Safe

This song sounds really familiar, but I can't place the original.

Verse:
CGFC
AmCFG
CGFC
CGFG

Chorus:
AmFCG
AmFAmG





CGFC close your eyes, let the room fade away, there's a
AmCFG its cold inside and you're starting to break
CGFC what did they do that makes you hold on so tight
CGFG there's no place worth going if the price is your life (don't leave me)

wait
you're safe with me now, just let
me lead the way
when the candle goes out (and when you)

fall
I'll lift your head off the ground, then i'll
kiss you goodnight after I carry you home (stay with me)

AmFAmG

CGFC What can I say when you send me away
AmCFG curse behind your lips, but i promise it can wait
CGFC the distance that you've come betrays your inner strength
CGFG this house was built on hope and the garden's full of grace (come with me)


run
they can't stop of now, cause you
tore down every cage, and i
found a way out (my secret)

love
i feel it somehow, but i
know you won't believe me if i
say it out loud (so when you)

fall
I lift your head off the ground, then i'll
kiss you goodnight after I carry you home

(stay with me)




And then, when my own song gets stuck in my head, I listen to this.


[Edit]
Also, here is the song that has been stuck in my head. In fact, I may have based "Safe" on it. Idk. I don't get it. I hate accordians. Maybe I'm just a sucker for female vocals.

And some other song.

[Edit]
Hmm...maybe I can have "on call" rockband parties?

Or, since weekends are so much more valuable to me, maybe I could trade 3 weeknight shifts for 2 weekend shifts?

I am coming to Philly!!!

broken lights on the freeway
snows falling on the road
faded signs and y100
at the bend to welcome you home

First, here is a picture of a drawbridge:


it looked way bigger in person (TWSS). I took that picture with my cellphone, like I was a tourist.

Anyway.

I will be out in Philly Friday June 18. I don't know where yet, but expect some bar in the city. This is really the only night I have to see people. I'm coming in on the red eye Friday morning. Saturday night is the wedding, and its in or near Reading. I reserved like all of Sunday (at least, after I get up) for my parents because they call me so often, and monday night I fly back. So my only night for old friends is Friday night and there's nothing I can do about people that don't know each other, or hate each other, or both. Hopefully I will be in Philly again before long.

Also, it looks like House isn't going to be miserable all the time anymore. I'm going to need to find a new role model.

When you see yourself in a crowded room

This don't-go-home thing seems to be working out pretty well. I have lots of details I could share. Like how I had to suffer through a night of drinking with Firefly girl at the other end of the table, with tidbits of stories about people she was making out with floating on down my way. I couldn't think of a smooth way out of there; there was no pool table...nothing that I could pretend to suddenly be more interested in. Thats not important. I just figured out how to type my posts in comic sans ms. This could hail the beginning of a new era for my rantings.

[Edit]
Sadly, this font doesn't look all that different from the default one. Maybe if I make it bigger.

[Edit]
Yes....yes thats it.

/etc/init.d/seattled restart

this is who I am
escapist
paradise seeker
farewell, time to fly
out of sight
out of time
away from all lies

Stage 1

So I've just arrived in Seattle. I brought this boardgame with me called Settlers, and I'd like to check out the Salsa scene, and I mysteriously have a black sports car, a pilots license, and a lot of debt from both of those things. Ah, and too few vacation days to go anywhere. No one said this move would be easy.

I should start meeting some people. Sitting at home playing Unreal Tournament is starting to get boring because I've played all those maps over and over again, and all the maps on the internet suck, and I can't make new ones because the editor doesn't run on linux. If I want to meet new people through playing video games, I'm probably going to need a windows gaming computer, because I have waited ...approximately 7 years and 9 months for there to be enough games on linux, and that hasn't happened. Yeah, I'm not joking. Maybe this is related to why my personal life is so miserable. Lets not dwell on it.

In fact, lets assume that not only computer games, but everything else I do alone in my apartment is not going to help. I've spent some time trying to teach myself Texas Holdem, or practicing my guitar, okcupid, getting rejected by eHarmony, watching House, writing in my lame-ass blog, or pacing around trying to think of ways to meet people using craigslist. All of those ideas, including the ones I've tried, suck. However, thinking of things to do that won't meet people is not going to help me meet people. Settlers was somewhat successful--thats how I got interested in my latest rejection (as well as all of her other friends that didnt want to date me) so I should try that again. I have a feeling that there is a real correlation between people that like playing settlers and people that don't enjoy the wild (and the almost wild, and the slightly less wild) drinking parties I miss from Philly. Also, I can't really concentrate on anything because I keep thinking of Firefly Girl and watching Castle with her. Last night I watched the second half of the first book of The Lord of the Rings. If I make it through the entire saga...I don't know what will happen, but picture a health bar depleting.

The only thing I haven't fully tried is simply not being home ever. It is the one constant I haven't thought to attack directly. This is a little scary to me. Home is always where I go to retreat. Annoying people can't follow you home--except for the census guy I've been ignoring. He can't get in the door though, yet. Anyway, so being away from home a lot will probably be scary. I'm sure there is some kind of gay sounding phsychological explanation for that, but fortunately I don't interact with any phsych majors on a regular basis, so I am safe from their crap. But I digress.

I was going to label the following as goals 1 and 2, but continuing this nerdy boot analogy was too tempting.

Stage 1.5

We're focusing on the weeknight now. Weeknights are, in fact, the bane of my existence. Weekends are easy--there is enough time to go flying or drive all the way out to my distant friends. Weeknights are the problem; no one ever wants to do anything, except for scheduled crap like salsa dancing and league volleyball. And the last salsa class I took suck--I mean, gee I wonder if there are any good salsa classes here other than the place across the street from me. Also, I need to make myself sufficiently tired to fall asleep. Something about being lonely has a compounding effect: I don't want to go to bed unless I have a) someone to cuddle with b) something to look forward to (like possibly making out in the future) or 3) I can convince myself I've done something productive in the area of ever making out with anyone again. Most nights I stay up with strategy #3 that mostly consists of futile attempts to find Real Girls on the Internet. I don't know why I haven't given up entirely; I'm like a dog that comes back to its own vomit. Yeah you like that? That analogy comes from the Bible. I hope you were eating dinner while reading this.

So here's the deal: Don't sit around in the apartment at night. All that crap I always think I have to do can be done on the nights I'm effectively forced into house arrest by my stupid on call responsibilities. And I get a pass on the first of every month: that is when I check on my money situation. I hate dealing with money.

I have long before tried to figure out a way to never be home; in fact that is a long story for another time. I could never do it. I never had enough friends that wanted to hang out, and I was always trying to keep various nights open for possibly hanging out with whichever girl was currently avoiding me at the time. However, I just stumbled onto a formula that I think will work. That's actually the reason I'm writing this post. I don't know what I wrote as an introduction, but I see the scroll bar on this editor is pretty far down and I can tell you for certain that you just wasted a lot of your time. Here's the formula:

1. pick something, anything, you can do other than go home. Worst case scenario this will involve walking in a circle around your apartment, so you better think of something better.
2. think of something better. You don't have the option to stay home just because you don't feel like rock climbing; you can only switch activities.
3. Repeat #2 until its time to leave work.

I'm thinking this strategy will be easier if I keep like some rock climbing gear, and salsa shoes and whatnot in the trunk of my car. If none of my friends are free, I know of at least three things--no four, wait--five, that I can do alone. First, I can go to a bar and drink alone. Yeah, that sucks. So does my life. Second, go to Davenbusters/Gameworks/Julian's on a weeknight. Third--ok I need to put this in list form so I can read it later:
-ride sportbike for 2 hours (might as well add a fantasy one)
-go to a bar and drink alone
-go to a videogame bar and play games with probably-broken light guns
-salsa dancing, depending on the night. check for places near greenlake and bellevue
-rock climbing (bouldering)
-pick up volleyball
-swing dancing (bleh)
-reading books in coffee shops that dont close before 11pm

Stuff that I can do with people includes meeting Luke in Bellevue for food and/or movies, and occasionally hanging out with Gwen and Nick. Maybe someday I'll go to a sounders game. Whatever.

Obsviously there is still the scheduled stuff that required being at the same place every week, like salsa class and league volleybal. I hate those, but they do help meeting people, so they count for "not going home." And I do need to find a salsa class. That's how I met Krystal. Imagine if I could meet someone like Krystal a hundred or a thousand times. Statistically, one of those instances would have to work out. Oh, also swing dancing. Crap thats going up there on the list. I'm not so into swing anymore, but when I lived met two girls (that I didn't already know) at swing dancing venues, and only zero at salsa venues. Salsa is like facebook--its seems best for re-meeting people you already know.

I will continue with the other ideas, like posting on cragislist and asking if anyone wants to play Settlers. Who knows, maybe I'll make some friends that way.

Hmm...I also need to find a way to get comfortable with dancing to hip hop, because that could go on the list. Currently I require 5 drinks to have a good time when hip hop is involved, and that is dangerously close to the amount my stomach can handle if I drink them over a short period of time. We need to get that number down near 3 or 4.



Stage 2

Meet people that go to fun parties. I'm probably not extroverted enough to really enjoy parties where I don't know anyone, but if I want to not hate my life in this barren wasteland of mostly men then I'm going to have to get less shy real quick. I don't understand exactly why it is so much easier to meet people at parties, but it must have something to do with the fact that you are talking to friends of friends.

In theory, I will either find someone, or I will reach some critical mass of friends where I will be able to stay home occasionally and actually make progress on things like playing my guitar or some coding project to keep my skills sharp. Ah! Or a Lego webcomic!

After the boot loader

This is the part where I go do fun things, like overrated minigolf courses, brew pubs, going to concerts for bands no one has heard of, starting a metal band that does not involve screaming male vocals, visiting west coast cities that are more interesting than Seattle, powder skiing, flying myself to Las Vegas, going to rally races, taking Jessica onto the track, and going to those haunted railroad tracks I heard about, and more fun plays at Market Theatre, and something involving boats. These are the things I meant to write about, and they are probably what a fine East Coast Reader such as yourself are interested in. Check back in a year.

FML

I used to be love drunk
but now I'm hungover
I love you forever
forever is over

Firefly Girl is not interested in me. I thought she was, because everything looked like the other times girls said they were interested in me, and one of her friends literally walked up to me and told me she was interested. Thought that might be a safe bet. Turns out, she's not. In addition, she actually fed me the cliche friendship line word for word. Like, literally, "I just want to be friends." And a lame ass emoticon to twist the knife. I should have known; she did remind me of Laura.

I spent half the night angrily walking along one of the waterfronts and being even meaner towards the bums than normal. It is going to be hard to shake this one off. I wasn't just interested in this one--I had real, actual feelings for her. We could explore the ins and outs of how that came to pass if I cared to write about such things. I don't. What's important, is that I was going to walk from Belltown to alkai beach or whatever its called, but then I started feeling faint because I didn't really eat dinner, and I didn't want another hole in my jeans so I turned back and drank in a bar by myself. I wish I still had a sportbike. This is the first time I've ever ended up alone in a bar on purpose. At least, when I'm not salsa dancing. Its not so bad. Drinking doesn't really help anything but it does make you sleepy. Unfortunately, sleep didn't take, so I got up again and watched half of the first book of The Lord of the Rings. This is an improvement. Last time I stayed up until like 4 or 5 in the morning watching the battle scenes from all three movies, and had to see that girl on a weekly basis for another month or two. And the corona marathon was the one before that. So we are...progressing.

I could hang out in a bar by myself again. I would need to be able to sit somewhere so I can people watch. Staring at the wall or a tv gets boring. I've had this fantasy about having friends to hang out with but almost everyone I know well enough to just go grab some drinks live on the other side of a body of water. That pretty much kills hanging out on a weeknight. Living weekend to weekend doesn't work--not with a boring job. Thomas Edison said something about finding hundreds of ways that a light bulb wouldn't work. I've found a hundred girls that don't want to date me. And okcupid keeps sending me the same ugly girls over and over again. In fact, I'm about to make some very candid edits to my okcupid profile, and I may have to share them because the voices in the back of my head are screaming "your friends are going to find this s$^! hilarious!" I need to find some kind of fix for all of this, soon, because I can't focus on music, or programming, or anything else when I'm this miserable. When I try to write, all of my stories end like The Great Gatsby.

For these reasons I have to decided to start over. I'm going to pretend that I just moved here, and I don't know anyone, and that I don't hate this city. It is damn near impossible to meet girls when you are grumpy. I know I've spent a year here but there was the flying and the getting sick and the 3sat. So I guess that year--which was supposed to be my year--was a wash. Kind of like most of the ones before it. But that doesn't matter now, if I can put more effort into meeting people. I think I've gotten into routines that aren't helpful.

Maybe I'll post an add on craigslist about playing Settlers.

The Car Deck

Steampunk! It seemed fitting that my first experience driving a car onto a giant boat would be the day I went to a steampunk festival. The reason this is fitting is that the alternate history/anachronism themes in most steampunk films and books usually serves to increase the physical scale of the objects: bigger trains, bigger planes, bigger boats, bigger tanks, bigger rockets, etc. The steampunk thing itself turned out to not be so big. In fact, it was like the opposite of the grandeur scales you see on the screen. It was, in fact, a single room. The "panels" and the vendor boths shared a single room, roughly twice the size of the living room you would have if you lived in a house. Maybe 4 times. Whatever.

Here is a picture of a ferry:

You like the birds? I'm an awesome photographer. I was going to post on craigslist pretending to be a photographer that needed models in order to meet girls, but a bunch of creepy guys already thought of that, so I didn't. Also my cheapass bottom-of-the-line Best Buy camera wouldn't fool anyway. But I digress. That picture has nothing to do with our trip, and I took it weeks ago, but thats probably the same boat we were on. Or one just like it. Anyway, here is a picture of what I was sure was a B-17 Flying Fortress:

If you don't know what a B17 is, well, that sucks for you. My grandfather made a model of one once. It kicked ass. This also has little to do with our trip, except that it happened to be on the camera just now when I uploaded my steampunk pictures. Also, I think that a B17 is a bit steampunk-ish. You have a giant airplane with a big crew manning gun stations. Either way, that is awesome.

Ok this one is the first picture that I actually took on our trip today:

Thats the terminal in Victoria we pulled into. We visited a foreign country! Fortunately, most places took American dollars. It was quite fortunate, in fact, because I didn't think to deal with exchanging money, or even bring extra money. Or even print the ferry times for the right home. Hey, I love sitting around in McDonald's in the middle of the night. All I had was whatever was in my wallet, and my ATM card didn't work.

Ok this is another shot of the harbor. There were boats there. The hotel with the one-room expo is there in the background with the green on it. You'll find out what the green stuff is later.

Here is...yet another shot of the harbor. We had to wait a while, while they hooked up the plank. Or walkway. Whatever you call it. Oh, and this boat looks nothing like the boat in the first picture. That is because this is the second ferry we took. The first one was really cool. This second one that you see here bounced around a lot despite the fact that we were going through pretty much calm water the whole way. It would probably just flip onto its back and sink if there was a storm.

Here are some steam punk people. They look pretty cool. I think I like steam punk better than anime, because anime fans usually dress up like its halloween, wearing cardboard for metal and generally looking like a walking cartoon. Steampunk people however...most of them just look like they are wearing snazzy suits. And...well the googles give it away a bit. I think they look pretty normal. Oh, and corsets. Corsets are involved, which is an aspect shared with goth. I like corsets. Also boots. Steampunk boots tend to have lots of buckles, which is slightly different than the ones I prefer. They are still cool though.

The one drawback was some of the people were nerdy. It seems like no matter what the common interest, there are always people with this certain personality that I find annoying. Dungeons and Dragons has them in the greatest quantity. But I've seen it with video games, sports, anime, goth, ...anything. Maybe I'm not shy, but simply anti social.
These next few items are some accessories you can buy if you were worried people might confuse your steampunk outfit with a snazzy suit:


Each of those pieces was like $400, and it would probably break when dropped and stepped on, like with all my sunglasses. I don't think I would ever want to pay that much money to make people look at my funny--I can do that just by talking. Then again, maybe thats just because I'd rather be more of a pilot or train steampunk guy than a walking bioshock robot steampunk guy. To each his own.

Hey more expensive steampunk gear! I wasn't taking these pictures. My friend was. There was actually one of just the wall of the hotel. I elected not to upload that one.


Gauntlets. I like gauntlets. I tried to come up with a reason for purchasing these or the far cheaper black leather gauntlets as I walked by the vendor table while avoiding eye contact so they wouldn't talk to me, but I could think of no compelling reason to buy them. I also saw flasks, but I was pretty sure that the "steam punk" flasks were about 5 times the price at the convention as they would be at whatever store the vendor origininally got them from. I mean, they were flasks. Gray, steel (or some other metal) flasks in a leather pouch thing I wasn't going to use anyway.

Ok here is the hotel. The green is the ivy. It made me think of The Great Gatsby--which has nothing to do with steampunk.


This is the friend I went with. I don't like using real names or posting pictures of people I care about, but she is in costume and I shrunk the image size. Her scarf didn't really fit--it was like bright and silky. Not the kind of thing you'd expect to be tossed about behind the adventerous aviator of some biplane amidst a battle against giant Victorian-era robots.



This is another picture out the front of the lame, turbulent ferry that took 90 minutes to go about 18 miles. My imaginary amphibious motorcycle goes way faster than that.


This next picture is from inside my car in the cool Seattle-Bainbridge ferry. It was awesome. I was in a car, on a boat.


I was in a car on a boat! Someday, perhaps, I might be in a car in a plane on a boat. In a car, in a plane, on a boat, in a giant spaceship? One can only imagine.

We tried getting out the car and walking to the front and being adventerous, standing at the front watching Seattle approach. It was really cold and windy though. We got back inside the car.

Oh, and get this. You go through customs, right? Well they ask you a bunch of stupid questions. Like "what do you think you're doing coming into our country, bitch?" only they word it differently and ask it five times. Going from Canada back to the U.S. was even worse. First, before we get on the boat we go through customs. They ask if you've bought anything, to which I was about to list off the button, and the coffee, and--but they're only interested in beer and seeds or whatever. They also ask where you live and what you do for a living. Why is that their business? I'm a citizen. You don't need to know what my job is. What if I got layed off? Would you not let me back in the country? So anyway, then you take the boring boat ride all the way back to our fabulous (not) country, and....and....ready for it? And...go through customs. Again. Its like the first customs didn't count. Or like we're in Nazi Germany and they are just playing with us. I wanted to ask why we had to go through this twice, but any deviation from the standard answers just promped more questions. For example, the lady asked where we live, and my friend said "Seattle," but I added a snide "for now" because I don't like the idea of people thinking I'm from Seattle. I'm not going to let people say I'm "from" Seattle until the amount of time I've lived in Seattle is greater than the time I've lived in Philly but a factory of 1.2, at least.

So...but then the lady asked, "oh where are you moving to?" but in a tone indicated she wasn't curious but instead I have to answer. And then I had to say "oh no I just moved here to work for A==== from Philly." Where? "From Philly." Then she asked what I did. "I'm a programmer." Who do you work for? "For A====." Which I had just told her. I think they don't even listen to you--they just want to watch your facial expressions. Next time I go, I'm going to give all the standard answers in once sentence and see if they just ask all the questions anyway. "I did not buy any alcohol or visit any farms I left this morning by ferry to go to a steampunk convention I live in Seattle and I am a programmer." I bet their very next question would be: "why did you go to Canada?" Oh, and she told me to take my hands out of my pockets. She didn't ask what was in my pockets, she just seemed to want my hands out of them. I think they just do that stuff for fun. I felt like Malcom Reynolds dealing to the Alliance in Firefly.

So anyway, my poor friend got to here about why did we go through customs twice?!? the rest of the way home. Except for when I was driving fast to make the next ferry (you should always print a schedule so you know you don't have time to stop for food) and had to tell her about the cop that I thought was behind us. And dude...twice in one day I encountered people driving below the speed limit. Who does that? Twice in a single day. And it wasn't just one or two miles under, it was like ten miles under the limit. We're talking material for a horror movie. There was a little rain, but not where the people were driving under the limit. They were driving slow on dry asphalt on a non-foggy, fairly clear night with no cops in sight. Oh, and Jessica dominates in rain.

Whatever. At least we didn't see any Twilight fans. I don't know if you know this, but the Port Angeles that we took the ferry from--the very same port angeles that I may or may not have taken my first cross-country flight to--is the same port angeles in the twilight books. I actually bought a twilight book for a friend of mine. That was before I read it, or even suspected that anyone could take a lame romance novel and pretend it was about vampires. Thats almost as uncool as driving below the speed limit. Not as bad as not using your turn signals, though, or driving a giant white amphibious tank and running over people at stoplights and not paying for the damage to their cars. I wish there was some small thing I could do every day to harm their business. So far the only practical move with no consequences that would hurt no one is to give everyone on the boat the middle finger. Yeah, I'm not very creative. I mean, you could fill a super soaker with pepper spray and hit the tourists with it, but I think you'd get arrested for that. Also, super soakers are only designed for water, and using other substances allegedly damages the firing mechanisms.

Oh, I don't know if I told you this: the one girl who works at the office that I thought hated me, but then briefly thought liked me because someone kept leaving notes in my mailbox telling me I had a package when I didn't, for which the only explanation is she likes me or some idiot can't tell the difference between a 6 and a 0, and who also said "hey you" to me but who definitely still has a boyfriend so I don't ever want to talk to her again, told me that those boats have plugs in them. All you have to do, actually, is just get them out into the water and uplug something and the duck boats sink on their own. No drilling...no reverse-bilge pump. Just unplug...whatever. Maybe I could take a ride on the duck boat, and leap forward and yank the plug up. People would remember my face though. And the water is probably cold. I could wear a wetsuit under my clothes. You could only get away with that, max, like three times though before they really caught on to you. Those bastards have way more than three boats. I think what I really need to do is find all the other people they hit and do a one-night boost. Sink every boat in the same operation. Can you imagine an extended car chase through Seattle's waterfront area? But instead of an old Mustang it is Nicolas Cage in a giant white amphibious tank? The aged duck-boat thief comes back from retirement because a duck boat runs over his little brothers parked car. They could call it "Gone in 60 minutes."

Yeah, I have a wish right now. I wish you would run your lame duck tourist trap boat business into the ground and die in a fire while getting run over by sports cars with gaudy spoilers.

Motorcycles and Ferries

Planning a trip to Victoria. Its a city in Canada. On an island. Who knew? And not just any island. There's not even bridges to it. Its an island island. Perfect opportunity for flying right? I wish. Our wonderful countries lame ass security b.s. prevents you from just hopping on a plane and flying over the border. In fact, if you tried that, you would probably be intercepted. Literally, and by two jet fighters. I don't know how they can fly as slow as a Cessna but thats the kind of thing I plan not to find out by trial and error. Getting intercepted does sound fun and exciting but on the single condition that it happens to someone else. In a week or two I'm going to something with the word "seminar" in it at my flying club, where presumably they will teach us how to do all the paperwork for "canadian ops." Where to sign, how to bend over for homeland security, etc.

So instead we are driving and taking ferries. The ferry site mentions people taking motorcycles on ferries. How awesome is that? That is so awesome. I must have a motorcycle. I'm going to take it on ferries. Picture a ferry docking, and the big doors opening, and there must be a ramp, and then a black kawasaki ninja 600 roars off the ramp before its lowered, flying through the air like 20 feet above the ground and then landing on the road in such a way that mysteriously doesn't crack the frame or pop the tires. That will be me. Also there will be a hot girl on the back. And since this is a fantasy, lets add bacon. Everywhere.

You know what would be cool? An anphibious motorcycle. It just turns into a jet ski. Thats what I need, actually.