You know you’re a geek when you get a book called VMware ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers and it makes you excited. You know you’re a hardcore geek when that book also comes with a copy of Dan Simmons’ Hyperion. I also wish there were more Takeshi Kovacs novels but I think I’m set as far as reading goes.
Posted in: miscellaneousLet’s call it an epiphany or maybe or a revelation or some other bullshit $5 word that people use to add significance to what is otherwise an everyday human situation. I suppose what this is to me is more subtle, more of a gradual shift in perspective than some mindblowing fuckoff that makes your knees weak and your eyes water. No, it’s not like that at all; I guess it’s more like the burn of a good glass of scotch or that sublime satisfaction after a good meal (I just had dinner, please don’t mind the food analogies). Just like those things, the feeling is fleeting and ultimately part of a routine but it feels significant at the moment it occurs.
As for a catalyst, well… don’t ask me to identify any one thing. It is more of a broad series of events, ideas and situations that sort of fell together in such a way as to give me pause. A good time with friends, a late-night text message, dancing at a club, going to bed at 4AM; how and why those things and more interact are not my speciality but I recognize the significance in what they mean (and I hate significance, which I will get to in a moment). Perhaps it’s just the signs of a subtle but persistent change in the kind of person that I am or perhaps they are all a semi-conscious effort on my part to Change Things. I don’t really know.
It looks like I’m rambling and perhaps I am, but I have a point (I think I have a point, I guess): I have never been a social person and I have never considered myself social. However, I’ve realized that to truly be a whole person - in what I define as whole - that I need to know how to change. To evolve, really. Certain traits of mine are immutable: I am a geek, I am awkward and I am probably smarter than I should be; but that doesn’t mean I can’t do things that don’t follow the structure of how I perceive life. I am a firm believer in social evolution but up until recently, I never really followed it. However, things began to shift - slowly, I might add - and I guess the “epiphany” shit happened.
For the moment, I want to mention significance: I hate it. I hate that I need to find significance in every action I perform, in every song I listen to and everything I see. It’s as if I’m trying to convince myself that there’s some underlying system to everything and that the beauty I hear in a song will ebb in to a miraculous sunset or some amazing display of human kindness and empathy. “Shit happens” isn’t something I readily accept as a fact, yet I am hypocritical in believing that shit does indeed just happen. We only make connections in the things that we can both perceive and understand and maybe it is my social maladjustment that pushes me to scrape and scrap for any goddamn iota of significance. The fact is… not everything has power. Not everything means something and not everything is beautiful. If you strive to find relevance in everything around you, everything mushes together and becomes that much less worthwhile. I am not saying there is no beauty or significance in the world, I’m just saying that the things that truly are significant are being drowned-out by the mundane, worthless shit that I elevate because they’re so alien to me. Part of this little revelation for me is realizing what is and what is not worthwhile and simply accepting it for what it is: another facet of life that up until awhile ago was something I hadn’t really noticed in a truly meaningful way.
At this point it all looks like I’m blathering and maybe I am. I just needed to get this off my chest in some stupid way. I’m still going to read too much in to what a good song says to me, I’m still going to get choked-up when I see some little earthly coincidence that just seems alien and wonderful and I will still wander in a semi-clouded state through a world full of beauty and bullshit. At least now, maybe, I’ll have a good time doing that.
Posted in: miscellaneousWEISSpace: did you look at the video link i sent you yesterday about thinking in the 10th dimension?
eighty1: Yeah. Trippy.
eighty1: Everything is a dot.
WEISSpace: that was probably the best way i’d ever heard it explained
eighty1: I’ve always been curious as to how to describe the dimensions.
WEISSpace: i was trying to imagine any dimension above 4 and they do a really good job with 5 and 6
eighty1: Pretty cool to think of infinity as a single point.
WEISSpace: it’s a singularity
WEISSpace: the whole of existence is a singularity
eighty1: Crazy that there are theories that suggest more than ten dimensions. I wonder what 11 is.
WEISSpace: we are in fact inside a blackhole existing somewhere we cant possibly imagine
eighty1: 11 is probably where nougat comes from.
WEISSpace: i like the idea that all matter is created in the 10th dimension
WEISSpace: some people would jump and say that god is the 10th dimension
WEISSpace: but thats just the name for things of which the current mind cannot conceive
eighty1: Like nougat.
eighty1: I mean, what IS nougat anyway?
WEISSpace: exactly like nougat
eighty1: I heard it’s snail paste.
WEISSpace: mmmm Mr. Godbar
eighty1: The Infinite Snickers Hypothesis.
WEISSpace: if you can eat all around the nougat and squish it into a ball you’ll unmake existence
eighty1: The hypothesis states that as a Snickers bar gets larger, it becomes harder to finish in one sitting. So as the bar becomes infinitely large, it can never ultimately be completely consumed and thus enters a transitive state (the “Nougatonian Lateral Phase”) where it exists at all points in time.
WEISSpace: The Snickers hypothesis is nuts!
eighty1: So all of reality - in fact, every known universe and every possible existence - is in fact a cold, half-eaten Snickers bar sitting on the shelf in the fridge.
WEISSpace: so the 11th dimension is the fridge
eighty1: The competition to the theory is the “My Goddamn Roommate Ate My Snickers Bar” theory.
eighty1: We only want the Snickers bar when it is gone; hence perception creates the necessity of reality. The moment we even allude to the existence of ourselves it is gone,
WEISSpace: but …im pretty sure I exis——-
WEISSpace signed off (was Online)
I accidentally bought a can of regular Pepsi today and now I feel like the enamel on my teeth is gone. Also, it tasted like pure sugar. Bleh. I should just stick to drinking water.
Posted in: miscellaneousBlah. I got my taxes back and although I got a refund, Geri charged me $250. I need to talk to her about that; I’m sure it’s an oversight but it still sucks. I also took my car in for service and that cost $370. On top of that, they say I need two new rear tires at $300 apiece. Ugh. I feel like I’m hemorrhaging money right now. At least tomorrow is payday… oh wait! Mortgage is due! And credit card! And this and that and the other thing! Damnit. I really wanted to build a new gaming box too. Maybe this is punishment for being too spendy lately. Oh well.
Posted in: miscellaneous , news & suchWaking up at 7AM on a Saturday sucks. Suuuuuuuuuuuuucks. And I have to wake up at 5:30AM next Saturday too. Maybe I’ll pull an all-nighter.
Posted in: miscellaneous1. Assisting a person (called a “user”) in dealing with technical issues to resolve a problem or situation efficiently.
2. Providing assistance in a technical aspect for a person who cannot fix the problem themselves.
3. Watching as a person (called an “idiot”) slowly jams a finger in their eye socket and then calls for help. Their description of the problem will range from terse to vague to completely inappropriate and they will more often than not blame one or more of the following for their predicament:
a. The IT department
b. Their “stupid computer”
c. You
d. The innernettes
e. A deity of their choice
f. All of the above
Additionally, any attempts to sanely resolve the user’s predicament is met with a lack of enthusiasm or outright hostility. Examples: “I’m too busy to do this right now” or “Do you even know what you’re doing?” When an alternative method of resolution is discovered (see “Removing the finger from your eye”) the user will then use another finger in an attempt to gouge the first one out. At this point, the IT person assigned to help the user will either say that the user needs to reboot or that the issue will be resolved in a future patch.
Posted in: idiots , miscellaneous , oh god my eyeball , tech , tech support
I want this mask. I need it. I have wanted to dress like Michael Palin’s character in Brazil for years now but I could never find the mask. I still can’t; Googling it yields few usable results. I may have to dip in to illicit underground sources to get it. That, or I can ask my sister in law to make it for me. If I can pull this off, I will be a king of some sort.
Posted in: brazil , creepy , mask , michael palin , miscellaneous , news & suchOne hour and thirty-nine minutes left.
Ninety-nine minutes.
5,940 seconds.
Fourty-nine microwaves cooking fourty-nine Hot Pockets for two minutes, one after the other.
One episode of Battlestar Galactica plus thirty-nine minutes to troll the Net and post about who the fifth Cylon might be.
Between now and forever that I can go home.
Posted in: 99 , battlestar galactica , bsg , home , microwaves , miscellaneous , news & such