'll deal with those guys later. Or never. At least my large cat was far enough away to keep from getting locked in with them...

On the way to the stairs down, I run into a gargoyle. I hate gargoyles. I check my inventory and zap it with a wand of lightning, killing it on the first hit. It drops a potion, which I quaff greedily. It was a potion of self knowledge!

You are piously aligned.
You are cold resistant.
You are warned.
You are displaced.
You are stealthy.
You are fast.
You have reflection.
You are lucky.
You have extra luck.
Bad luck does not time out for you.
Good luck does not time out for you.
You can safely pray.

That's odd... Why all the luck? Oh well, I won't complain.

The next level down is the Big Room, and I've got a ring of conflict! I slip it on and put some distance between me and my large cat. The monsters start fighting amongst themselves, most notably a pack of chickatrices, but the overall flow of monsters is still closing in on me, so I carefully made my way to the down stairs so I'd have an easy escape if it got hairy.

The chickatrices have been making tons of statues out of monsters, but they weren't making it close enough to keep me clear. Or do I want them to stay away? I fight as much as I can, and flee downstairs once surrounded, knowing that some monsters would follow me down.

Sure enough a zombie and a tengu follow me down, it'll be good not to have them around me when I go back up. As I fight them off, a hill giant appears in the doorway, but is far enough away that I'll have these guys out of the way before he gets to me. Suddenly the hill giant zaps a wand of lightning while I'm at half health! Shit! If this doesn't kill me, he's still far enough away to zap me multiple times before I can get to him, and my daggers are all upstairs! Should I escape upstairs? The bolt of lightning streaks toward me, bounces off my amulet of reflection, blinding me, and returns to the hill giant, killing him. Ok, that was close. Or did it just seem close? Whatever. Hill giants usually travel in packs, and the monsters that had surrounded me upstairs didn't seem too tough if I recall correctly, I think I'll hang out upstairs until the blindness wears off.

Back upstairs, I blindly fight off some minor monsters, but one bites me and I feel feverish. Crap! A werewolf! Ok, my god will cure my lycanthropy, but I don't want to use up the godly heal if I'm not near death, because I'm still low on health. I keep fighting, but the monsters seem too resilient. Fuck this, I'm leaving. I escape downstairs.

Eira's quest continues here...

Quick updates

Things are going pretty well. I have a few promising job prospects, both are better than what I had, as is normally the case. Still running off savings, and we have enough that I don't have to freak out about money while I look for the right job instead of just any job.

I figured that if I ever won the lottery I would retire to some acreage in Montana or Texas or Wyoming, preferably with a quarry, and just fucking relax. Seems like a great idea right? Yeah. See, I've been going nucking futs with all this waiting around. I really thought I'd have an easier time doing nothing. Just play some video games, do some work, hit the range for some .22 practice, and enjoy the time off. Nope. I can't do any of those things unless I force myself. If I don't catch myself, I'll just pace for hours, thinking about jobs and life, and generally driving myself up the walls. I just don't know what to do with myself. Maybe it will be different when I have a few million in the bank, but I just can't sit still. This last week has been the worst because the holiday just shut everything down, and I'm waiting for scheduling on follow up interviews, and I can't call them because they told me they'll be busy going into Thanksgiving, and then Monday rolled around, and I didn't want to bother them today because I know it's the first day back from a long holiday weekend, and blah blah blah. I guess I've just got more stuff to do.

I applied for unemployment benefits after a little goading from friends and family, because I'm not philosophically opposed to unemployment benefits, as long as they're used as intended. That is, a helping hand during a career transition, and not a long term source of income. I did all the stupid paperwork, and weeks later got the first check. It's still sitting on the counter. Filing was one thing, but depositing the check? It's different. I may not oppose unemployment benefits, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. Also, the check is about a third of what I made (exactly how do people live off of this for 99 weeks?)

I've been taking advantage of this time to take some more serious looks at out of state work. It's by no means decided yet, but the plans are definitely moving forward. One of the good opportunities has a lot of people on their team that work all over the country, so being able to move was a bit of a selling point.

I don't lie on my resume or in interviews, but I lied by omission to answer one question asked during an interview in order to conceal my conservative values and general disgust for the way this state is run. When I told my wife about it she asked me why I lied, and I said that for now, I have to be employable in this state, and liberals tend to hate (not disagree with, hate) people who don't conform to their world view. That's why I blog under a pseudonym. Maybe after we move I'll be more open about my identity, but then again, I'm a private person, so maybe fuck off :)

I've been digging back into the California hunting and camping information. Camping isn't that hard, but I want to camp in a place that isn't hermetically sealed from the environment. I want to pitch a goddamn tent, make a goddamn fire, and poop in a goddamn hole. Well, maybe a porta-potty or two wouldn't be so bad. I just gotta get away. I crave that quiet that I only get when I go out to the sooper seekrit desert shooting spot. But California is strongly opposed to letting you interact with anything beautiful about this state. Believe me, if they could wrap plexiglass around every hiking trail they would. I want to feel like part of nature, not just a tourist with a camera. The hunting stuff is just as confounding as ever. The State's websites on the matter are uniformly inconsistent. One wilderness park has maps, marked areas, specific locations, and another has vague mention of separate areas that have different rules. The one thing that is somewhat consistent is that they always recommend just asking at the ranger station, but a few searches has shown many people receiving bad information from random rangers. This is bad. Because depending on the area and the infraction, being unclear about where this zone ends and that begins could mean anything from a scolding to federal prison. So yeah. BLM land seems to be the only truly free place left, but it's almost uniformly dust and scrub in my area. Which isn't really that bad, but what's the point of living in one of the most beautiful states in this country if you can't enjoy it? But for as unhelpful as the state-provided information is, the hunters themselves are even less helpful. I remain astounded at how unwelcoming, and in some cases, hostile a group of people can be who are enjoying a sport that one might conclude they want to keep in existence. I don't know if they got the memo, but hunting is a dying sport in dire need of some revitalization. But I guess they just figure that means more game for them, right? That said, the predator guys seem pretty alright. Predator hunting might be a good way to cut my teeth.

The failure of national opt out day was very disheartening to me. If people aren't willing to suffer a minor inconvenience to make a symbolic stand for freedom, what the fuck are they going to do when confronted with something that actually matters?

In other news, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. North Korea rattles its saber more violently than it has in quite some time, the collapse of the dollar seems closer and more dangerous than ever, drug wars ramp up all over to deal with decreasing demand, Government Motors put out an ad thanking America for their hugely unpopular and widely opposed bailout, Jihadist bomb plots get closer and closer to home every day, liberals pop their collective monocles when they see someone doing that "fishing" thing they read about, Lady Gaga is helping PFCs steal classified information that has the potential to send international relations into a tailspin, and Obama is as impotent as a man who's married to Michelle Obama. Good thing I've got a case of bad news burnout, otherwise I might be concerned.

Bo Burnham is hilarious

I saw his words words words show and highly recommend it.

Art is dead

[direct link]


Words words words

[direct link]

What has two thumbs and just got laid off?

THIS guy...



I'm excited.

I've been kind of looking for a new place for a while, and I haven't been challenged there in two years. I think the change was overdue.

My boss didn't want to do two weeks, so right afterward, I showed him and an ex-coworker how to manage some of the undocumented scripts and automation I had done for our patch server, and went over some of the other undocumented job functions I had been doing since our previous round of lay-offs. Then I signed out for my phone (god, I hated that phone) and card, and my former boss and I went out to the parking lot and talked for an hour about the company and my honest opinion of him, my coworkers, and the CEO.

I wasn't a dick about any of that stuff because I didn't feel upset. Like I said, I was excited. I told him he needed to delegate more before he wound up in an early grave. I told him he was trying to balance the company on his shoulders, without asking for any help, and it was taking its toll on him. I told him how one of my coworkers was truly suffering from the low pay. I told him how the CEO revealed to me that he was bored with the job. I told him how it was a privilege to watch the company learn and grow over the 7 years (this month!) I worked there.

Then I shook his hand, said goodbye, turned around, looked up at the sky, breathed the free air, and felt great.


On to the next adventure...

It's a marathon, not a sprint

Alright, it has been a little over two weeks since I started pounding the pavement, and I quickly discovered that a kickass attitude is no match for burnout.

The first week was easy. Well, it was technically easy. It was hard to get out of bed, and get to Starbucks, but once I was there, and my brain was in gear, there was no stopping me. I may have been more tired than I was used to at the end of the day, but it wasn't that bad.

But after the first week, I started to notice that not only was I more physically tired, I was also mentally tired. Code I had written days before made no sense to me, which wouldn't be the first time, but probably the first time for code I had written so recently, and definitely the first time I could not grok after a few minutes. Frustrated with the confusing code I had written, I decided to just start work on a different segment of code. Except... Nothing was coming out. I just sat there, unable to put two thoughts together. I started just writing whatever came to mind so I could keep track of what I was doing, but I'd forget where I was after a few lines. Then I got really angry with myself for forgetting how to code, and surfed the net idly, stopping periodically to see if I remembered how to code. I didn't. Then I got mad at myself for wasting time, and opened my list of things to read, and started reading about some perl methods I wanted to try out. Except... That didn't make sense either... I was broken, frustrated, and angry. I went home.

The following week I started sleeping through my alarm. No matter how much I turned it up, I slept right through it. And when I woke up an hour or two late, still with time to work, I didn't want to go to Starbucks because I felt like it would be a waste of time and money. So I tried to work at least one hour at home. But I had the same problem. So I just wound up playing Fallout New Vegas. More metaphorical comfort food, but it didn't matter to me, because I knew i wouldn't be able to code.

When the weekend rolled around, I wanted to code, but something always got in the way. I played obscene amounts of Fallout, and honestly had fun doing it. But I still knew time was passing me by.

I overdid it on Sunday, and stayed up too early playing, and fucked up my morning. I still work up early, and actually woke to my alarm this time, but I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything but play Fallout. So I thought about it a bit, and decided to sleep in as much as I could because I was going to work Tuesday.

So two weeks after I declared war on sleep, I slept.

After about 10 hours of sleep, I woke up a new man. Feeling refreshed, and ready to work. I didn't though, because I didn't want to jinx it.

I went to a particularly vexing day of work, came home, unwound with some teevee with the wifey, and got to bed at a reasonable hour.

This morning, I was up on time, got ready for work early, headed into Starbucks, got 2.5 hours of serious coding done, and still had a half to write this post, and head in to work.

tl,dr; I need to start pacing myself. I don't think I've ever worked as mentally hard as I did that week, certainly not on that little amount of sleep. I just didn't think I could induce burnout in a little over a week. Honestly, I'm kind of impressed. But I'm not in it for the short game, and I certainly shouldn't expect to take off at a full sprint with no training. I'm going to try doing half-mornings of non-business stuff in between my business mornings, and generally figuring out the maximum I can do without going over that threshold.

Why Minecraft is fun

I've often wondered what it was that made Minecraft fun.

It was frustrating trying to explain it to people who hadn't played it, because I just couldn't put my finger on it. But this review hit the nail on the head.

The reason Minecraft is fun is because it's totally random.

The world generation is random.
When you generate a new world, you're seeing something no one else has ever seen before. Everything is new, nothing is planned. That is why discovering amazing naturally occurring land features is so exciting. There was no artist that sketched this and gave it to a team of graphic designers who built it into the game. This is all new, generated just now, discovered by you. Sure, there are rules that go into the creation of these features, but they are still quite random, and still somewhat rare.

The enemy generation is random.
Enemies generate within certain rules, but their generation is still random. There is no pretense of fairness. When you buy a standard game, and you hit a part that you can't quite get past, you'll keep pushing at it or try a different method, because in the back of your mind, there is the knowledge that a company developed this game, and they did not make it impossible. They probably spent tens of thousands of dollars in testing to make sure it was just the right level of difficulty for the potential buyers. There is no safety net in this game. You are entirely at the mercy of the random number generator and a few simple restrictions.

Resource generation is random.
When I find diamond in Minecraft, I get honestly excited. Because it's rare. Really rare. And when I go mining, I have zero assurance of finding any. I'm not fulfilling a mission to find diamond to continue the main story of the game, where I can be comforted by the knowledge that I will find diamond, because I require it to continue playing. If I find diamond, it's because I used a good mining strategy to find a rare resource, not because someone put an objective marker on my map, and handed me a pick.

The situations you can get yourself into are random.
The combination of the random events occurring randomly on randomly generated landscape can lead to some really random situations. You could be out in the light of day, gathering resources, then fall into a cave filled with monsters, and instantly get overwhelmed and killed. You could be out hunting cows to make some leather armor, when it starts to get dark, and you realize you have no idea where you are or where your shelter is. You could be monster hunting with the best weapons, and the best armor, and take a single hit from a spider, and be pushed off the edge of a heretofore unnoticed cliff. You could be spelunking when a creeper sneaks up on you, jump back, missing most of the blast, and watch helplessly as the sand ceiling collapses, suffocating you.

The world is a beautiful, dangerous, unforgiving place.

Finding diamond, building amazing structures, or simply surviving are all the more rewarding knowing that you did it in a very hostile environment with no safety net or promise of success.

It's just you versus the world, and it feels really good to win.

How to cheat at caravan in Fallout: New Vegas

UPDATE 8/19/12: If you've played New Vegas recently you've probably noticed that this tactic no longer reliably works, and the merchants who have enough caps to make Caravan a worthwhile endeavor will only play you 5 times. I kind of like it better this way, because the games are more interesting and challenging. I still lose sometimes on bad hands. It really is a fun game if you take the time to learn it, and consider the full implications of the face cards.

Good luck! The original post will continue below...

---

Caravan is a card-based minigame within Fallout: New Vegas. A whole bunch of NPCs will play it with you, for varying amounts of caps.

It is also incomprehensible.

The rules provided are terrible. A fucking tutorial would have taught in minutes what a giant block of text couldn't explain in hours. But here we are.

There are a number of youtube tutorials on how to play, and to Bethesda's credit, it's actually a pretty fun game once you understand what you're doing, and how to fuck with your opponent. Only problem is, the opponent AI in this minigame is a bit thick (at least so far in the game). Once you get a few tricks under your belt, it's practically a guaranteed win as soon as you start. Maybe later on better NPCs will put up a real fight, but nothing so far. Just free caps.

But if you just need the caps, why bother learning to play, planning out your strategy, or giving a shit? Just do this for free caps forever. (or at least until they patch the obviously flawed rules of their game)

Whoops.

"Brutal" is right.

[direct link]

From HotAir

EVIL RICH PEOPLE! (Election Shenanigans)

[direct link]

From HotAir

Quote of the don't ask me, my wife handles that stuff...

I think women, because -- at least in my household -- tend to have a better sense of the family budget...
~President Obama

Wow.

So the first lady is better at budgeting than the president?

I wish I could say I was surprised.

I guess I'd rather have this running my country.

All partisanship aside, I NEVER want the person with approval and veto power over this country's economy to tell me that his wife is better with money than he is.

Complete disrespect

Lara Bush would be caught dead looking like this in public.

Whenever I saw Lara Bush on teevee or in print, I quietly appreciated her stately appearance, but expected nothing less of someone in that position.

Obviously, I should lower my expectations.

Repost: Quote of the Collecting History

The Armed Candian talked about why he buys surplus rifles. It's all right here.

For every "cosmo queen", there is a rifle with a battered stock and a little wear that has a story to tell. Holding a surplus rifle, you can imagine what it was like to carry it into battle. You can picture what life was like for the man who depended on that weapon with his life. Did he clean it and care for it? Or did he toss it aside after a hard days march or fighting? Perhaps it saw the rubble of Stalingrad or Berlin or the icy snows outside Moscow? You may never know the story but someone, somewhere carried a rifle like it with all their hopes and dreams along with it. And perhaps died with it, the last object they ever held in their hands.
~Armed Canadian

Serius bizniss

Business Partner: Anything else?
Me: Yeah, we need to talk about how we're going to handle the personnel bandwidth issue coming up mid-October.
BP: What? I thought we were doing good on time. What's the issue?
Me: Fallout: New Vegas.
BP: Oh crap.

For you to succeed, I must fail.

I know that the ideal outcome of a web application vulnerability assessment is that the hacker finds nothing, and reports that the site is very secure.

But that doesn't keep me from feeling crappy when I can't find anything wrong.

Bleh.

Booty Call - The Midnight Beast

[direct link]

Kiara - Bonobo

[direct link]

I wished I could stay in that uncomfortable chair at that tiny table in that freezing place all day

I go to that Starbucks because it's close, opens early, and has free wifi. I dutifully purchase a product to use the space each morning. But I don't like it.

It's cold, the chairs are uncomfortable for long periods, the internet can lag at times, and the tables are tiny. Did I mention it's cold? I don't get cold easily, but I've typed through shivering hands there. Sweater, pants, and shoes are required. I usually wear a beanie too.

But this morning, I didn't want to go to work. I wanted to stay there so I could work on the business.

One of the many people I talked to before deciding to start a business told me that when you work for yourself, you'll never work harder in your life, but you'll love every minute of it.

I only started pounding the pavement last week, and I think I already love it.

Why won't the library open earlier?

Being a good guy

Last week, my wife dropped me off at the shop where my car was waiting for me. I had already paid for it earlier and had the keys, so I just hopped in and got ready to leave. The mechanic who took care of me ran out, and knocked on my window. Apparently a guy in an RV broke my tail light backing up to leave. He left a complete note with his name, address, and two phone numbers. The damage was very slight. There was a deep scratch in the bumper, and outer plastic of the tail light was broken with no body damage. Perfect broken tail light.

I called him that weekend, and he asked that I get an estimate so he can figure if he's going to have his insurance take care of it, or just pay out of pocket. I said it was no problem, and that I would get some estimates. I was a little concerned about damage I couldn't see, and looked up shops that could get me an estimate. It wasn't until I started considering how much time it was going to take to get fixed that it even occurred to me to change it myself.

I checked eBay, and found I could get a replacement tail light assembly for $70, so I went out to the car, and spent about 30 minutes taking apart all the trunk paneling I could to get to the poorly located nuts that held the tail light in place. I could swap this out easily, and the scratch on the bumper was cosmetic. My car was far from brand new, and scars show character.

I considered asking for $300 to cover the damage, and just replacing the light myself. If I involved his insurance, his rate would very likely go up enough to make a one time $300 expense make sense. He'd be fine with it, and I'd have a little extra money in my pocket during these no OT times. It was the capitalist thing to do. Both people would be happy with the transaction. But one would probably be happier.

The more I thought about it, the harder it was to rationalize. Especially when it would have been easy for him to just drive away. Maybe $200 would be better? I didn't really feel good about profiting from this guy's mistake, but my time was still valuable. Bah, I'll just chalk it up to experience working on the car. $70 for the light, $30 for my labor. An even $100.

I called him up and told him I took apart my trunk to get behind the light, and saw I could replace it myself, and that I found a replacement light on ebay for $70.
John: So how much do you want?
ET: Figure 30 for my time. An even 100.
J: You sure?
E: Sure. [jokingly] But I am kind of giving your a break on my normal hourly rate though.
J: How about $150?
E: If that's what you want to pay, I'll take it.
We set up a meeting at the Starbucks I code at in the mornings.

The next morning he called to say he had arrived, and I told him where to find me. He was a little younger than I figured for RV folk, late 40s early 50s, pattern baldness around a well tanned head, short salt and pepper hair and beard. I half-closed my laptop, and stood slightly to shake his hand.

John: Nice to meet you.
ET: Nice to meet you too.
J: Thanks for being a good guy about this... [he seemed to think, "lord knows this could have gone the other way"]
E: No problem.
J: Well, here's the $150... [counts out $130] Wait a minute... I seem to have lost $20 on the way here. Hang on. [begins toward the door]
E: [I make a quick visual recount] Wait, John, you don't... [he was out the door]
[Is this a game? No. He counted it out in front of me, he's got a note, and he left me with the money. I hide the money under the handwritten notes and pen he brought. No point in leaving it sitting out. He returns, and I decided against making a joke about "what money?"]
J: [He seemed to notice that I looked very at home in my little section of this Starbucks. That's not good. I'm sick of this place already] You here often?
E: Every morning. I'm starting a business and working, so it's 5 every night, here to work on the business, then off to work.
J: Well, it's good what you're doing. [he counts it again and sighs] $130. I just came from the bank, and I got $140 out and had this $10. Not sure where that $20 is, but it looks like it's costing me $170. [takes out his wallet]
E: Forget about it.
J: No, no, I said $150.
E: It's your call, man.
J: Here you go. And I wrote up a quick note saying that I paid you for a broken tail light and bumper damage, if you don't mind signing it.
E: [It was a simple note, nothing lawyerish, not even printed on a printer] Of course. [I signed the simple document, and handed it back to him]
J: Did you want a copy?
E: Not necessary. Actually, there is one more thing... Since the accident, [I rubbed my neck emphatically] I've been having some neck pain...
J: [he grinned broadly] Really? And where were you during the accident again?
E: Well, I was a few miles away, but me and my car... we just have this bond...
J: [laughter]
E: You know, you thanked me for being a good guy about it, but you made it easy by being a good guy first.
J: Well, the first thing I did was go inside to see if they'd give me your number, but they couldn't because of client confidentiality or something, so I left them that note to give to you.
E: Well, I just appreciate you doing the right thing.
J: Thanks for being a stand up guy about this. Well, I gotta get back to my sick wife.
E: Oh! I hope she feels better.
J: It's cancer.
E: Oh...! [I could feel my eyes begin to water slightly. Over empathy strikes again!]
J: [he didn't break eye contact, his face didn't change from the pleasant expression he had the whole conversation, he didn't miss a beat] Don't worry about it, life goes on-- you're young, and you're here, makin' it happen. Thanks again for being a good guy about this.
E: [I barely croaked out:] Thanks. [not what I wanted to say, but it was what came out]

I can't believe I almost profited from this man.

If I said $300, he probably would have been less friendly, and less likely to open up to me. I would have continued on my merry way, $230 richer (or $296 if just got some red brake tape) and never given it a second thought. I would have never known that I created an unexpected expense for this man who's probably going through the hardest time in his life. Hell, even if he told me, there's no way he would have accepted his money back.

He was just some random jerk who smashed into my car, and inconvenienced my life. But after a few minutes with him, I have this connection to him that would never allow me to do what I could have just as easily do to some stranger. But that's what confuses me; technically, he's still a stranger. We're probably not going to hang out later, or talk about how my tail light is doing at the 5 Year Broken Tail Light Reunion. I only know a few things about him, and will probably never see him again, but I'll never regard him as some random jerk again.

This has been something I've pondered for a long time.

Things would be very different if everyone realized that all the nameless, faceless people they pass by every day had the same hopes, fears, ambitions, insecurities, loves, hates, and life that they had.

When people start seeing themselves in other people; how could they do wrong?
~From post A Blog's Purpose

Sure, his problems aren't my problems, and I could have just as easily been self-righteous about giving him a moderately expensive lesson to remind him to be more careful when he maneuvered his RV. He could also just as easily have been fucking with me, and enjoying a big laugh at my expense on the drive home. But I'm glad I did what I did, and the lesson I learned will stay with me.

California budget 100 days late, relies upon magical money shitting goat to close gaps

Not quite a magical goat, but it might as well have been. They balanced the budget on the expectation that the economy will turn from bust to boom on a dime, and that the feds will give them a bigger allowance this year cuz they've been mowing the lawn, and taking out the trash, and keeping their room clean.

To anyone familiar with California's "maybe we'll win 4.8 billion dollars in the lottery next year" budget planning style, this should come as no surprise. But the fact that they're doing it in the middle of the great recession super happy recovery time, is just salt in the giant sucking chest wound that is California's fiscal liabilities.

Wait a minute... Are the feds the magical money shitting goat??? Maybe they're not so crazy...

Pound the pavement till it bleeds

Because of a number of factors in my childhood, I was on edge most of the time at home. I didn't sleep in because my mom wouldn't let me. There was always something to do. When I moved out, I worked mornings, and sleeping wasn't possible. After my hours got changed to evenings, for the first time, I could sleep in without worry of disturbance. After trying it out a bit, I realized I really liked not having to do anything.

I was now able to wake up, and feel joy that I didn't have to get up, and could go back to sleep. I started doing it every weekday (on weekends it felt like a waste of free time), and I enjoyed it. I did this for about 3 years.

Since work started kicking up, I started to feel down. I used to have more fun at work, but with the recession, understaffing, and elimination of overtime, work has just been draining me.

It was a medium-sized push, but I was already close enough to the edge for some reason to start feeling depressed again. Since I had fought it so well before, it took some time for me to recognize the old symptoms. My mind would automatically avoid the thought, because that starts the spiral, so I had to come to the realization somewhat obliquely, but there it was.

At this point, I was relying on metaphorical comfort food to keep my mood up. I found the FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU sub-Reddit, and it was guaranteed lolz for me. Hanging out at the top of the board on Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox Live for hours was fun, but wore off quickly when I stopped. Enjoying my wife's company was great, but as soon as she left, so did the feeling.

I stopped blogging anything of substance, I hated work, I hated the feeling I got after an 8 hour session of MW2 pwnage, I hated checking the FFFUUUU subreddit and seeing there was nothing new because I checked it 10 minutes ago, I never felt like going to the range, I had no drive to code, and I acted like an unmotivated employee in the company I co-owned.

I knew I was depressed, but was afraid to admit it to myself because the source of my depression had changed, and I wasn't sure how to address it.

Realizing how big the world is and how small you really are is great for when you're getting caught up in the small stuff. But this was different. I was comfortable with where I was, and somewhere in my mind, I knew I was doing something wrong.

Then I saw some drawings on FFFFUUUU based on a comment from Ask Reddit. I tracked the comments back, and read the original post, and the comments referenced.

Original post
One of many responses;

Three words; wake up early. Wake up every day at the crack of dawn. Beat the sunrise like a boss. 5 AM is ideal. Tired? Fuck that. By waking up early every day, you take control of your entire day. The first thing you should do when you wake up is not think "Fuck I'm tired..." but "FUCK YEAH ANOTHER DAY I LIVE!" and plan your day accordingly. Write down goals all the time and circle the ones you have not completed yet in the morning. Conquer every day. Do not let the day control you. Sleep every day early unless your goal needs to be completed that day. You can either enjoy the indulgences of lethargy and then drown in regret or take the pains of goals and live a champion.
~ihaveacalculator

The response to the above that I saw first;

Three words reiterated: Wake thefuckup earlier. Fuck dawn, be awake for that as well. Wide awake. Leave your house while dark, grab a coffee, and attack nature. Climb a mountain, surf a wave, dive a trench, or pound pavement until the concrete bleeds. I don't know where you fucking live. But seize it. See those dark windows as you're running by? They don't know what the fuck they are doing with their lives. You do. And your gonna fucking win it all. Graphic design the shit out of your life too. Dont have art on your walls? Fucking make it! Lost your pet? Put some fucking signs up. Even if you didnt, make some anyways! Practice the shit out of what you love, and it'll love you back like your bitch. Yea your short. So fucking what. Bet you one day living like its yours, and every person in the world will look up to you. Just don't ever fucking stop. Not for anyone, and not for anything, until you can look back on your life and say fuck yeah. I did that. I did it all.
~news_and_coffee

The specifics of the motivation are as unimportant as the typos and grammatical errors. The main points for me were the last line of the first comment, and the motivation of the second.

You can either enjoy the indulgences of lethargy and then drown in regret or take the pains of goals and live a champion.

When I read this I remembered making the conscious decision that I was going to sleep in and be lazy because I had never been able to do so before. I actually decided to be lazy. Three years later, I was close to the edge, and work troubles pushed me over. Now that I could see what I was doing, I could see how I had rationalized it all this time.

I wasn't oversleeping, I was sleeping at least 8 hours, which is what doctors recommend.
I didn't need to work harder at the business, coding was easy enough for me that I just needed to code, and the rest would come.
Shooting is expensive, and I'm already good enough with my .22s. Plus it takes all day to drive out to the desert where I can shoot larger rifles.
Work is annoying, but I power through it, so it's OK.

Even though these rationalizations aren't technically lies, it was obvious they weren't working for me. I needed to change. I didn't used to be like this. I kicked ass and took names to get where I am today. I had that "don't tell me what I can't do" spirit. Where is that guy?

Oh.

He's sleeping.
He's procrastinating.
He's looking for the quick fix.

He's acting like every other person you see out in the world, wandering around aimlessly, looking for a quick shot of pleasure, and waiting for the next big thing to happen to them.

And he's not going to have ANYTHING to show for his actions in 10 years.


Which brings me to the second comment;

Wake up early and pound the pavement till it bleeds.

The comfortable life is a phantom temptation. It creeps up on you, and whispers into your ear;

"Hey, things are going pretty good right now. They're not incredible or anything, but they used to be much worse. Remember those times? All you gotta do now is tread water, and you'll never have to live those times again."

Beat the comfortable life like it owes you money.

The motivated people I read about and listen to are never satisfied. They want more, and when they get it, they want even more than that.

My misanthropy stems from a severe abhorrence of mediocrity. It's like I can see the skates many of the people around me are coasting through life on. Just hoping the bump into something good. Sometimes they run out of steam, and have to push a little. Sometimes they bump into something good. Sometimes other people give them a push toward a goal. But they're just coasting.

Well, I finally looked down, and somewhere along the way the ass-kicking boots I put on years ago turned into skates. The world was passing around me and I wasn't doing anything about it because I was afraid I forgot how to walk.

FUCK.

THAT.

I'm meant for bigger things.

I'm getting up at my equivalent of dawn, getting away from my distractions, and pounding my equivalent of the pavement till it bleeds. I'm going to practice what I love until it loves me back. And I won't stop for anything or anyone until I can look back and say, "Fuck yeah. I did that. I did it all."

Changing your life is hard, and it's a lot harder to kick yourself in the ass when you're lying down in bed, groping for the alarm when your eyes haven't started working yet. I recorded a message to my tired self from my kick-ass self, and I listened to it this morning... Sure, it took a few times before I actually got up, and I'm cold, and hungry, and tired in this Starbucks, and my car has been in the shop for 5 hours longer than I thought it'd be, but I've been getting shit done for 6 hours now, and it's not even 2. Today, I got 5 hours of work done before the time I would have gotten out of bed two days ago.

I was lucky enough to record the big picture things I need to do during the moments of clarity in the fog I was coasting through, so I've got plenty to work on.

I know it's hard, but nothing worth doing is easy.

I've done enough hard things to know that they get easier to do if you keep doing them, and if you keep doing them long enough...

They come as naturally as breathing.

So that's the goal.

Rebuild myself once more.

Become that guy again.


And I'm gonna fucking win it all.

Mad Rush - Philip Glass

[direct link]

I've been discovering Steve Reich lately, and this was on one of his playlists. I usually have the music playing in the background as I work or do something else, but when this came on, about half way through I realized that I wasn't working. I was just listening, staring right through my computer screen, and letting the music move me.

Music should move you like that.

Marko called it.

[Regarding health care as a right] You cannot have a right to something that necessitates a financial obligation on someone else’s part. [snip] Calling it a "human right" sort of makes a mockery of the term, since actually treating it like a human right would make a whole class of professionals slaves to the rest of us.
~Marko

NY Times op-ed: Doctors should start working weekends for the good of us all.

Homeless man under pressure

[direct link]

This is a relation of one of my coworkers, he's a performer, and looking to raise awareness for the homeless.

I laughed until I peed a little

Top Gear is one of my favorite shows.

Priceless: Dem tries to explain how a job is created

[direct link]

They should have asked him how a job is destroyed. He knows the answer to that, but he just doesn't realize it's the answer he gave to create a job.

From HotAir

Smooth Obamatron hits a segfault, gets stuck in a loop

George Snuffleupagus interviewed President Obama, and just had to ask the question every Democrat must be asking while November approaches the Democrats in the same way an asteroid approached the dinosaurs;

STEPHANOPOULOS: How deep is your commitment to this fight? Are you saying that if Congress passes a short term extension of all the tax cuts, you're gonna veto it?

OBAMA: George, here's what . I'm saying is that we've got a fundamental choice about this economy... [tl;dr blah blah republicans' fault]

STEPHANOPOULOS: Does that mean you will veto an extension of tax cuts to the wealthy?

OBAMA: What I am saying is that if we are going to add to our deficit by $35 billion, $95 billion, $100 billion, $700 billion, if that's the Republican agenda, then I've got a whole bunch of better ways to spend that money.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you're not saying you're gonna veto it.

OBAMA: There are a whole bunch better ways to spend the money.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How come you don't want to say veto?

OBAMA: There are a whole bunch better ways to spend the money.

ERROR! ERROR! DOES NOT COMPUTE! Conflict between prime directive 1 and 2!

Prime directive 1: Soak the rich
Prime directive 2: Preserve Democrat leadership
Prime directive 3: Golf

Engage subroutine &doubletalk;
RETURN: "There are a whole bunch better ways to spend the money."

Source video

Meanwhile, the Democrats in Congress are doing the same thing;
Reporter: Hai guise! Wanna propose legislation to extend Bush's tax cuts for the middle class? You look like you could really use a boost and you already concede that this needs to happen.
Congressional Dems: ERROR! ERROR! DOES NOT COMPUTE! Conflict between prime directives! ONE: Never cut taxes. TWO: Preserve Democrat leadership.
Reporter: What?
Congressional Dems: We're going to wait until after November.
Reporter: But shouldn't you act now, before Republicans get into power, and take the credit for passing it? Pushing it through now is a no-brainer win for you guys, and might spare you a few seats!
Congressional Dems: *BZZZT* We're going to wait until after November.

Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich (Beginning)

[direct link]

This is incredible.

The next one is here, but be warned, there are 10 of them.

Three

Empire Of The Sun - Country

[direct link]
Whereupon you will find the single greatest comment ever made in the history of internets;
I listened to this song taking a dump. It changed my life forever. The unreality of my dump.~unicornrida4life

Bonafied Lovin - Chromeo

[direct link]

This next one was so good, I almost gave it its own post. Do yourself a favor and watch it in HD.

Ametsub - Repeatedly [Mille Plateaux]

[direct link]
Found here

San Diego pays $35k to settle unloaded open carry case

BIG win for the Calguns Foundation, and gun owners in California!

Full recount of the story

Results

Suck it Lori Saldaña! We owe it all to you being outfoxed by Ca Republicans at the end of the last legislative session!

Boxer campaign hires day laborers to hold Fiorina protest signs

[direct link]

From Big Government

War is hell.

Sample panel of the whole comic.


[clicky for full comic]

The nanny.

Democratic Congress: Alright Barack, we're going to go on recess to go campaign! Be good while we're gone!
Barack Obama: Geez! Don't worry guys, I told you I'm old enough to work without congressional oversight!
DC: Yeah, well, you haven't exactly inspired a lot of confidence lately.
BO: I can't believe you're saying that! I have too been responsible!
DC: Really, young man?
BO: Well I may have slipped up a few times, but obviously you trust me now, because you're leaving me home alone!
DC: ... Not exactly.
BO: WHAT?!
DC: Yeah, we're having the neighbor keep an eye on you, and if he sees anything we don't like, we're coming right home.
BO: GAWD YOU GUYS!!!

The Slide (Day) - Minecraft

[direct link]

Same slide at night, different music.

The law of unintended consequences

El Reg: Car wrecks rise after texting bans imposed

Larry Elder had a better idea for why texting bans increase accidents.

Tell people the cops are looking for them texting, and instead of texting with the device high up on the steering wheel where they won't have to move their eyes so much, people will text with the device down in their lap where they have to take their eyes further from the road.

GM union workers working drunk and stoned didn't surprise me

That they actually got fired, did!

Seemed appropriate considering the flips and reversals

Copyright! Patent pending! Internet!

Quote of the trains to where exactly?

My biggest worry is that, in times of national crisis, when nobody's working and everyone's afraid the currency will blow up, people want to vote for someone who promises to make the trains run on time without ever asking where exactly those trains are headed.
~Tam

I knew Tam had some serious snark skills, but that last line is godlike.

Inception Trailer A Capella Re-Dub

I LOL'd with reckless abandon.


[direct link]

The Recession is dead! Long live the Recession!

The Recession is over!*

*What you are experiencing is a very Recession-like period that is exactly like a Recession in every way except it's not called a "Recession." Any further Recessions will be entirely unrelated to the previous Recession, and will be formally announced by the newly appointed Recession Czar, who will decide when Recessions that feel like Recessions and act like Recessions are actually Recessions.

The job is very similar to the also recently appointed Duck Czar, who has the final word on whether things that look like ducks, walk like ducks, and quack like ducks are or are not, in fact, ducks.

Welcome to the world of minecraft

[direct link]

Perfect fit with the Inception music, because Minecraft feels suspiciously like Limbo. In fact, I'd wager this ends in Tycho entering Gabe's world to tell him it isn't real, and he has to leave.

Meanwhile Minecraft has drawn me in in a way that I never thought a game that makes Duke Nukem look modern could.


[clicky for full size]

Sure, I like my Roguelikes, but with them, it's ALL imagination. When there is already a 3D world for you to look at, I thought it would be distracting. I found that it never really had anything to do with the graphics or lack thereof, because the amount of fun is dictated 100% by the gameplay.

If the game is fun, engaging, and challenging, it doesn't matter that it looks like you made it out of legos.

When you die, and have to make it from your spawn point to your shelter in the dark, you feel afraid.
When you are busying yourself with some task, and you hear the hissing of a creeper behind you, you jump in your chair.
When you dig deeply into the world, busied with your task, and a creepy measure of music plays, the hairs on your arms stand up, and you take a break from the depths and return to the sunlight.
When you stand at the foot of an astonishing randomly generated land feature, you stare.
When your mine breaks into a dark underground cavern, lit only by a small magma pool, you feel the exhilaration of discovery, and the cautious excitement of exploration.

In spite of this game's hilarious graphics, it is tremendously immersive, and that is no small feat when your avatar looks like a stack of ABC blocks.

Could this game's unprecedented popularity herald a return to games that are truly fun, instead of 5 hour $50 polygon eyefucks?

The world is not ready.

But you might be.

PS: as of today, minecraft is free to play, the incredible popularity basically DDoS'ed his server, so he turned off the paid registration. Play now, pay later.

"All the depth of dwarf fortress without the complexity."

Great review for Minecraft.

Dude, you HAVE no koran!

First vid is the news story, second video is the auto-tuned remix of the dude.

A few notes on the content of the first video;

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" ~Evelyn Beatrice Hall
"Where one burns books, one will soon burn people." ~Heinrich Heine

It's bad mojo to burn a symbol of someone's faith, but it's even worse mojo to tell people that they can't voice their disapproval of someone's faith.


[direct link]

HotAir warned me, and I will warn you, the second video is one HELL of an earworm.


[direct link]

From HotAir

The Calguns Foundation: Throw 'em a bone...

...and they bite your arm off!

Brilliant.

GodDAMN it feels good to be on the offensive!

Really Google?

No special graphic for September 11th?

So you just happen to miss 9/11 and Memorial day, when you make graphics for all the other insignificant days?

Wow.

Just wow.

Never Again

Still busy, I'll make some time, I promise

I've got a bunch of drafts backing up.

Particularly annoyed because they're good posts that I know people want to read, but I just haven't been able to sit down and work through them.

Business eased a bit, but work got more exhausting. Been going like this for a while. Might be time for a change.

Trim - Underworld

[direct link]

An interesting track from Underworld.

M1oAr

[clicky for full size!]

Close up 1 (large!)
Close up 2 (large!)

Quote of the free speech vs violence

No, burning the Koran does not "endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan." The reaction to burning the Koran is what endangers our men and women in uniform (and everyone else) ... When you blame a speaker for the violent response to his speech, you absolve the violent actor of the moral choice he made in deciding to act. If you think it’s Jones, rather than some Taliban suicide bomber, who’s a mortal threat to the troops, then presumably you also think Theo Van Gogh got what was coming to him. After all, he knew the risk when he made "Submission," right?

From HotAir

Awesome.

Free speech is free speech is free speech.

The AP: Pentagon chief endorses call to cancel Quran burn

The burning of symbols such as flags, books, and garb is one of the purest forms of free speech.

It is not to be regulated or stopped by any government action.

Aside from the fact that it's legal, it's a negative way to build support for your cause, by destroying symbols of that which you oppose, instead of doing something positive like building more symbols of what you support. People want to be positive, not negative.

Obviously, this is an action meant to create a reaction that will be so unequal as to draw further opposition to the target. Whether this course of action will be judged in hindsight to be worth it, will probably depend on the feelings of the headless torso that will likely result.

Amazing video of a rare DOUBLE KFC TACOBELL

[direct link]


If you don't know what the fuck is going on, click here.

THE YOUNG GUNS!!!!111ONE

[direct link]

Once the wave of relief at the possibility that the GOP may have actually LEARNED something from the TEA party is over, this is pretty fucking cheesy. Found it at HotAir, where they linked to an MSNBC show where one of the pundits said it looked like something the daily show would do, and goddamnit, he's right.

The whole thing shows the personality gap the GOP has with the country. Their economic ideas are evergreen, and will always stand on their own, but for god's sake, get some more new blood in there! Even during my first viewing, through the excitement of the idea, I still had to chuckle at how hokey the whole thing was.

Hey GOP; find whoever produced and directed this video and FIRE THEM. And while I have your attention;



You guys had better have a plan to remove your heads from your asses by 2012.
But if you'd like a cheat sheet, I'll give you one:
Get behind Paul Ryan, and give him everything he wants. Put him on teevee as much as possible. And most importantly? Tell the dinosaurs to shut the fuck up.

America's awkward phase continues...

Don't shoot the bastards.

I'm proud of California Republican legislators

For once.

Not noted in the article;
AB 1810 (Long gun registration) FAILED!
AB 2358 (further ammo restrictions) FAILED!

Video of the Assembly Floor session in question.
Fast forward to about 3:15:00 for the start of AB 1935 discussion, there's some good stuff in there. To keep Republican filibustering on the bill from running out the clock, Dems push off debate to hit some HIGHLY important issues like lead paint chips.
Fireworks start at 00:16:30 on video 5/5. Gets crazy around 00:25:17. At 00:28:30 Republicans literally pull out the rulebook, and put a stop to this cram session, effectively killing all bills that were pending.

STRATEGIC WIN