I have a habit of always making plans of things which, at the moment, sound like something I really should do, because they will like, totally fix my life or something. I have tried a number of websites and apps to track tasks I need to accomplish, and nothing has stuck. All I have are dormant accounts full of tasks I'm never going to do on several task-tracking websites. Instead, I've just started putting fake events on my calendar that are actually a giant todo list. Originally this was only supposed to be limited to important things like "renew license before it expires" but over time, the list has grown. Partly because every time I go on a trip, I think of a hundred things I should do to improve my life, and partly because every month I've been pushing back tasks until the end of the month. Now, my calendar for Feb 1 looks like this (the ... denote tasks with important details in the description):
GOAL: make working from home awesome
4 hour work week
attempt this broccoli recipe ...
business idea: (censored) starter kit ...
buy glowing belt ...
buy kangaroo desktop ...
CANCEL ...
Create (censored) advertising logo and win 8 Mosaic planning app
Create secret tethering app
create (censored) software? ...
DIET CHANGES ...
Exercise: skiing, rock climbing, DANCING
Fake kitten rescue?
fake, female world of warcraft account?
figure out a way to look awesome on facebook
FIND A CO-ED SPORT
find ghostwriters for (censored)
Go rock climbing
host couchsurfers in order to perfect social skills
imagine a perfect world and depict it in lego
install alternate blog
install XMBC somewhere
learn intents using alien legacy
learn (censored)
lego robots?
LIDAR jammer
make computer desk at home a standing desk!!!
Ping pong balls
places to go ...
POKER ...
PUSH ALL BOUNDARIES ...
put images of calvin and hobbes mosaic on dating profiles
Schedule climbing class
sell a book called "Homeopathic poetry"
sell stuff on craigslist
Settlers support cards
(censored) business idea ...
Shoes from value village
start doing things you are afraid of
start evolution game
start getting mail shipped once
Tell the story of the east india company with legos...but really just use that as an excuse to play with legos. Kids book?
to try ...
TODO ...
trunk thing ...
try FTL game
try: zumba, yoga
Watch lots of stand up comedy
wedding planning seating arrangement software
write down work computer hostname
ega trek game
EYES ...
Skiing ...
This list may be ridiculous and stupid, however, if it weren't for this list, I would have forgotten about my book of homeopathic poetry. I so need to make that. Sadly, "wedding planning seating arrangement software" has been sitting around since Owen got married...which was actually before I moved to Seattle.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Whistler!
Yeah, so traffic school, and then some other thing I was going to write about...I'll get to it eventually.
What is important right now, is we are planning a whistler trip:
Awesome Map
We are going to whistler. You should come.
Ok and this page is where I was looking at deals. Packaged deals -> 3 night stay let me to an option for march 29 at The Aspens with is liftside, $145 per person per day and that include lift ticket. So that's an option.
What is important right now, is we are planning a whistler trip:
Awesome Map
We are going to whistler. You should come.
Ok and this page is where I was looking at deals. Packaged deals -> 3 night stay let me to an option for march 29 at The Aspens with is liftside, $145 per person per day and that include lift ticket. So that's an option.
Friday, January 25, 2013
O Capricious Universe
"The universe is indifferent."
--Donald Draper
Focusing on people is surprisingly difficult. As an example, there is a popular british tv show about a man who time travels in a space ship disguised as a blue police box. One of the plot devices in this show is a "perception filter" which prevents people from noticing something. Sometimes, it feels like such a filter is on my mind. When I try to think about other people, my mind keeps trying to focus on other things, like me, or things I could do, or places I could go, or strategies I could use and archetypes of people I could meet. Maybe I'm just too used to solving problems, which is bad because when it comes to girls sometimes the problem solves you.
Anyway, kind of getting the hang of it. And when I talk about people, this time, I don't mean just girls. Its kind of cool. There is this guy I see at work and he seems happy when I ask him how his day is going. This surprises me, because typically when someone asks me how my day is going, my brain flags the conversation as spam, and my subconscious feeds them some crap like "good, how is yours?" while I think about pirates. Other people though...seem to appreciate the three seconds I spend taking an interest in their life. So...good for them. I can do that.
Unfortunately, as I've complained about before, having a social life is preventing me from fixing my body. I specifically quit the gym near my house, and signed up for the gym at work, even though it was three times as expensive, because I wanted to make it as easy as possible to go to the gym after work. Now, though, I have social-ish shit going on every night after work. And so I can't go to the gym anymore--at least not for cardio. The main problem is that cardio makes me sweat ridiculous amounts, and according to what I've read, is most useful if you do at least 30 minutes, three times a week. The other problem is, the gym at work closes at like 10pm, so I can't go to the gym at 2am like I had been at the old one. My plan was to make cardio part of my lifestyle before graduating to weight lifting. Also I wanted to get done with private salsa lessons before I started paying a personal trainer to teach me to lift. So. My best idea at the moment is to get this thing which I hope will allow me to at least get my heart rate up at home for 30 minutes, even if I couldn't get to the gym that week. I've also tried doing an easier cardio workout (just run for the minimum 30 minutes instead of the 3 miles that is my usual goal) on the same night as salsa night. That works ok, unless my work friends convince me to get sushi instead of going to the gym. Anyway. My next idea, is to try to do a salsa private lesson and band practice on the same night. Its kind of logistically impossible, but I might find a way. And then, somehow, we start the fucking weight lifting. Some guys have been telling me that with lifting you can do twice a week. I think I can pull that off--especially if lifting doesn't make me sweat the way running does.
So. That was completely off topic. Back to girls.
Ummm.....yeah. So lets catch up on my complaining. First. Girls are a pain in the ass. I'm specifically talking about how they show if they're interested. There is a girl who works the coffee shop at work. I was pretty sure she was into me, because she always acted friendly, and excited to see me, and we always talked, and she would share things that were slightly more personal than I'd expect to hear if I'm just another customer, and I didn't see her acting that way around any other guys, etc. Well. Turns out she has a boyfriend and was just being friendly. This is fine. I mean I was devastated for about 3 minutes, but finding out the hard way that girls have boyfriends...that's like a sport for me now. Anyway. Here is the problem. A few weeks ago when I went salsa dancing, there were these two girls who seemed interested enough in dancing and talking to me, but I wasn't getting strong vibes from them. I ran into them as they were leaving, and instead of asking for the one girl's number, I said something gay about hoping to see them again. Then my friends, said, out loud, in public: "Why didn't you number close?" This surprised me because I did not know that Pickup Artist Nerd Talk had become mainstream enough to enter polite conversation. Anyway all my friends yelled at me for like 5 minutes about not asking for the girls number, and telling me they were into me, but the reason I didn't ask for her number was because she only showed 1/100th of the interest that the uninterested coffee shop girl showed. How the fuck am I supposed to figure this shit out? Fuck girls.
Second...I don't really have a second one. Oh wait I do. Basically, every time I put effort into meeting girls, it doesn't seem to work. All of this reading, and self reflection, and effort, and etc., and pretty much nothing. But then everyone once in a while the universe just drops something in my lap, and I get something really good without doing any work. I just rolled some dice and got lucky. Yeah. Dice. That's all it is. Tonight I basically struck out at salsa...all of my male friends pussied out, and the hot girl that I met while pretending to take the intro lesson had a boyfriend, who I shamed by dancing with the hot girl, until she asked if I was gay, which she suspected because I knew how to dance. By 10:40, again, the club was crawling with dudes and most of the female friends I brought had left and I couldn't find any more girls to dance with so I bounced. Then I bought pizza from my favorite pizza shop on the way home and elected to eat it there because I was feeling sociable. Then two drunk girls sat down next to me and we started talking about pizza or some bullshit, and then the cute one introduced herself, gave me her number and told me she has some great ideas for making an app, which I am excited about because for at least three years now my friends and I have been unable to think of a good idea for an app. Yeah. That's how it works. I spent hundreds of dollars cleaning up my salsa technique and all this effort trying to network friends together to go out regularly, but being hungry is the reason I make a social connection.
In conclusion: nothing makes sense.
Monday, January 21, 2013
[fiction] The Erasticating Tiger
"What's with the tiger hat?" asked Christine.
Snow looked up from his chemistry book. "This? This is my awesome hat."
Christine sat down. She looked at him, waiting for more.
"Ok, so I bought this as a funny joke-"
"You mean to show off because you're an attention whore," she corrected.
"Yeah exactly a funny joke. And then I started talking to this girl at a party, and we started--I mean we didn't make out. We would have, awesomely, except I gave her my age test and she thought a VCR tape was a "cassette" tape, so I kicked her out of my bedroom...where we were, um..." Snow looked down. "Studying."
Christine rolled her eyes and opened her book. "So, photosythensis? 6 carbon dioxide mol-"
"So therefore, since something awesome happened--I mean because I was wearing this hat something awesome was about to happen, basically I'm going to wear it all the time now."
"One good thing happened and that's enough to inspire a religious dedication?"
"Oh stop talking like the straight man in a comedy sketch," said Snow. "I wore the hat one time, and I hooked up with a girl one time. That means that so far, this hat works one hundred percent of the time."
Two cheerleaders walked by, stared at Snow's tiger hat, and giggled. Snow smiled, his real smile, the one that showed teeth.
Christine, already regretting her decision to study with a clown, was trying to decide if slapping him or telling him he needed to floss would be more effective at wiping that grin of his face. As if he could read her thoughts, the clown turned to her and said, "You shouldn't be jealous. Really."
Christine's face looked like it was about to explode. Her phone rang, allowing her to avert her eyes and ignore him for the moment. It was an unrecognized number. Her face fell, only for an instant, but Snow noticed. She picked up.
"Hello?"
"Hi, this is Snow's Madame," said the voice on the line.
"His what?" Christine snapped her attention to Snow and fixed upon him a stare so lethal it made his heart skip. "Please don't ever--"
"I'm a fortune teller, not a pimp, honey. I only called you because he forgot to charge his phone again."
"What kind of fortune teller calls their clients?" asked Christine.
"Well I'd be a pretty shitty fortune teller if I waited for clients to come to me, don't you think?"
"I suppose that...sounds like it makes sense."
"Can you put Snow on?"
"That's not is real name."
"Its what he calls himself. I'm a fortune teller, not a census clerk."
Christine looked at Snow. "Seriously, I can study by myself," she said as he handed him the phone.
Snow shrugged and took the phone. "Oh? Oh your are? How much is this going to cost me? Ooohhh. The state or the--oh well I guess that's still pretty good. Hey all I'm sayin is...ok. Yeah, uh...yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and she's pretty hot. Oh come on, you can't be that psychic. Oh yeah that's what my mom keeps telling me. So when...ok. Bye." Snow hung up. "I have a pyschic!" he said.
"I can tell," said Christine. "And how much is she charging you?"
"Oh nothing. She said she's doing it for free this week because she clarivointed the winning state lottery numbers two weeks from now. I mean I guess that's not bad...anyway. Do you want to go on an adventure?"
"What?"
"Do you want to go on an adventure?"
"No."
"Oh. Well...that's...going to make you cranky. Oh shit." Snow suddenly whirled around and pointed at a girl in a blue jacket across the coffee shop. "You!" The girl looked at him strangely. "Yes you! Come here."
"What are you doing? Can you stop goofing off now?" asked Christine.
"My psychic told me to do this," said Snow. He waved at the random girl again, and she reluctantly started walking towards him. Snow turned to Christine and grinned. "Its the hat."
"Why? did your psychic tell you to-"
At that moment the ambiance of the coffee shop was obliterated by the boom and crash of a lifted pickup truck smashing through the bay windows in the front and impaling itself into some bookshelves that held decorative encyclopedias that no one ever read any more. The trucks left tire had smashed the chair the girl in the blue jacket had just been sitting in.
Snow fist pumped the air. "Yessss!"
"Christine. Christinnnnne!" The voice came from inside the trunk. Everyone in the coffee shop watched as the driver side door opened and a drunk fell out. He was covered in dust and smelled like whiskey. "Christine Miller you et gover ear is thinstant!"
Snow looked from the drunk man back to Christine, but she--and her schoolbag--were gone.
"Adventures are the best," said Snow.
[Edit]
Brainstorming:
"what would you know about writing?" "well i self published a homeopathic collection of poetry"
"i'm only lonely on paper"
"on a scale of one to ten, how seriously do you take yourself?"
Snow looked up from his chemistry book. "This? This is my awesome hat."
Christine sat down. She looked at him, waiting for more.
"Ok, so I bought this as a funny joke-"
"You mean to show off because you're an attention whore," she corrected.
"Yeah exactly a funny joke. And then I started talking to this girl at a party, and we started--I mean we didn't make out. We would have, awesomely, except I gave her my age test and she thought a VCR tape was a "cassette" tape, so I kicked her out of my bedroom...where we were, um..." Snow looked down. "Studying."
Christine rolled her eyes and opened her book. "So, photosythensis? 6 carbon dioxide mol-"
"So therefore, since something awesome happened--I mean because I was wearing this hat something awesome was about to happen, basically I'm going to wear it all the time now."
"One good thing happened and that's enough to inspire a religious dedication?"
"Oh stop talking like the straight man in a comedy sketch," said Snow. "I wore the hat one time, and I hooked up with a girl one time. That means that so far, this hat works one hundred percent of the time."
Two cheerleaders walked by, stared at Snow's tiger hat, and giggled. Snow smiled, his real smile, the one that showed teeth.
Christine, already regretting her decision to study with a clown, was trying to decide if slapping him or telling him he needed to floss would be more effective at wiping that grin of his face. As if he could read her thoughts, the clown turned to her and said, "You shouldn't be jealous. Really."
Christine's face looked like it was about to explode. Her phone rang, allowing her to avert her eyes and ignore him for the moment. It was an unrecognized number. Her face fell, only for an instant, but Snow noticed. She picked up.
"Hello?"
"Hi, this is Snow's Madame," said the voice on the line.
"His what?" Christine snapped her attention to Snow and fixed upon him a stare so lethal it made his heart skip. "Please don't ever--"
"I'm a fortune teller, not a pimp, honey. I only called you because he forgot to charge his phone again."
"What kind of fortune teller calls their clients?" asked Christine.
"Well I'd be a pretty shitty fortune teller if I waited for clients to come to me, don't you think?"
"I suppose that...sounds like it makes sense."
"Can you put Snow on?"
"That's not is real name."
"Its what he calls himself. I'm a fortune teller, not a census clerk."
Christine looked at Snow. "Seriously, I can study by myself," she said as he handed him the phone.
Snow shrugged and took the phone. "Oh? Oh your are? How much is this going to cost me? Ooohhh. The state or the--oh well I guess that's still pretty good. Hey all I'm sayin is...ok. Yeah, uh...yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and she's pretty hot. Oh come on, you can't be that psychic. Oh yeah that's what my mom keeps telling me. So when...ok. Bye." Snow hung up. "I have a pyschic!" he said.
"I can tell," said Christine. "And how much is she charging you?"
"Oh nothing. She said she's doing it for free this week because she clarivointed the winning state lottery numbers two weeks from now. I mean I guess that's not bad...anyway. Do you want to go on an adventure?"
"What?"
"Do you want to go on an adventure?"
"No."
"Oh. Well...that's...going to make you cranky. Oh shit." Snow suddenly whirled around and pointed at a girl in a blue jacket across the coffee shop. "You!" The girl looked at him strangely. "Yes you! Come here."
"What are you doing? Can you stop goofing off now?" asked Christine.
"My psychic told me to do this," said Snow. He waved at the random girl again, and she reluctantly started walking towards him. Snow turned to Christine and grinned. "Its the hat."
"Why? did your psychic tell you to-"
At that moment the ambiance of the coffee shop was obliterated by the boom and crash of a lifted pickup truck smashing through the bay windows in the front and impaling itself into some bookshelves that held decorative encyclopedias that no one ever read any more. The trucks left tire had smashed the chair the girl in the blue jacket had just been sitting in.
Snow fist pumped the air. "Yessss!"
"Christine. Christinnnnne!" The voice came from inside the trunk. Everyone in the coffee shop watched as the driver side door opened and a drunk fell out. He was covered in dust and smelled like whiskey. "Christine Miller you et gover ear is thinstant!"
Snow looked from the drunk man back to Christine, but she--and her schoolbag--were gone.
"Adventures are the best," said Snow.
[Edit]
Brainstorming:
"what would you know about writing?" "well i self published a homeopathic collection of poetry"
"i'm only lonely on paper"
"on a scale of one to ten, how seriously do you take yourself?"
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
How to Cook Ramen and only get a Fork Dirty
It is kind of sad that, as soon as you make an effort to network with people more, you're weeknights fill up immediately. Band practice on tuesdays, private salsa lesson on wednesdays, salsa dancing at a mediocre club on thursdays. Friday is the weekend, and money was previously the day i used for practicing the guitar but now we're just going to have band practice then too.
So. Not much time for cooking real meals, and even less time for running dishes through the dishwasher 3 times in a vain attempt to get the machine to wash them. The next time you rent an apartment because it has a dishwasher, learn from my mistake and make sure the dishwasher wasn't made in the 70's.
Anyway.
This is how you do it:
1. Boil water in a pot like usual. Maybe use the microwave trick to add heat to the water faster.
2. Add Top Ramen, using your fork to stir. This is the reason, sadly, that we still need a real metal fork and not a disposable one.
3. Cook for 3 minutes.
4. Remove from heat to add the seasoning. Let it sit to absorb the seasoning.
5. Slowly pull the noodles out with a fork in long strokes that pull them high into the air, so the heat escapes the noodles before you drop them into a disposable bowl.
6. Dump out the water and let the pot sit for 1 minute (use the microwave timer)
7. Put a paper tower on the floor of your fridge (assuming it is disgusting like mine) and then put the pot in your fridge for 1 minute.
8. When you take it out, it is cool enough to rinse immediately without damaging the metal (I think), and you can just rinse it immediately instead of having to wash it later.
So. Not much time for cooking real meals, and even less time for running dishes through the dishwasher 3 times in a vain attempt to get the machine to wash them. The next time you rent an apartment because it has a dishwasher, learn from my mistake and make sure the dishwasher wasn't made in the 70's.
Anyway.
This is how you do it:
1. Boil water in a pot like usual. Maybe use the microwave trick to add heat to the water faster.
2. Add Top Ramen, using your fork to stir. This is the reason, sadly, that we still need a real metal fork and not a disposable one.
3. Cook for 3 minutes.
4. Remove from heat to add the seasoning. Let it sit to absorb the seasoning.
5. Slowly pull the noodles out with a fork in long strokes that pull them high into the air, so the heat escapes the noodles before you drop them into a disposable bowl.
6. Dump out the water and let the pot sit for 1 minute (use the microwave timer)
7. Put a paper tower on the floor of your fridge (assuming it is disgusting like mine) and then put the pot in your fridge for 1 minute.
8. When you take it out, it is cool enough to rinse immediately without damaging the metal (I think), and you can just rinse it immediately instead of having to wash it later.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Evidence that I am Wrong?
I used to get annoyed when people used to insisted that girls wanted sex "just as much as guys" because of the abundances of experiences in my life which proved the opposite. However, some researchers may have proven me wrong:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/opinion/sunday/darwin-was-wrong-about-dating.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The general trend of their research was that using controls to remove cultural norms caused the differences in the genders to approach zero.
Unfortunately, I'm still trying to work out how this could be used to my advantage. I can't meet girls inside the abstract world of a science experiment; I have to meet them in real life, with all of the icky cultural norms that force me to do most of the work.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/opinion/sunday/darwin-was-wrong-about-dating.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The general trend of their research was that using controls to remove cultural norms caused the differences in the genders to approach zero.
Unfortunately, I'm still trying to work out how this could be used to my advantage. I can't meet girls inside the abstract world of a science experiment; I have to meet them in real life, with all of the icky cultural norms that force me to do most of the work.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Note to self
Lots of girls at salsa Thursday between 9pm and 1040pm. By 11 it sucked.
Maybe its because of new year?
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Update
Losing focus from all the ideas I was thinking of when I was on vacation, but I remember the main one.
Today, at work, I realized that if you are forced to do something tedious and stupid, pretending that you want to do it, and not telling anyone what you think, makes you look really great from the company's point of view. Guess who suddenly loves writing unit tests for null argument checks!
I have a female salsa dance partner. We're gonna do a couple lessons. My first lesson with our private instructor was ego bruising and made me question how long it would take to learn the proper technique, but I feel better about that now. Its not going to take forever.
This month I am learning that its actually not terribly hard to be friendly, and not a giant dick. All you have to do is not be unhappy. Unfortunately, there is no switch to turn the unhappiness off, but I feel like we are making steps in the right direction.
Time is the key factor. I have a lot of shit that needs to get done. Even though I tried to grossly, criminally overestimate this project we're doing at work, it turns out that I still underestimated. So then on top of working extra hours to be sure as hell we hit our dates (at my current company, making promised dates is paramount, much more so than doing anything correctly), I have to find time to go to the gym for cardio three times a week so I can get in shape in time to enjoy the ski season before its over, and then I'm going to need two nights a week for band practice, which I can't do while all sweaty from the gym, and then I need one night for practicing my guitar (and arranging a heavy metal version of Phantom of the Opera), and then I need a night for salsa private lesson, and then we need nights for salsa dancing, and for settlers/game/poker night to meet people, and on top of all of that, I wanted to design a custom standing desk that had USB ports on the surface and a cabinet for hiding my extra monitors for when girls come over. And I still need to make a personal website, and the alternate blog, and I need to find time to take better pictures for dating profiles. Oh AND I need time to go to the gym to lift, so I can start the longass process of upgrading my body--i'm pretty sure its going to take many months of hard work before I stop looking like gumby (looking in the mirror during the salsa lesson was just...awful. Those fucking arms, man). And on top of all of this I was supposed to be taking yoga and zumba classes to meet girls. And then my stretch goals were stuff like getting a bigger apartment and being involved with couch surfing, and being more sociable by going out drinking.
Yeah, there aren't enough days in the week to accomplish all of that. Its pretty likely I'm going to burnout and give up on all my goals. Probably right around when Heart of the Swarm comes out. Oh and I forgot rock climbing--I was supposed to get back into that too. And cycling. And I wanted to start up LAN parties again, but this time with a herculean effort to have 50% girls there, and have them be girls that play hardcore [real, as in, not angry birds] computer [and not xbox] games. I don't know if I've written about our [sexlessly-legal] LAN Party Escort Service business plan, and I probably shouldn't ever mention it again, but I will say this: lots of negative reaction from female members of the gaming community. There is something about saying "I value you so much that I would pay to get you to this party" that makes girls really offended. So I guess we won't be doing that but I thought it was a great idea. Oh and I need to sell my motorcycle and buy one that doesn't stall all the time. And learn to cook.
I need a way to do two things in the same night...not sure how to pull it off. I usually have to leave work after 7 to avoid traffic.
I feel like I could get a lot more accomplished if I didn't have to work.
I guess...band and work are top priority. Skiing and gym are next. And salsa is whatever. And everything else probably won't get done.
Today, at work, I realized that if you are forced to do something tedious and stupid, pretending that you want to do it, and not telling anyone what you think, makes you look really great from the company's point of view. Guess who suddenly loves writing unit tests for null argument checks!
I have a female salsa dance partner. We're gonna do a couple lessons. My first lesson with our private instructor was ego bruising and made me question how long it would take to learn the proper technique, but I feel better about that now. Its not going to take forever.
This month I am learning that its actually not terribly hard to be friendly, and not a giant dick. All you have to do is not be unhappy. Unfortunately, there is no switch to turn the unhappiness off, but I feel like we are making steps in the right direction.
Time is the key factor. I have a lot of shit that needs to get done. Even though I tried to grossly, criminally overestimate this project we're doing at work, it turns out that I still underestimated. So then on top of working extra hours to be sure as hell we hit our dates (at my current company, making promised dates is paramount, much more so than doing anything correctly), I have to find time to go to the gym for cardio three times a week so I can get in shape in time to enjoy the ski season before its over, and then I'm going to need two nights a week for band practice, which I can't do while all sweaty from the gym, and then I need one night for practicing my guitar (and arranging a heavy metal version of Phantom of the Opera), and then I need a night for salsa private lesson, and then we need nights for salsa dancing, and for settlers/game/poker night to meet people, and on top of all of that, I wanted to design a custom standing desk that had USB ports on the surface and a cabinet for hiding my extra monitors for when girls come over. And I still need to make a personal website, and the alternate blog, and I need to find time to take better pictures for dating profiles. Oh AND I need time to go to the gym to lift, so I can start the longass process of upgrading my body--i'm pretty sure its going to take many months of hard work before I stop looking like gumby (looking in the mirror during the salsa lesson was just...awful. Those fucking arms, man). And on top of all of this I was supposed to be taking yoga and zumba classes to meet girls. And then my stretch goals were stuff like getting a bigger apartment and being involved with couch surfing, and being more sociable by going out drinking.
Yeah, there aren't enough days in the week to accomplish all of that. Its pretty likely I'm going to burnout and give up on all my goals. Probably right around when Heart of the Swarm comes out. Oh and I forgot rock climbing--I was supposed to get back into that too. And cycling. And I wanted to start up LAN parties again, but this time with a herculean effort to have 50% girls there, and have them be girls that play hardcore [real, as in, not angry birds] computer [and not xbox] games. I don't know if I've written about our [sexlessly-legal] LAN Party Escort Service business plan, and I probably shouldn't ever mention it again, but I will say this: lots of negative reaction from female members of the gaming community. There is something about saying "I value you so much that I would pay to get you to this party" that makes girls really offended. So I guess we won't be doing that but I thought it was a great idea. Oh and I need to sell my motorcycle and buy one that doesn't stall all the time. And learn to cook.
I need a way to do two things in the same night...not sure how to pull it off. I usually have to leave work after 7 to avoid traffic.
I feel like I could get a lot more accomplished if I didn't have to work.
I guess...band and work are top priority. Skiing and gym are next. And salsa is whatever. And everything else probably won't get done.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
[fiction] The Princess and the Dragon
The Princess and the Dragon, or, Don't Fuck with Dragons you Dumbass
A bedtime story.
A long time ago, a princess left home and was locked in a dungeon in a dark castle overlooking the cliffs. The dark castle was owned by an evil sorcerer.
The king sent his best men against the castle. The siege they laid lasted many months. During this time they needed provisions, which they stole by raiding the stores of nearby villages. Then they needed sex, which they stole by raping the nearby villagers.
The evil sorcerer brought forth a great dragon, with magnificent wings and sharp talons. The dragon broke the siege and the army dropped their weapons and fled. Those that could not run fast were either burned alive or mauled by the villagers, whose hearts had been poisoned against the king who sent the army.
The King called for help from nearby kingdoms, promising his daughter's hand in marriage to whoever could rescue her, because back then women, even princesses, were basically just property that men traded with each other. I know, right? Nobody ever talks about that shit. Its ok though, because thousands of years later women would earn their equality through great struggle, and the extra bitter ones would call themselves feminists and basically act like doucebags all the time, in rememberance of this inequality, and that totally fixes everything. But I digress.
Many men came forth. Strong men. Big men. Loyal men brimming to the eyes with nationalism, and honor stuck firmly up their asses. Clad in steel and self-righteousness, one by one they set out on white horses to fight the dragon and free the princess.
Unfortunately, when a 200 pound man covered in way too many pounds of steel encounters a 2400 pound best that is capable of flight and breathing fire, and when that beast is a light sleeper and has the demeanor of Wolverine, well, its kind of a punk ass bitch move to suggest the man would have any chance of "slaying" the dragon. Most of the men ended up in a crumpled heap, their armor partially melted and fusing them into the painful positions in which they slowly died from third degree burns, while the dragon the ate the horse they rode in on. Had the dragon realized that there were tasty soldier's inside the metal costumes, those soldiers would have endured a far quicker death.
Then one day, an engineer appeared at the dark castle. He was but a mere apprentice during the siege. He was in charge of the trebuchet handles, and its a little known fact that he later would possess quite the collection of trebuchet handles from wars all over the world. Little handles, big handles, smooth handles, vibrating handles...he had quite the collection.
The engineer stopped his wagon short of the castle. He then set up a fire pit, and removed some pigs, and cleaned and cooked them, using expensive spices that filled the air with a scent that could make the most satiated man hungry again. When the pigs were cooked the man approached the castle. The main gate was suddenly torn to shreds by a very hungry dragon. The dragon stared at the engineer, eyes watering, nostrils flaring, and lips drooling. The dragon was accustomed to incinerating his opponents immediately with a single blast, but such an attack would turn the delicious ham into tasteless ash. The dragon watched as the engineer set the delicious ham down on the ground. Then, to the dragon's surprise, the engineer turned his back to the dragon and walked away calmly. The engineer wore not a shred of protective clothing. The dragon ate the pigs as slowly as he could, savoring the suite taste of delicious ham, which was far better than the abused horse he'd become accustomed to.
The engineer was back the next day with more ham. And then the next, with steak, which he provided to the dragon in the form of entire cows. Then chickens, and then more pigs, and cows again, and on and on, all delivered with the most fragrant spices. Within a month the dragon was literally eating out of the engineers hand, licking it gracefully in order to taste every last drop of delicious brown sugared pig grease. Then the dragon would nuzzle the engineer playfully and go to sleep.
Then one day the engineer showed up clothed for battle, dressed in ninja tights and armed with a crossbow and a 4 foot short sword. The engineer cooked seven fatass cows in delicious spices and then told the dragon he was going to storm the castle. The dragon looked at the delicious steak in front of him, and then back up at the dark fortress that, as was typical, was standing against a backdrop of dark, purple clouds, with, like, some ravens circling overhead or whatever. Then the dragon looked at the steak again. The dragon shrugged and reached back with his foot, smashing the heavy door of the inner keep. The engineer gave the dragon the cooked cows and entered the castle.
When he reached the top of the tower, he found the princess riding the evil sorcerer vigorously in the reverse cowgirl position.
The evil sorcerer was quite vexed and tried to kill the engineer, who ran back down to the bottom of the tower and escaped by riding the dragon. Up, up and away they flew, the engineer clinging to its pearly smooth scales. At about three thousand feet they turned and prepared to dive flame the sorcerer, who was standing around in his smashed castle yelling shit and generally being a little bitch considering he was the only person in the situation who was regularly fucking a beautiful princess.
It was the moment before they dived, though, that the engineer looked out over the water, and down along the coast, and the tiny insignificant waves smashing against toy like cliffs., that he realized how ridiculously awesome flying was, and set off for parts unknown with his new winged friend. Later, the dragon would show the engineer that simply having a fire-breathing, flying lizard for a friend would get him about a million times more pussy than rescuing one princess.
Oh and he fell in love and made babies in stuff. It was really cute and romantic, etc.
The End
Epilogue: later the dragon would discover that he, too, had a talent for cooking delicious meets, and after moving into a farm whose previous owners had mysteriously just been eaten, the engineer and dragon opened an amazing BBQ Tavern known in every corner of the world for its amazing food.
A bedtime story.
A long time ago, a princess left home and was locked in a dungeon in a dark castle overlooking the cliffs. The dark castle was owned by an evil sorcerer.
The king sent his best men against the castle. The siege they laid lasted many months. During this time they needed provisions, which they stole by raiding the stores of nearby villages. Then they needed sex, which they stole by raping the nearby villagers.
The evil sorcerer brought forth a great dragon, with magnificent wings and sharp talons. The dragon broke the siege and the army dropped their weapons and fled. Those that could not run fast were either burned alive or mauled by the villagers, whose hearts had been poisoned against the king who sent the army.
The King called for help from nearby kingdoms, promising his daughter's hand in marriage to whoever could rescue her, because back then women, even princesses, were basically just property that men traded with each other. I know, right? Nobody ever talks about that shit. Its ok though, because thousands of years later women would earn their equality through great struggle, and the extra bitter ones would call themselves feminists and basically act like doucebags all the time, in rememberance of this inequality, and that totally fixes everything. But I digress.
Many men came forth. Strong men. Big men. Loyal men brimming to the eyes with nationalism, and honor stuck firmly up their asses. Clad in steel and self-righteousness, one by one they set out on white horses to fight the dragon and free the princess.
Unfortunately, when a 200 pound man covered in way too many pounds of steel encounters a 2400 pound best that is capable of flight and breathing fire, and when that beast is a light sleeper and has the demeanor of Wolverine, well, its kind of a punk ass bitch move to suggest the man would have any chance of "slaying" the dragon. Most of the men ended up in a crumpled heap, their armor partially melted and fusing them into the painful positions in which they slowly died from third degree burns, while the dragon the ate the horse they rode in on. Had the dragon realized that there were tasty soldier's inside the metal costumes, those soldiers would have endured a far quicker death.
Then one day, an engineer appeared at the dark castle. He was but a mere apprentice during the siege. He was in charge of the trebuchet handles, and its a little known fact that he later would possess quite the collection of trebuchet handles from wars all over the world. Little handles, big handles, smooth handles, vibrating handles...he had quite the collection.
The engineer stopped his wagon short of the castle. He then set up a fire pit, and removed some pigs, and cleaned and cooked them, using expensive spices that filled the air with a scent that could make the most satiated man hungry again. When the pigs were cooked the man approached the castle. The main gate was suddenly torn to shreds by a very hungry dragon. The dragon stared at the engineer, eyes watering, nostrils flaring, and lips drooling. The dragon was accustomed to incinerating his opponents immediately with a single blast, but such an attack would turn the delicious ham into tasteless ash. The dragon watched as the engineer set the delicious ham down on the ground. Then, to the dragon's surprise, the engineer turned his back to the dragon and walked away calmly. The engineer wore not a shred of protective clothing. The dragon ate the pigs as slowly as he could, savoring the suite taste of delicious ham, which was far better than the abused horse he'd become accustomed to.
The engineer was back the next day with more ham. And then the next, with steak, which he provided to the dragon in the form of entire cows. Then chickens, and then more pigs, and cows again, and on and on, all delivered with the most fragrant spices. Within a month the dragon was literally eating out of the engineers hand, licking it gracefully in order to taste every last drop of delicious brown sugared pig grease. Then the dragon would nuzzle the engineer playfully and go to sleep.
Then one day the engineer showed up clothed for battle, dressed in ninja tights and armed with a crossbow and a 4 foot short sword. The engineer cooked seven fatass cows in delicious spices and then told the dragon he was going to storm the castle. The dragon looked at the delicious steak in front of him, and then back up at the dark fortress that, as was typical, was standing against a backdrop of dark, purple clouds, with, like, some ravens circling overhead or whatever. Then the dragon looked at the steak again. The dragon shrugged and reached back with his foot, smashing the heavy door of the inner keep. The engineer gave the dragon the cooked cows and entered the castle.
When he reached the top of the tower, he found the princess riding the evil sorcerer vigorously in the reverse cowgirl position.
The evil sorcerer was quite vexed and tried to kill the engineer, who ran back down to the bottom of the tower and escaped by riding the dragon. Up, up and away they flew, the engineer clinging to its pearly smooth scales. At about three thousand feet they turned and prepared to dive flame the sorcerer, who was standing around in his smashed castle yelling shit and generally being a little bitch considering he was the only person in the situation who was regularly fucking a beautiful princess.
It was the moment before they dived, though, that the engineer looked out over the water, and down along the coast, and the tiny insignificant waves smashing against toy like cliffs., that he realized how ridiculously awesome flying was, and set off for parts unknown with his new winged friend. Later, the dragon would show the engineer that simply having a fire-breathing, flying lizard for a friend would get him about a million times more pussy than rescuing one princess.
Oh and he fell in love and made babies in stuff. It was really cute and romantic, etc.
The End
Epilogue: later the dragon would discover that he, too, had a talent for cooking delicious meets, and after moving into a farm whose previous owners had mysteriously just been eaten, the engineer and dragon opened an amazing BBQ Tavern known in every corner of the world for its amazing food.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Well, its nice to have goals.
Thanks to Penny Arcade I have suddenly become aware of this video , and then some boring articles about not being a creeper that were nothing more than common sense, which, quite naturally, then led me to search for how to pick up girls at conventions, and led me to this crap.
I don't actually like conventions that much, but I did go to PAX once with an attractive female friend, and holy shit were the nerds annoying around her. So why would I suddenly be interested in picking up girls at conventions?
Let me tell you a story. Have you ever been salsa dancing, and watched some cute girl out there on the dance floor getting tortured by some guy that is just awful and doesn't quite know it? Or even worse, thinks he's great and mistakenly blames the girl for any missteps*. And have you ever asked that exact girl to dance immediately afterward, just so she can relax and enjoy the music before another retard begs her to let him shove around the dance floor for three minutes?
That's why.
Also, the nerd in one of the links up there said not to do it, so I feel obligated to put in on my bucket list.
Would be a challenge though. I would probably need an attractive wing woman. And I would need either a badass but subtle (enough to go outside with normal people) costume, or not costume to show I'm normal, OR a ridiculously outlandish (and probably expensive) costume that would make girls come up to me. And I need to accomplish this while I'm still young and single.
*let me share a gem of salsa insight with you: when you are on the dance floor, everything is the guy's fault. Everything. Trust me; if you have any other attitude, that girl will bitch about you to all over her friends, who will start avoiding you. On a related note, if you are a girl and you are ever around me and need to be rescued from a creeper, the secret codeword is optimus prime.
[Edit]
Forget all that. Now I want to see if I can build an awesome computer desk. I don't know anything at all about carpentry, or metalwork, or even desks, but I have a feeling I'm about to spend lots of money on power tools!!! :D
For my current apartment, max width is:
126 cm
or
4ft 2"
I don't actually like conventions that much, but I did go to PAX once with an attractive female friend, and holy shit were the nerds annoying around her. So why would I suddenly be interested in picking up girls at conventions?
Let me tell you a story. Have you ever been salsa dancing, and watched some cute girl out there on the dance floor getting tortured by some guy that is just awful and doesn't quite know it? Or even worse, thinks he's great and mistakenly blames the girl for any missteps*. And have you ever asked that exact girl to dance immediately afterward, just so she can relax and enjoy the music before another retard begs her to let him shove around the dance floor for three minutes?
That's why.
Also, the nerd in one of the links up there said not to do it, so I feel obligated to put in on my bucket list.
Would be a challenge though. I would probably need an attractive wing woman. And I would need either a badass but subtle (enough to go outside with normal people) costume, or not costume to show I'm normal, OR a ridiculously outlandish (and probably expensive) costume that would make girls come up to me. And I need to accomplish this while I'm still young and single.
*let me share a gem of salsa insight with you: when you are on the dance floor, everything is the guy's fault. Everything. Trust me; if you have any other attitude, that girl will bitch about you to all over her friends, who will start avoiding you. On a related note, if you are a girl and you are ever around me and need to be rescued from a creeper, the secret codeword is optimus prime.
[Edit]
Forget all that. Now I want to see if I can build an awesome computer desk. I don't know anything at all about carpentry, or metalwork, or even desks, but I have a feeling I'm about to spend lots of money on power tools!!! :D
For my current apartment, max width is:
126 cm
or
4ft 2"
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