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| Friday, January
13th, 2006 Welp, it's 2006 and this will be the first journal entry of the year. Do I have anything useful or thoughtful to say? Nope. I'm just adding this page to get this year's journals of rants and complaints started. So let's get started! I've been meaning to write something about 'Firefly' and the movie 'Serenity'. It seems to be very popular among the webcomic community as well as all the refugees from the 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' series. The wife kinda got me interested in Buffy (please kill me) and I stayed a semi-fan because the writing was fresh and different... although I still wish Xander had been de-eyeballed and then also hung from a tall tree, then burned at the stake, then drawn and quartered, then chopped into tiny little bits and fed to rabid squirrels. For some reason I hated his character and I'm still not quite sure why. And yes, I also enjoyed the episode musical 'Once More With Feeling' (yes, please, KILL me now...). The first couple of episodes of 'Firefly' and I was hooked. What really got me was the dark side of Mal's character (even more brought out in the movie) and how sometimes "evil" deeds are necessary as a means to an end. Mal kicking the bad guy into the ship's turbine in the second episode was surprisingly refreshing, in that anyone can make threats, but to carry them out in that next moment... that's unique in today's heroes. Mal walks the fine line between being a good guy and being a very, very bad guy, all for the sake of his ship, his crew and their survival. Throw in the silence of space travel and the blood & guts of a western and you've got a fucking righteously cool show. And it's really too bad it was canceled... but I think Firefly was just too cool for the general public to possibly understand. Yeah, I believe that a high percentage of the American public are completely incapable of understanding concepts like that. Good and Evil. Violence. Sacrifice. Death. All too often it seems the average person just wants to stay in a semi-dream world where gentle music plays, everything is rosy pink and no one ever has to be held accountable for anything. Guns are bad and tobacco companies are to blame for people smoking. Everything is more palatable when covered with a thick layer of bullshit and nobody has to think for themselves. I've tried to write out a couple of ways I think people might get away from being sheep but I cannot find anything that sounds right. It might be easier to list each of my viewpoints and explain why I think the way I do, but would anyone really want to hear that? I would assume not. Everyone has their own outlook on life and deserves to live their lives as they choose. Seriously. So I think I will not worry about trying to change anyone. Not tonight, at least. Tune in later when I express my views on why God doesn't exist, guns are NOT evil, war is sometimes necessary, modern-day vampires are retarded and tobacco companies are not to blame for people smoking. heh... yeah, I need to get laid more often. I don't deny that. Sunday, January 22nd, 2006 Astronomy The other day I picked up a couple of books on subjects I have been meaning to explore, Astronomy and Ghost Hunting. Astronomy because, well, we live out here in the boonies where at night it gets really, really dark... and so we have a pretty good view of the night sky and haven't really taken advantage of it. I can remember several nights on guard duty in Saudi but one in particular where the sky was clear and FULL of stars... what seemed like millions of visible stars from one horizon to the other. During my research on astronomy I found a book that outlined the Gemini and Apollo missions and the 'Space Race' against the Soviets. One image that came to mind was Apollo 13, the movie... you know, the part where they realize the filters on the two spacecrafts are different shapes and they have to use cardboard, duct tape and whatever else might be available on the capsule itself in order to bring the carbon dioxide levels down to a safe level again. In the movie the short-sleeved, tie-wearing engineers spread out all the available materials on a table and say something like 'we need to make this filter work in the slot for this filter using nothing but that..' to which they all begin sorting items and one guy suggests someone go make coffee. During that scene I kept saying to myself "Jesus Christ, you don't need twenty NASA engineers and coffee to figure this one out! Just find a couple of rednecks, show 'em the duct tape and let them 'git 'r done'." Simple tasks should remain simple. But anyway.... When I was a kid I was interested in astronomy and kept all kinds of science books on hand. Problem was most were from the 60's and we had not landed on the moon yet. Still, it was a fun hobby until I got older and went on to different things. I expect this second great interest in astronomy to awaken some nostalgia from that period as well as further my current philosophies and theories about life, the universe, time and existence. My, how times have changed. I picked up a copy of 'Astronomy' magazine. The first thing that struck me is this seems to be one of those hobbies that men get really, really deep into to compensate for having a small penis. I might be wrong. I'm probably wrong. I'm probably going to get my ass kicked by a bunch of astronomy geeks at recess. I paid $130 for a telescope that is in the process of being shipped. I intend to use this telescope to look at the moon, some planets, some stars and also spy on my neighbors. I mean, that's what a telescope is for... looking into people's windows, hoping for a flash of female titty. Right? Or is that just me? Every site, article and review I've managed to find all say the same thing: bigger is better. You need a big telescope to get any real use out of it, and if you buy a stupid little plastic telescope you fucked up, you're stupid and you need to buy a bigger one. I get the impression that some of these amateur telescopes are kinda large and even have wheels and small trailers to lug them around. Apparently, if you want to succeed in this hobby you must be prepared to spend a few thousand just to get started. Now, I ask, for what, exactly? It's a hobby, and the dude with a wife and a normal-sized dick isn't going to blow $2000 on a fucking telescope! If it's so important for them to see distant stars and gas clouds, maybe they should go online and find pictures from the Hubble, because there's absolutely nothing that they can possibly do that some government agency or some ancient astronomer hasn't done already, and done better. But... as all things, if you have the cash, by all means, spend it however you see fit. However, if you're a 35-year old virgin and you just spent more money on a new telescope than you have on your car, you'd better not be asking yourself why. Changing gears now....... Ghost Hunting One of the things I have been continually pondering is the concept of God and the "afterlife". I should state right now that I am an atheist, and that I do not believe that God actually exists in any shape or form except fiction, kinda like Santa Claus. I will not get into all the little details or arguments but I feel it's necessary to make this distinction when I get back into the subject of ghosts, spirits and hauntings. One thing I have noticed when discussing these sorts of topics is that people seem unable to let go of or even temporarily suspend the belief of spirits and "everlasting life", both concepts which have been drilled into their heads from birth. I, too, grew up in a religious household but have since thought my way free of those constraints, and am now able to see things in a different light than most. It's easy for me to ponder and theorize certain things without adding in false beliefs and stories masquerading as fact, swayed by an inescapable belief in religion and God. Now I'm not saying religion doesn't have its uses. That's a discussion for another time. The book I'm currently reading is called 'The Ghost Hunter's Guidebook' by Troy Taylor. The neat thing is that he mentions some of the theories and concepts I have been pondering were actually mentioned. It's encouraging that some of the things I assumed were my own theories have been presented and experimented upon before. Although I prefer not to use other people's work directly in anything I do it's probably necessary in this case. In short, an external electromagnetic field can cause headaches, vivid dreams and sometimes hallucinations, which is really the heart of my point. These experiments were mentioned in the book only briefly. The main problem I have with Mr. Taylor is while he explores ghosts and the paranormal he also maintains a belief in spirits and religion. There are many instances in which he outlines a very logical argument for the existence of ghosts being only in our mind's eye and then adds the unlikely religion-based theory of spirits, souls and "crossing over" after dying. I should probably explain my own belief here. I do not believe in spirits, souls or everlasting life. I do believe that when we die, that's it. It's the nervous system and all those little circuits in the brain that allow us to think and be aware, and when the electrical energy leaves those circuits we "die", and when the brain decays naturally or is destroyed, we cease to exist. We are just complex machines, and any machine ceases to exist once it's disassembled. There is not a spirit or soul that occupies a typewriter or automobile once it's put together. Live things are different than typewriters or cars, of course, but the concept is the same. If your brain is injured or damaged in some way, you cease to be the same person you were. It's the complex brain that allows us to think, to reason, to dream, to be self-aware... and having the ability to think and reason doesn't mean a little ball of light escapes when someone comes up behind you and whacks you over the head with a tire iron. Some things are final. So if you think about it long enough you begin to realize pretty much any belief in an "afterlife" is flawed. I'm not saying it's easy to escape from all those years and years of bible school and wasted Sundays at church where they'd do their very best to brainwash you into having faith in an ancient collection of lies and falsehoods presented as absolute truth, but it can be done. The real trick is separating what makes sense from what is nonsense. For our purposes, spirits, souls and "crossing over" is fictitious nonsense. In this book Mr. Taylor has roughly classified hauntings into four categories: intelligent or interactive, residual, poltergeist and "portal". I suggest picking up a copy of his book for an in-depth description of each of these but I would like to promote the theory that three of these can be explained by the electromagnetic residue theory, with the poltergeist haunting the oddball of the four... possibly with the addition of an unintended usage of telekinesis? A fascinating theory but more research is definitely needed on that one. Intelligent or interactive ghosts. Can anyone tell me why a hallucination can't also be "intelligent"? If your brain is processing this odd magnetic information and presenting the results in a dreamlike state, why can't the illusion interact with the person just like people in your dreams do? The brain is producing the hallucination and there is no reason it can't also make it move and say things. Residual. Basically the same type of hallucination without the brain adding the supposed intelligent behavior on its own. Like an old film loop, replaying events of the past. The most common type of haunting and the one I believe the basis for ALL ghosts and ghostly apparitions. Poltergeist. It's suggested that a poltergeist is a paranormal occurrence that centers around a young person, usually female. Whereas males are more likely to express anger and frustration by yelling and throwing things, females are more likely to internalize their feelings and quite possibly utilize a natural conduit of electrical energy to throw small objects and slam doors, as telekinesis. Possible. Scientists would like to say that telekinesis doesn't exist... but I have personally seen lightning hit small trees and split them in two. And if an electrical burst of that magnitude can do that, then it stands to reason a smaller electrical anomaly might nudge a small object. It's not something that can be disproven so easily although it is probably very difficult to isolate and recreate in the first place. Portals. The main example given of portal hauntings is the concept of ghosts in cemeteries and the theory that cemeteries were possibly originally constructed on sacred or places of great 'earth energy'. I tend to think that most of the imprinting that might exist in graveyards and cemeteries comes not from the dead people buried there, but from the strong, sorrowful emotions emitted from the live people at the funeral. One of the conclusions offered as "proof" that ghosts exist is the author's experiencing odd smells and sounds during the encounter. Just a few pages earlier he mentions battlefield ghosts, complete with cannon sounds and horse sweat smells. Does this mean artillery pieces and horses also leave ghosts behind? ...or are the strong emotional imprints left behind by the soldiers also relaying information about what they saw, smelled and heard themselves? Why can't an imprint leave this sort of information, when in dreams we experience details of all five senses even though those particular organs aren't actually being used? I know that I have seen, heard, smelled, tasted and touched items in dreams that weren't actually there, but that doesn't at all mean they were any less real at the time. So again, we need to research and uncover exactly how an imprint is created. I have outlined my theory (well, not exactly MY theory but I sure didn't find it anywhere else until recently) that ALL ghosts and ghostly apparitions are the product of imprints, latent energy, place memory, 'Earth energy'... still some low-level form of naturally occurring electrical energy that combines with, intensified by or is produced by a violent burst of emotion from a human being. Comments? Agree? Disagree? Use the message board! Wednesday, February 1st, 2006 It has been a while since I've been able to find anything of interest at the bookstore. My wife and I frequent three separate national chain bookstores and whereas she always seems to find a new author or a new thriller or mystery, I have real trouble finding anything worth reading. You see, I don't read fiction. At all. The only published fiction I've ever read was Stephen King's 'It' (which happened to be in a drawer at work), one book by Dean Koontz, one by John Saul and some of Isaac Asimov's older robotic stuff. That's it. I feel it's a huge waste of time reading anything that's NOT non-fiction, factual and real. I am out to LEARN something, not to waste several hours mired in someone else's idea of a story. If it can't teach me something new, then it doesn't belong on my bookshelf. Movies are something else entirely -- a movie can be truly entertaining when backed by a really, really good story. A book can be a good story also, yes, but the medium just isn't the same -- educational stuff belongs on the printed page, entertainment stuff belongs on the screen. The exception is old bastards like me who get off watching the History Channel. You figure that one out. Now the evening newscasts definitely belong in the entertainment category. Apparently our society gets off on watching accounts and reenactments of violence while at the same time proclaiming violence is bad. I shudder at pondering who exactly swallows absolutely everything the news broadcasts every night hook line and sinker... it seems most of the time the news stories are designed to worry and frighten more than they are designed to educate and inform. One local news story the other night was a trio of schoolgirls who decided to do their own tongue piercings in a school bathroom. I believe the charges included 'bringing a weapon to school' or something like that. I assume it was a needle of some sort... unless these girls decided to bring a couple of shotguns that day. A needle is not a deadly weapon. It CAN be, but by itself it ain't. A pencil CAN be a deadly weapon as well, along with table legs, heavy books, yardsticks and a whole slew of other things you'd find in any classroom. But people feel the need to be scared and afraid, I suppose. Let's review; anything can be a deadly weapon. What makes it deadly is the person behind it. This includes guns, rifles, shotguns, knives, rocks, sharp sticks, cars, trucks, buses, airplanes, baseball bats, hockey sticks, golf clubs, iron pipes, candlesticks, forks, spoons, scissors, pencils, pens, staplers, letter openers, string, whips, ropes, chains, chainsaws, axes, shovels, icepicks, eyelash curlers, nail files, heavy purses, cotton balls, plastic wrap, pillows, blankets, sleeping bags, a tied-off sock with some dirt in the end and pushing someone down a flight of stairs or off the roof of a tall building. Anyway, the most disturbing theme of the nightly news is interviewing any one of the witnesses of a car crash, building fire, shooting or pretty much any incident. The interviewee goes on with their accounting of what they think they saw, then suggest it might've been them instead. That they 'could've been killed'. This is an example of how lame our society has become. There is no grasp of reality in these statements. The World War 2 generation has been called the "Greatest Generation", probably coined by some member of the pussified "Baby Boomer" generation. The WW2 generation lived through a depression and then a major war. The people were closer to the realities of life in that they experienced real poverty and knew the difference between reality and bullshit. For instance, a farmer intimately knows what it feels like to slaughter a cow or pig for food and there is no great mystery or fascination in death, a concept people nowadays can't seem to understand. My god, there can never be enough portrayals of murders and shootings on television to satisfy the modern viewer. The only dead people most people ever see are already in nice, clean-smelling caskets. The only guns people ever see are carried by cops and bad guys on TV. The problem is people don't seem to understand the difference between what is real and what isn't, and if you do get shot or stabbed, depending on where you get hit, you stand a much better than average chance of surviving. If you are shot AT, you stand a 99.99999% chance of surviving. Luckily for us most convenience store robbers can't shoot worth a fuck. A combat veteran knows the difference between getting hit by that one bullet as opposed to the thousands of bullets that came close. Close isn't going to kill anybody. That's the distinction. Until you have a real, honest-to-goodness reason to worry about it, then it doesn't mean a goddamn thing. A symptom of how fucked up we have become is the inevitable appearance of the army of "grief counselors" that show up after something bad happens. Where in the fuck did this come from? If you happen to be out someplace and someone gets shot nearby and dies later in the hospital, is anyone outside of the victim and the victim's family and friends really affected? NO. Does anyone have any real reason to need a grief counselor if they aren't directly affected, i.e. family, friend or with a new bullet hole in their body? NO. So why do we need grief counselors? If the bullet didn't hit YOU, then shut the fuck up. But guaranteed you'll still see some jackass who happened to be within half a mile of the shooting or accident scene saying to the news reporter "I saw the whole thing. My god, I could've been killed!" Sunday, February 5th, 2006 Words can't possibly describe how little I care about watching the Super Bowl this year. Not only is it being broadcast on the Disney-owned network ABC and featuring two teams I don't much care about, the Super Bowl has become an outlet for all the sellouts and gay train wrecks that are popular music and big corporate television advertising. If I'm watching a football game I don't give a holy flying fuck about watching some washed-up band playing at halftime or the newest, clever-est 30-second advertisement pushing more bullshit and lies about whatever product they want to sell this month. The Rolling Stones don't sound good and have never sounded good. That's a fact. And Budweiser is cheap, bitter and tastes like shit. That's also a fact. The slow-motion Clydesdales running in the snow is to distract you from realizing how much the beer sucks. So... the rant today will be about music. But it's one of those things where everyone has an opinion and musical tastes are widely different from person to person. I grew up in the 70's and 80's which was a fine time for music. My preference for music tends to be gritty, fast and angry. Back then it was Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. I don't listen to Iron Maiden anymore but regularly play back older Judas Priest from my MP3 directory or when I'm driving. Especially when I'm driving. Some songs by Judas Priest were made for getting speeding tickets to. Country music makes you a better driver. Good rock music makes you want to run over people. My older brother has been playing guitar for many years now, since high school. I tried to teach myself but never really grasped the concept. I can *play* guitar , but there is no real fire or emotion there. Recently he has aquired a multitrack digital recorder and has put a few of his ideas into concrete form and I must say, it sounds damn good. I have told him that I seriously think he should forge ahead and get some of his music onto a CD and get it out into the world for people to hear... a few of his songs are sort of a blend of old Megadeth and influences of Iron Maiden and, yes, Judas Priest. He tells me he needs to add a live drum track instead of using the multitracks built-in drum machine and like a moron I told him I can still play drums, sort of. Back in the late 80's I bought a cheap little 5-piece drum kit for $500 from a music store. It was a crappy MX-100 set with some really cheap Pearl cymbals thrown in. That music store made a lot of idiot money from me. I tried playing with a couple of bands and spent a few months with a three-piece band who, like before, wanted to replace their drum machine with a live drummer. The bassist was a decent one-eyed guy. The guitarist was a friendly sort of dude who wrote most of the band's songs (which seemed to go on and on and ON and ON for an average of 6-8 minutes per song) and seemed to have an appreciation for the music and feel of the band Rush. All of their stuff was original and LONG. Even back then I knew if a band wanted to succeed you would have to make your songs a little shorter and dumb down the lyrics for your audience... but I felt it best not to say anything. What? You've never heard of them either? Gee, what a surprise. I won't make the same mistake with my brother. His stuff sounds good but there are a couple of things that can be modifed or added that would make it sound great. And, as much as I despise the thought of buying another guitar, bass or drum set, I will do my best to contribute what I can to help him finish his songs and get his music out into the world. If sometime in the future you see me offering CDs for sale on this site you'll know we were successful. Wednesday, March 8th, 2006 It sucks starting a new hobby. And yes, as much as I badmouthed amateur astronomers earlier on this very page I am now beginning to understand the point of bigger, better and expensive-er telescope and astronomy equipment. I still stand by my earlier statements that no one should have to spend a lot of money on a hobby that they are just starting and might not continue anyway... but like any guy hobby, it starts out with the big stuff and then gets expensive when idly shopping for accessories. And in amateur astronomy there are a whoooolllle LOT of accessories to pick from, from a large range and varying quality of eyepieces, barlows, finder scopes, star pointers, polar finders, sun filters, moon filters, colored filters, polarizing filters, red lens flashlights, star charts, motor drives, tripods, camera adapters, CCTV, laser pointers, vibration dampeners, cooling fans, dew shields, wind blocks and adjustable viewing chairs, to name a few. So far I have a 114mm reflector, a 90mm refractor that I expect to arrive tomorrow by FedEx and I'm halfheartedly bidding on a 130mm Maksutov Cassegrain on eBay. In the beginning I would've been content with a 60mm department store telescope... that is, until I did some reading and realized that aperature and blinky lights are more important than life itself when it comes to attending star parties. Now I have not actually attended a star party yet, and I know I have been wrong about many things in the past... but somehow a "star party" sounds more like a group of aging D&D nerds that meet up once or twice a month to show off their telescopes and talk about old episodes of Star Trek. I think I need to attend a meeting or two to get an idea of what actually goes on at these things, but I'm guessing there won't be any beer, pizza or real "partying" going on in that sense. Plus, if I happen to be content with my equipment at this time, after attending a star party I might develop a serious case of aperature envy... and that's not something I want to go through right now. eBay is a dangerous thing. So far, I have purchased all of my astronomy stuff from Amazon or eBay. If I can help it I won't buy anything at retail price, preferring instead to buy used that I can clean up or recondition at a fraction of the price. It doesn't make sense to buy anything new if there's a decent used one that's less than half the price and just as serviceable but with a couple dents, a little rust and some scratches. I don't plan on putting it in a display case, I plan on USING the freakin' thing and putting some dents and scratches on it myself... so why not buy one that's already broken in? Anyway, I think I'll have to try harder to attend one of these local star parties and not blow it off again. We'll see how it goes. Friday, March 31st, 2006 About two weeks ago I was in search of computer parts to fix my primary computer. I had already been to CompUSA and picked up a 256mb video card, new motherboard and a 160gb hard drive. I had spent about $350 and still had to get some more parts when I went to Best Buy and saw an eMachines 3.06GHz Celeron with monitor for basically $340. What did I do? I kept the video card, took the rest of the parts back and both my wife and I got new computers. The last video card I was using was a 64mb Radeon PCI, because the motherboard in the last machine didn't have an AGP slot. Now I've got a Radeon 9550 256 AGP and the difference is pretty amazing. So amazing that I decided that I had to see how EverQuest would run now.  Yep,
I installed EverQuest again. If there was ever a bigger WASTE of
time on the planet besides illegal drugs, it's EverQuest. Clothes
pile up, dishes stay unwashed, meals become whatever can be hurriedly
consumed while keeping an eye on the computer screen.Yes, my main character is a hot dark elf chick. When I started I played a high elf paladin to duo with my wife's wood elf druid. I got him to around level 52 and then decided to see what the other side was like, so I made a little female dark elf shadowknight and realized that being bad was good -- or at least a helluva LOT more fun than roleplaying as a goody-two-shoes pally. Plus she is so much more sexy. So I'm a shadowknight, and a chick. A good rule of thumb -- if a female character is a healing or support class, she's probably a chick in real life. If she's a melee class, she's probably a dude. So where does this leave 'Sarah & Wolfie' and all the other projects? No, not entirely abandoned, but definitely not front and center in my recreational time. Besides, playing EQ and socializing with (virtual) people is stimulating, in an artistic sort of way. Umm, yeah. Trust me. So the big computer is fixed. And instead of being used to color and letter comic panels it's running EverQuest again. If you want to find me and harass me to update WHP and S&W, you have to log on and find me on the Rathe (Karana) server, cause that's where I'll probably be for the next several months. |
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This site is not related to any wargame, role-playing game, computer game or anything of the sort. "Warhammer" is an old nick I used from the BBS era that carried over to use for an adult bondage site that is now my own personal damn site. If you're here looking for anything other than that, you're in the wrong place. Go away.