Never been one to let the carrier drop

It’s 5am.

Definately time to go to sleep.

Just looked over the last 20 entries. I write a _lot_ 😉

S.

Another thought for another not quite sober night:

The boy with the heart of science fiction and the soul of rock and roll

I’m going to list the next few songs I listen to, and maybe babble about what I think about them. I have no idea why.

Howard Jones, Everlasting Love

Why doesn’t anyone say things like this any more? Okay, so that’s not a fair question. Anyway, something P. observed the other day is that neither of us want to be the classic divorced twentysomethings. [Me and P. are discussing goals, futures, and things like that. Trying to figure out if our road maps are comptable. The prognosis at the moment is not good, but I’m not rushing any decision]
[Part of what I love about her is that even though we’re trying to figure out if we should break up or not – I can’t see any other way to explain our current conversations – we’re still doing it gently, caringly, and in a civilized manner. It’s just scary, compared with what I’ve seen other people do.]

How long before there’s a service that lets you leave feedback about lovers? Now that’d be funky. I wonder if it would make people treat each other better? Probebly not.

I think part of what brought up my bits of doubt concerning my relationship with P. is that for the only time I felt _really_ good in recent memory, she wasn’t present. I didn’t even miss her. And that really bothers me. But at the same time, I really, genuinely care about her. I think she’s a great person. I’m just not sure she’s my great person.

Most normal people would have thought about things like goals and future plans a bit before now. I’m not most normal people – whenever possible I avoid planning like the plauge. It makes my life more interesting, that’s for sure. I wonder if this is a common ADD trait..

Listening to Janis Joplin, Me & Bobby McGee

I guess part of what’s bothering me is that anywhere P. is happy, I am not – and vice versa. This does NOT bode well.

Anyway, I’m returning to CA, hang out some more with friends, meditate on matters, etc.. maybe at the end I’ll know what I want to do. I feel awful about the whole thing – but I do know that the road I want is not the one I’m shown.

[listening to John Lennon – Imagine]

I don’t like christianity.

I’ve given the matter some serious thought – my parents were christians – and I’ve decided the concept is fundamentally flawed.

I’ve got bad news for you all: You are responsable for your actions. No one has died to absolve you of your sins. You’ve just got to deal with them the best way you can.

That said, there’s no reason not to forgive your friends – and enemies – for theirs. If someone genuinely apologizes to you, and makes a serious attempt to try and learn from their mistake, I think you should accept their apology.

There’s a lot of wisdom in christ’s teachings. Christians just didn’t get it. How else could you ever find a christian in the military? Let’s see, what did god say, thou shalt not kill? There wasn’t any astrick at the end of that, [unless you disagree with someone’s monitary system]. God was pretty unequivical, if you happen to beleive the bible was his literal word [I don’t, obviously].

Laura Branaghn – Self Control

I mentioned earlier that when I was young I would crank 80s music and dance, in my room, by myself.

To tell the truth, I miss this. Sometimes I still do it. My dancing style is very unique – at my middle school, they referred to it as the ‘Johnny’. It’s best described as _fast_.

And this was one of my favorite songs to dance to.

I live among the creatures of the night
I haven’t got the will to try and fight
against a new tomorrow so I guess I’ll just beleive it
that tomorrow never comes

I’m forever the quinnessentual night owl – just look at the timestamps on my journal entries – so this song really speaks to me.

Limahl – Neverending Story

Gonna cite lyrics here, since no one knows this song.

Turn around, look at what you see
In her face, the mirror of your dream
Make beleive I’m everywhere
Hidden in the lines
Written on the pages
Is the answer to our neverending story

Reach the stars, fly a fantasy
Dream a dream, and what you see will be
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the crowds
And there upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story

Going to have to thank brian leeper for turning me on to this song.

Show no fear, or she may fade away
In your hands, the birth of a new day
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds
And there upon the rainbow is the answer to her neverending story

what more is there to say?

Mike & The Mechanics – The Living Years

Spent a lot of time today talking about my parents, and my past – trying to sort out the confusion of my presence within the context of what’s happened before, as always. As usual, neither of the two major situations which present themselves have any referant – there’s no precident for either.

Anyway, this song I listen to regularly, as a reminder. It was played at my biological son’s birth, as i recall. It’s a important message for each of us to remember, I think.

My parents probebly wish I wasn’t as straightforward with them as I am.

Anyway, again lyrics just because I love the song so much, but just of the first couple of verses.

Every generation blames the one before
When all of their frustrations come beating on your door
I know that I’m a prisoner to all my father’s household did
I know that I’m a hostage to all the hopes and fears
I just wish I could have told him
in the living years

Crumpled bits of paper filled with imperfect thoughts
stilted conversations, I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got
You say you just don’t see it, he says it’s perfect sense
you just can’t get agreement in this present tense
we all talk a different language talking in defence

Definately on the list of songs that I would cry to if I could cry without extreme situations.

You know, I wonder to what extent my mini-mental-breakdown of a few years ago was caused by my inability to cry? I mean, you wouldn’t think it would matter – but I definately could cry during it. I think I got out a LOT of uncriedness. To tell the truth, as scary and horrible and whatnot as that experience was, I would go through it again. It was worth it. Losing your mind, once at least, is highly theraputic.

Well, it’s definately about time for me to go to bed, but I don’t really feel like stopping writing. I’m yawning, but I’m also still thinking of things I want to say.

Queensryche, Silent Lucidity

There has got to be a way to do what they describe in this song.

Although, there’s that classic question. The dream is over – or has it just begun? We truly don’t know when we’re awake and when we’re dreaming. We don’t know if we all see colors the same way. We don’t know if we all think using the same symbols. We know very little, really, in teh grand scheme of things.

If you could actually ‘jack in’ to a computer, would you do it? I would – because if another person did it too, it would be true, genuine, real telepathy. hello, magic!

Just felt some kind of wierd jolt. Earthquake? I don’t know. strange..

Dream control – virtual reality.

I like the ending.

How amusing, if we all were built with little VR decks, but forgot how to use them. Just like how amusing if lightning is actually power being delivered, and we’re not smart enough to collect it.

Now, for one more.. a good one, to send me to nice dreams

Savage Garden, I want you

I love savage garden. Like Bon Jovi, they seem to find their way to the deck a lot in high performance driving situations.

I so want to build my own overunity fusion reactor. I’m so sure it’s possible. I’m also so sure I’d get myself killed trying. 😉

Then again, I managed the EV. Plenty of possible lethal situations there..

Then again, I had the prof, josh, leo, all watching out for me. If not, I would have killed myself removing the engine.

So where do I find someone nutty enough to watch me play with plasma and tell me when I’m about to get burned?

I met someone else today that had heard of TMJ! I was so thrilled. They so rock.

Okay, I said it was going to be the last song, but I lied.

Tiffiny, I think we’re alone now

Guilty pleasures.

Why do we not tell our children all about sex? I mean, I can understand not giving them the whole complex picture when they ask where babies come from.. but when one finds them really confused, perhaps some more explanation might be in order. ‘Well, it’s a combination between physical contact and emotional vulnerability.’

And, skipping the synth solo [bad me], I jump right into ..

something I wrote? This isn’t right..

No, I’m actually listening to something I wrote. I kind of like it. Choppy as all hell, poor mixing job, guitar sounds like shit.. but damn it, the idea’s there..

I should look at my web stats and see how many downloads it’s gotten. 😉

It’s still too simple, though.

And where the fuck did that ‘ding’ that sounds like someone banging on a water pipe come from at -4:50?

I do like the sawtooth lead, although I should have brought it further into the foreground and kept the interplay up between it and the piano.

And oh, that QSR solo string could break my heart.. as I was playing it, I kept making grandeose gestures as though I was conducting a orchastra.. and that’s what it felt like. Visions of crying violin soloists, other bizarre things of that sort.

I think the keys also needed a bit more highs thrown in there. I didn’t EQ on this mix at all, because I wanted to commit it to ‘tape’ before I lost my nerve or my computer crashed again. 😉

Oh, boy I really screwed up the guitar at the end 😉

and the keys. Gah, I suck..

I wonder if other people hear the flaws, when they listen? Or if it comes off as ‘soul’. Yeah, right. Sure.

nice little grace slick style outro there.

Which is just what I’m gonna do now.

Hey, geeks – check out http://winscp.vse.cz/eng/ – just the thing if you have to tell a nontechnical person who’s used to using ftp how to scp something to a server! Never have to run insecure ftp again! Isn’t it cool? 😉

Just finished a little mini music project – which those of you who want to hear how badly I suck can listen to at www.brassrat.net/~sheer/stuff/phen.mp3

Other than that, dealing with large amounts of psychodrama, which seem to be present wherever my ex-girlfriend [who’s now male] is. I don’t know, that’s not really fair, but I am starting to find these situations in which I’m not really sure who’s telling the truth stressful.

In the meantime, indecisoin about other parts of my life continues to loom large. And I need to get back to work on the mk3 project, but I’ve been too sick to want to think about bits & bytes & a/d & noise filters & properly sizing caps & all the little EE type stuff that goes along with the mk3 project.

But I will get back to it soon, I promise.

I also need to order new shocks for the EV, so I can put it back togeather – at the moment it’s in the garage, with the rear springs out, awaiting new parts.

I’m happy to discover that both resort and foothills are still up, albiet at new addresses (resort is at resort.org 2323 and foothills is at foothills.infomagic.net 2010) – so I’ve been dropping in both places from time to time of recent, and talking to some of my old friends.

It is very reassuring to find that some of the parts of the net that I thought had dissapeared forever have just changed names. I wonder how many other people are still searching for them?

I’m still sick, though after a day of jamming out, I feel a bit better.

A Tony Li quote comes to mind. ‘I just want someone to make a god damn fucking decision!’. Well, in my case, it’d be more like ‘I just want ME to make a god damn fucking decision!’.

Or three.

I think I’m going to start looking for jobs in SoCal. It can’t hurt..

S.

There’s a scene in Richard Powers’ book ‘Plowing The Dark’ in which one of the coworkers of the heroine discovers that he has fallen in love, over the net, with a lisp script. While pretty inplausable – no one has yet built a chat bot that could pass the turing test, much less turn someone on. But the concept is beleivable, and it won’t always be like it is today. Someday, someone will manage to do it.

It’s really a somewhat creepy idea. I read once about a Japanese corperation which would let you sign up, for a small fee per month, to get script-generated love letters from a virtual girlfriend. You could trade emails with her, get to know her.. never mind the fact that she doesn’t exist..

There’s something eerie about the possibility of computer generated fiction going out in the world and portraying itself as reality. Partially because it is something that I can so easily see happening.

Of course, with VR, the stakes go even higher. You could create a entire virtual world where you could meet with your virtual lover who had no corperal existance..

Would this be cheating, if you had a significant other?

Strange.

S.

Argh! Livejournal web site is down. I’m addicted, got to get my fix.. 😉

But, hopefully this nifty windows client thingy will work okay and I’ll still be able to make a entry, just unable to view anything. I think I can live with that.

Feeling kind of sick.. sore throat, tired, all that fun stuff. Body manafesting the confusion in the mind? Or just pushing it too hard? I don’t really know.

Haven’t heard back from Elgort yet – hoping that he’ll give me a excuse to return to the big CA 😉

Submitted my top ten 80s songs to this site – of course, those are just my top ten for today, tomorrow they’d be totally different.

But, just in case they don’t like my style, I’ll post them here too.

In no particular order, by the way.

*)Lou Grahm, Midnight Blue.
‘I used to follow, yeah, that’s true – but my following days are over, now I just gotta follow through’. Words to live by.

*)Midnight Oil, Beds are burning.
‘The Time Has Come, To say Fair’s Fair, To Pay The Rent, To Pay Our share – the time has come, a fact’s a fact, it belongs to them, let’s give it back’. Is your car burning oil? Do you know how we get enough to run your gas-guzzling SUV? Do you know how many innocent people have already died, and how many are going to? Are you okay with this?

*)Mr. Mister, Kyria Elason.
I don’t beleive in christianity, and not always in god. But I beleive in the sentament in this song. Kyria Elason means, by the way, ‘God be with me’. It’s nice when a song can speak of spiritual matters in a way that aren’t offensive to those of us who don’t think there was a point to Christ’s death.

*)Phil Collins, Hero.
While not technically the 80s – I think this was released in 1990 – this captures the spirit of the 80s quite well. Phil is the quinessentual 80s rocker – look at all Genesis did in the 80s – and the message here is clear, easy to understand, and heartbreakingly familiar.

‘The Villin goes to Jail, while the hero goes free – I wish it were that simple for me’.

*)Richard Marx, Right Here Waiting.
The perfect love song for a long distance relationship. For me the 80s were all about the [then budding] internet, and the inevitable long distance friendships and romances that resulted from it.

*)Simple Minds, Don’t You Forget About Me.
Truly, I love most of Simple Minds’s work. They’re brilliant musicians. But this song defined it.. often, during the 80s, I would stay in my room for hours, dancing to as many watts as I could get my hands on. This song defined those moments. And, of course, the breakfast club.. a movie that should be required viewing for high school students.

*)U2, Street With No Name.
The first song I ever heard a mp3 of. And still one of my favorites. I’ve seen U2 in concert three times, and I’d go back in a heartbeat. If you’ve ever heard the song, I don’t have to explain, because you probebly feel it too.

*)USA For Africa, We Are The World.
Okay, you all hated it. I know. It’s not the song itself – which doesn’t sound that great and is utter shlock – it’s the concept it represents. Of course, 30 years later, USA for africa is withholding AIDS drugs in order to make maximum profit while millions die. Yah, great.

*)Warrent, Heaven.
I think all of us secretly wish our significant others thought of us as this person thinks of his. I think this song is beautiful.

*)Jefferson Starship, We Built This City On Rock and Roll.
Music is too important to leave to the professionals! Pick up a guitar, hit some keys, join in! Music transcends culture, gender, gender identity, and to a certain extent even humanity. However good, or bad, you are, there are other people to jam with who have the same skill level you do, as well as ones you could learn from and ones you could help teach! My hope is that someday the human race will truly be able to say, ‘We built this planet on rock and roll!’ – and creative efforts of all types.

Anyway, as I said, that’s just my comments for today. Tomorrow they might be very different. Time for sleep now, after I finish listening to the Forrest Gump Suite. [Writing about 80s music forced me to delve deep into my mpeg collection.. but I’ve been in a 80s mood of late anyway.]

I feel terrible, not mentioning any of the five million other bands that made the 80s great. But that’s okay, I’m sure if I continue this journal for any length of time, I’ll slowly type out my opinions on such things.

You know, it occurs to me that we, the people, need to go kick a little ass.

Let me explain something to you, dear readers. Something you may not have thought about. [There are two of you now! I feel special ;-)] A H-bomb is really a fusion bomb. Has anyone thought about what it’s going to be like to have a small sun burn against the surface of our planet?]

Kids, this leaves us with two choices:

1) We can learn to live togeather
2) We can all die, and potentially damage the path of evolution on this planet

Religious people, it is NOT acceptable to say that god is watching the situation until you can _prove_ to me that there is a god. With a instrument, in a lab.

I accept the possibility of a supreme being – I’ll go into my views on the subject at some later date. I do not accept the idea that he/she/it has their eyes on planet earth and has any intention in intervening there.

I *definately* don’t beleive that he/she/it wants our unquestioning devotion. Ask yourself: Do you want unquestioning adoration from your children? I didn’t think so. You want your children to go out there and fix whatever your generation screwed up, because over, and over, that is the job of the children – and will be until the end of the human race, we can all hope.

Another interesting question for you all.. while you’re trying to picture a tiny sun burning against inhabited land, which is, after all, what a fusion bomb will be like.. do you really trust our government to have their fingers on those switches?

When bush speaks of nuclear disarmament, he means unloading the missiles from the silos and putting them in warehouses. He does *not* mean disassembling them into component peices. [i.e. making them into non-missiles, the sensable thing to do]

I don’t trust these guys very far. I have a lot of reasons, starting with Russia and Vietnam. I’m glad the Korea thing was in fact what the Koreans wanted – but it looks to me like we did the same thing there we do everywhere – walk in and abuse our superior technology to give one side superior firepower.

The dynamics of the cold war are really interesting. Presumably because they weren’t able to blow each other up without major consequences – or perhaps because the russians never had a ICBM that they’d trust to deliver a bomb – ICBMs aren’t cheap and easy to build.

At some point it becomes this bizarre Communism Vs. Capitolism chess game. Communism and Capitolism would pony up warriers to meet on various battlegrounds around the world.. germany, korea, vietnam, whatever.. and Communism would ante up. Or fail to, more often – Russia never really had that many resources.

The funniest part was the space race. People talk about how we ‘won’ the cold war – but a large part of the competition was the space race – the USSR managed to hold a manned space station for several years – which beats the heck out of sending up a bunch of satellites in a glorified airplane with a missile bolted to it. We might have gone to the moon.. but we stopped there. I’d say the USSR won the space race, and yet supposedly they ‘lost’ the cold war.