damian

I never said this threeaday thing was going to be riveting.

It could've been worse. There's a day coming when I'll be thoroughly (if temporarily) sick of this whole idea, and you'll get three very detailed depictions of how dark it is inside my camera case.

On the bright side, now you won't be confused when that happens.

Also, tomorrow's an Off Day. Nifty how that's got a title now, huh? No computer, very limited phone. I plan to spend tomorrow encamped in a bookstore for as long as possible. Ideally for long enough that the staff starts asking me where things are, or at least long enough to have an entire section informally named after me.

( In other news, )

I realized a while ago that, while having the internet and a cell phone means people can get in touch with me quickly, my life doesn't really have a whole lot of reasons that anyone would need to. I haven't gotten a call or email that needed a fast response in... I can't remember when. And I spend too much time keeping an eye on my phone, or being online, and then I justify it by "not wanting to miss anything."

Which, if you think about it, is stupid of me, because I'm missing all sorts of other things that don't have anything to do with the computer or phone.

So I'm implementing a restricted-contact policy for now. No computer (or at least no internet access), and my phone turned off, every alternating day. I'll use the computer for actual uses, like finding directions or movie times, and I'll turn on my phone once or twice a day to make sure nobody needs me, but other than that, I think I'll be doing more useful things.

In other news, it turns out I have a cousin who's running for congress. And I'm pretty sure he's serious.

I have no idea what to make of this.

It's past midnight. Whee.



There's (shaky, not very long) footage from the second pic here.

Didn't take as many photos as I would've liked. Didn't take some of them as well as I'd have liked (though these three are among my favorites). Going to try to get into those habits, and with that in mind, we're starting the three-a-day project. I could describe it really eloquently, but really it's just an incentive to get my ass out of the house with camera in hand.

So, New Orleans tomorrow. Well, sort of tomorrow. I leave tomorrow, just after midnight, layover in houston*, and get into New Orleans around 8AM. I'm bringing my costume, some clean clothes, my ipod, a journal, and my camera. Everything else stays. If I bring my laptop, I'll spend all my time fucking around online (like I do too much already). To be honest, I'm getting more than a little irritated at myself for it.

So I won't be posting much (if at all) while I'm there**. Maybe a quick update if I'm at Zotz. I will not be twittering, or tweeting, or whatever it's called. I don't expect I'll be doing anything that's so time-sensitive enough that my eager fans can't wait seven days to read about it in the next issue.


*On the theory that it'll be dark, and the less I see of texas the better.
**Not that I post a whole lot while I'm here, mind you.

Ugh. I don't write in here as much as I used to. But then again, I don't write anywhere as much as I used to. So that's all right, I guess.

I'm in the process of buying my ticket to NOLA right now. It'll be nice to be home, but I'm kinda not in the mood to be looking forward to a festive weekend. I don't have my costume figured out, I'm not 100% sure where I'll be staying (not that I'm in any danger of winding up homeless*, but it's nice to know this kind of thing ahead of time), and there are a handful of other logistical worries that I'm not really up for dealing with, just this second. Right now, my idea of a perfect seven days in a row off of work involves a big stack of books, a bunch of blankets, and a powered-off cellphone.

I'm sure that'll change. It'll be good to be home again, I miss my NOLA friends, and (at the risk of making them twitch) I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing some southern rain.

Okay, there. Website finally finished processing me. See you guys in a couple of weeks.



*Theoretically I can get a really cheap employee rate at the hotel chain I work for, but it's not nailed down yet. Of course, now that I say that out loud, watch me wind up sleeping on a bench in Jackson Square. I'll try to pick a spot in range of this webcam, for anyone who wants to check up on me.

Halloween in NOLA is imminent. Still haven't decided on a frickin' costume, though.

Ugh. The last week (or two, or three) have really made me feel like I could become a pretty good posterboy for a "Stay In School" ad campaign. The silver lining here is that instead of getting all depressed about it (-5 goth points), I got peeved at myself instead, and so I've been trying to get shit done. Doesn't really matter what, at the moment.

The results of the last thirty hours of wakefulness:
-One (1) fairly decent workbench cobbled together from leftover lumber.
-One (1) submitted paid time off form given to my boss. Who may or may not read it, approve of it, sign it, or forget it exists entirely. That's leadership for ya.
-One (1) sunburn, because if you're going to work with your shirt off, you should probably keep better track of the time.
-One (1) new compound miter saw. Okay, technically I got this like a few days ago, but it needs mentioning. Also, it's got a laser on it. I built the workbench specifically so I'd have somewhere to put the saw.

Before that, I've been working on some photography, getting a couple more braille lessons under my belt, training my replacement night auditor at work, and staying the hell away from the internet.* I feel like I should be getting a seven-day chip or something.


*To be fair, it helped that our service was interrupted for three days.

'Nother shallow update. This is kind of an easy habit to get into, I'm finding.

-I went on a friend-adding spree in facebook. I'm a social butterfly, I know. The bright side is that there doesn't seem to be any ability to see friend requests that you've made but haven't been approved yet. Which saves me the trouble of feeding that particular neurosis.

------------------------------------

-Remember the G.I. Joe movie I mentioned seeing? Yeah, apparently it actually made me dumber. Like some sort of cinematic osmosis, where it siphoned off a handful of IQ points over the course of two hours. Evidence? As project_mayhem_ pointed out, ice floats. This is an important fact to remember for a certain scene. And I completely missed it.

Here's hoping that the temporary-dumb effect really is temporary. (The line for the peanut gallery commentary forms to the left, thanks.)

-------------------------------------

-Some of you know that I've been teaching myself braille. It's interesting, and kinda fun, and by the way, now I know what the blind community really thinks about us. I can't say much, but I'll tell you this: Blind echolocating ninjas? They're more common than you think.

ANYhoo, in the course of learning braille, I've found a lot of gadgets that make life easier for the blind. Well, easier for them. Funnier for us. For instance, did you know that there are frisbees for blind people? Apparently it's a totally viable concept, but dear god I wish I'd been around for the testing phase.

This is how I know I'm going to hell.

Oh, there's also a Blind Golf Association.** Because any idea that sounds like a Monty Python skit deserves to actually exist, dammit. I've looked for events nearby, but they seem to only play in wide-open spaces like Canada and Australia (which makes sense, when you think about it). The exception is Japan, but when you live in a culture with an ambient weirdness level of infinity, I guess a couple of random golf balls passing through your kitchen don't really register.

wronginthehead and I were thinking that really, they don't need a golf course at all, do they? Just a field, a handful of caddies and support personnel that are really good at lying, and some helmets. Let 'em hit the ball, drive 'em in a big circle in the golf cart, put 'em back in the same spot, and very quietly put a new ball down in front of them. Then let 'em hit the ball again. Brilliant!

I'm going to be rich.

EDIT: Wiki says that there have been four certified holes-in-one by blind golfers. Four. Part of me is really impressed, because I tried golfing once and I couldn't even hit the damn thing. I couldn't play a decent game of golf even if they let me use a hockey stick. But another part of me is suspiciously wondering if maybe, just once, there wasn't some sort of prank involved.

"*WHACK*"
Friend: "It's going... going... OMG HOLE IN ONE!!"
All friends: "Woohoo!!"
Blind Golfer: "I can't believe it! Yay me!"
Second Friend (sotto voice): "Uhm, I didn't see it. Did it really go in?"
First Friend (sotto voice): "Oh, hell no. Went pretty much straight up into the air. That's okay, the last one killed a pigeon. Don't say anything though, he's been having a bad week at work, I wanted to cheer him up. Everyone else is in on it."
Second Friend: "Oh. That's nice of you."
First Friend: "Also, I want to see how many times we can do this before he catches on."
(background): *WHACK* "Woohoo!!"
Second Friend: "..."



*If you're interested, I've found two or three really helpful sites, including the library of congress's certification correspondence course. Nifty stuff.)

**Motto: "You don't have to see it to tee it!" Seriously. I love you, internet.

Haven't updated in a while. This is largely because there's not a whole lot in my life that qualifies as write-worthy. On the other hand, my standards for write-worthy have changed a bit; I could write a five-paragraph post on the various ways in which my workplace is made of fail, but meh. Don't wanna. (Plus it'd probably wind up evolving from five paragraphs into a miniseries-length saga, and then I'd have to figure out casting, and then I'd have to rewrite everything just to convince Marissa Tomei to sign on, and really, who in my life is going to be played by Marissa Tomei?)

A couple of things deserve documentation, though, just off the top of my head.



-We saw G.I. Joe the other day. Dear god. It's a fun movie if you like snarking at the screen. It's one of those movies that's going to force MST3K to make a comeback, simply out of a sense of duty. I can't list all the things we found wrong with it (we were reciting things all the way to the car, and then some), but a couple of the most glaring bits:

--Someone needs to read the Evil Overlord Lists.

--Big undersea base surrounded by subfreezing water? Probably don't want to use quite so much of the architecture on big glass windows. Especially if you think someone might be shooting at you someday.

--For the love of christ, someone send the writers / producers a quick three-page summary of how hydrostatic shock works. I can write off the other creative physics in the name of a fun movie, but the big battle scene is underwater; at least nod at the concept.

--Whoever cast Sienna Miller as the Baroness needs to stuffed into a barrel and rolled down a steep, rocky hill. Ditto for whoever wrote her part. I'll say it once: THE BARONESS WAS NOT A BLONDE! Not even a little. Actually, it should be barrels for the whole writing team. Actually, ditto for... (We're going to need more barrels. -Ed.) The whole concept of pretty people = good guys / ugly / plain people = evil is boring. This could've been a completely awesome movie if they'd hired writers who knew what they were doing. (Though to be fair, I'll take the person who cast Rachel Nichols as Scarlett out for an ice cream; very well done there.)



-I'm thinking of joining the army. Actually more than thinking; seriously considering it, to the point where I'm probably going to stop into a recruitment office in the next week or so and get some information. The reasons are complex, but more or less boring, and they'll get their own post if it happens, but for right now we'll just say that it's one of the most sensible options available to me. Yes, I know all recruiters are essentially salesmen who aren't to be trusted. No, I'm not going to let myself get sent to afghanistan; I'm smart enough to avoid that, at least. No, you can't borrow my gun. Well, maybe you can. We'll see.


-I bought a circular saw and a laminate trimmer! +5 Testosterone Points per new tool purchased.

Ugh.

The bad part about being offline a lot is that I lost my tolerance for the ambient levels of stupid. The internet: building self-control since 1918.

The good part is that it means I've been doing things other than the internet. Details on that in the near future.

Gotta go fix the sink now. Stand back.

Dear LJ: WTF? How hard can it be to lock down these russian addbots? Give me some admin privileges and I could probably take care of a good chunk of them all by myself. Why? Because they keep adding me. I wouldn't even have to go looking for them.

More interesting updates later, maybe.

(Seriousy, LJ. What the hell's going on?)

Random notes:

--Got my shiny new phone. It's one of them there touchy-screeny ones, which is great, but I keep thinking I'm going to accidentally turn it off when I hold it against my head to talk. I mean, obviously there's a subfunction that prevents that, but I keep compulsively taking it away from my ear to check. So if we're talking on the phone and there's a weird pause on my end of the conversation every now and then, that's probably why.

Also, my fingers seem to be too big for the qwerty keyboard, so if you get a text from me that says something like "Het whar's gooing oin?>", don't feel too bad about having a "WTF?" reaction. Trust me, I haven't suddenly become retarded*, I'm just having a little trouble with this manual dexterity deal.

--I was taking my computer to work with me for a while, with the intention of getting homework done. Yeah, not so much. So now I'm leaving it home, and taking other things. The good part of this is that I can catch up on my reading. Last night was Bradbury's The October Country, if you're curious. The bad part is that if I get a song stuck in my head (y'know, like happens to me about five times a day), I don't have any way to drive it out. I just spent the last six hours with Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me) running over and over in my head. This was a Bad Thing.

--I installed a ceiling fan in an 16' ceiling, the day before yesterday. (That's a +5 bonus on the Man Points scale - Ed.) Well, mostly installed; the light doesn't work yet. (-1. -Ed.) Other than that, it's totally installed. I've got two more to do in the next couple of days. I mention this in case anyone wants to start a betting pool or a raffle or something based on my chances of dying horribly, and whether it'll be by electrocution**, or decapitation, or falling off the ladder, or some creative combination of any or all of these. If I survive, (+1 each -Ed.) I get a percentage of the proceeds.



*At least, not any more than usual.

**This is a funny joke now. It wasn't funny when, at one point, I realized I was standing twenlve feet abover the floor on a metal ladder, holding a metal rod and metal tools, fiddling with the cover of the electrical box housing, and suddenly couldn't recall whether I'd flipped all the breakers or not. (Turns out I had. Score one for self-preservation.)

WHEREAS there are good days, and bad days; and

WHEREAS yesterday was one of the bad days, to the extent that the phrase "Yesterday can die in heavy traffic" would not be entirely inappropriate; and

WHEREAS today is a brand new day (sun shining, birds singing, donuts baking, etc);

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Damian, proclaim that today, 04/21/09, is going to be significantly better, or I'll know the frickin' reason why not.

So I get songs stuck in my head. A lot of us do, happens all the time. It's a little maddening, but in a funny way. But I bet that I'm the first person to manage to do it with the song "Feelings" as sung by Beaker on The Muppet Show.

Seriously, it's the whole song. I just caught myself singing "MEEE-meeee....mee mee MEE mee MEEE meeeeeee...." under my breath.

There's something wrong with my brain.


Edited to delete an additional section bitching about my job and drunk people. Not because I don't bitch about that kind of thing, but because this episode was coming out whiny and unfunny. See? I just saved you like two paragraphs.

Oh, brilliant.

Remember my last post, where I said I'd ordered a new phone? Part of the deal was that I agreed to a contract extension with AT&T, and since they've more or less done pretty well by me*, I didn't have a problem with that. Signed the online thingy, set up the service plan, picked the phone, and off we go. ETA was about a day to process the order, two more days for shipping. So far, so good.

Just now, I notice my current phone's not getting a signal. I've got bars, but no connection to the network. And Suze's texts didn't get through to me last night at all, or they've been delayed for the past twenty hours. My razor-keen powers of observation spring into action, and:

Conclusion: They switched over my account to the new phone. The one FedEx still has. Basically, if you've tried to call or text me in the past day or so, all your messages are in a box. Like a literal cardboard box, probably in a plane somewhere over Texas by now. (If you heard a loud sucking sound instead of a voicemail greeting, that would probably be why.**)

This will be funnier when I have my phone.



*For a cellphone company, this translates as "They haven't gone out of their way to be complete bastards and I haven't had any daydreams about mauling any of their customer service people. Yet."

**Sorry. Obligatory Texas joke. I don't know why I'm apologizing, though; it's not like anyone in Texas has the internet or electricity or, y'know, literacy.***

***Sorry. No, really, I'll stop. *cough* Lemme go check the FL to see who I owe candy to.****

****See? SEE? Ended the sentence with a frickin' preposition. I'm gonna go do some punishment situps or something. Dangit.

If you're bored (and honestly, if you've got nothing better to do than read my LJ, that should be an easy question to answer), you should find some way to watch Botched. Don't read any previews or the IMDB for it. Just find it and watch it. Netflix has it in the "Watch Instantly" section, and failing that you can download it in chunks from rapidshare, here. It's much fun.

Actually got some stuff done today for a change. Ordered a new phone (a samsung eternity) online (corporate perks = basically a free phone), got the largest part of installing Suze's sink taken care of (cutting a hole in an old two-inch-thick wooden table so the basin will fit properly. I hate jigsaws with a burning passion, by the way; finally wound up doing most of the cuts with a circular saw. I suspect I'm lucky to still have all my fingers). Oh, and Mike and Suze's house now officially has a flag. Tomorrow I attach all the connectors and drainage, and hopefully I'll manage not to flood their kitchen.

Thinking about making some older entries public. Y'know, expand my fan base, make myself look cooler to employers googling my email address (Hello! Hire me!), that kinda thing.

Movement update: Put in my notice at work last monday. Told them I'd stay up to a month if they needed me to help train a new night auditor (since they just fired the last one, who actually knew what she was doing better than I did). Now I'm looking at the really cheap airfares and trying to calculate when to buy my ticket. There's a weird timing situation, too, in that Wyndham is apparently opening a new location in San Francisco, and they need a night auditor. So do I go for that, or do I try for a day job? Argh. I'll probably go for it, just to have a job waiting for me when I get there.

This update has been brought to you by The Period In Which I Wait For The Caffeine To Kick In, and the letter Z.

Time to decriminalize marijuana.

I don't usually do political topics in here, except for rants, because A) it's a locked journal, and I'm not especially impressed with people who only have discussions with people that agree with them (i.e. friendslists), and B) posting controversial topics in an unlocked post runs the risks of inviting trolls and internet-roaming trouble. But today's a day for exceptions, I think.

That said, here's an unlocked, controversial post. Anonymous comments are enabled, but I'm logging IPs, for all the good that does. If anyone reading this has any input, fire away.


-People are going to do things that are bad for them. Cigarettes, alcohol, pot, twinkies, cocaine, mcdonald's, watching FOX, reading anne rice, ending sentences with prepositions, visiting New Jersey, whatever. You can't stop them. Trying to stop them, once they want to do it, really only makes them want to do it more. In the short term, you have to just stand back and hope they have enough common sense to keep from injuring themselves too badly, and step in to make sure they don't hurt anyone else while they're at it. And once you take that course of action, there's really no reason not to make some money off of it.* (In the long term, you should take that money and funnel it all into an effective system of education, so eventually people stop wanting to do any of that. But that's another post.)

-I'm seeing marijuana as roughly parallel to alcohol. In and of itself, it's not really that dangerous. Actually it's less dangerous than alcohol, though in the long term it's probably more debilitating.

-The "gateway drug" argument is kinda weak, and actually loses argumentative impact if legalization happens, I think.

-The amount of money that's moving around based on the supply and sale of marijuana is going directly to various levels of the criminal economy. Making it legal not only brings that money into legitimate state and federal funds, it deprives criminal enterprises of their primary source of income. This could potentially be a huge factor in keeping mexico from devolving (even further) into civil war, especially since we don't seem to be interested in, y'know, stopping drug smuggling from mexico. Not to mention that it would alleviate the gang situation in a lot of american cities.



*All of things cost you in one way or another, except the preposition thing. But I'm working on that one.

Dear manager-type person: I appreciate you trying to take the time to teach me a more complex understanding of my job, but you can't reasonably expect me to pay attention to the nuances of accounting and recordkeeping when Zulu is going by right outside your second-floor window. I mean, it's literally in my line of sight, behind the computer monitor. How are you not noticing it? So, all that stuff you just explained? Yeah, it's disappeared completely. Thanks anyway, though.

In other news:

The good: My hearing cleared up. So sometimes you can ignore a problem and it'll go away. Take that, proper parenting!

The bad: I'm learning more about Suzanne's neighbors every day. Today, for instance, I'm learning that they own a set of rilly big speakers. Oh, and they're big fans of mardi gras music. I would complain about my hearing coming back now, but really it's irrelevant, because even if I couldn't hear, I can feel the music through the floorboards of the house. "Big deal," you say, "I can feel drumbeat vibrations from music all the time." Yeah, me too. The problem is that I'm also feeling the trumpets, electric guitar solos, and what I swear must have been a kazoo solo. Everyone take a moment, think about what that sounds like, and now imagine feeling it. Through your feet.

So I have to sleep soon, because I work again tonight. And I can sleep through this. I just worry about the weird-shite dreams I'm going to have.

Anyway, happy mardi gras. :)