LiveJournal Project - August 2002

The hits keep on coming...

Date: 2002-08-03 16:38
Subject: shaggy and ravyn go to defcon
when i originally set out to write last night's defcon update, it was approximately 3:30 in the morning and i was completely sober. as you can see by the posting time, i never quite made it, because it was also at about 3:30 in the morning that i started drinking. =/ now that i've had a chance to get some sleep (no hangover!) i'll start from the beginning and fill y'all in on the events of the last couple days.

scott and i took off from phoenix arount 2pm on thursday afternoon, after stopping at fry's to pick up a wireless lan card for my PDA. for the most part, the drive up there was pretty uneventful - scott slept part of the way, and i did my best to keep my average speed at least at 80mph. funny thing - somewhere on highway 93 south of kingman i got blown away by some dude in a white minivan who had to be doing at least 100. i suppose it's fitting, then, that his license plate read "MY VETT". the sad part about this is that although i tried to catch him and prove that yes, a sports car will always beat a minivan, he lost me in the stream of cars ahead and i never caught up. how embarassing. =/

anyway... so we arrived at the hotel and checked in, and fucked around for a little while before trying to find the people from the dc-stuff mailing list who were planning a dinner outing so that we could tag along, meet some folks, and get some food. didn't happen, but we did meet up with one guy from the dc list and his roommate and went out with them for dinner at a place called "Terrible's" - which was recommended to us by a limo driver outside the front of the alexis park. now, kids, there's a lesson to be learned here. if a place is named "Terrible's", then maybe it's not the best idea in the world to be eating there. we went for their buffet, and instead of it being $8.99 like the limo driver had told us, it was $13.99 due to the fact that it was seafood night. i don't eat seafood, save for round fish and square fish (tuna in a can, certain types of sushi rolls, and fish sticks, which are really more like trapezoidal fish) but i assumed that there would be other things on the buffet and we went for it. i was wrong. i ended up finding some trapezoidal fish, and then ate a lot of salad and dessert. and between the four of us, we probably made every comment about the name "Terrible's" and its requisite quality of goods that could have been made. the guys we were with, TaoDog and Lenny, were from portland and washington, respectively. they didn't know each other, but had met up on a ride/roomsharing message board and were roommates. TD was one of those kids you meet that you never know when he's telling the truth and when he's fucking with you, so after about 10 minutes of listening to him talk about how he worked for a nursery, then the DEA, and finally the portland public school system (oh yeah, and he's a master of batch files, but knows nothing about unix) i think the rest of us just turned on our bullshit filters and pretended like we believed him because it was good for a laugh. the rest of thursday was spent trying to make the aforementioned wireless lan card work on my PDA, with absolutely no success, and i ended up going to bed early- probably around 1am or so. i guess you could say that i needed the sleep for day 2.

Time: 16:40
Subject: cult of the dead rabbit
the second day started off with me heading to a couple of the presentations on privacy and anonymity. some of the talks were quite interesting and well done, particularly the one at the end of the day by john q. newman on privacy in a post 9/11 world. ryan lackey's talk on anonymous digital cash was rather lacking, no pun intended, and i would've expected a little better presentation from jennifer granick on the recently-passed patriot act. i also picked up a computer yesterday; the one that i'm using to type these updates. on one hand, it's rather pathetic that i was suffering from internet withdrawal so badly that i went out and dropped $3200 on a titanium powerbook, but hell, i'd been planning to buy one anyway, so this served as a good excuse. i mean, shit, you can't go to defcon, the world's largest computer security/hacking convention, and not have a bloody computer! haha. i did, however, pick up a great t-shirt; given that the name of my company is 'DeadBunny Enterprises' - i suppose it's rather fitting that they were selling shirts at DC with 'cult of the dead rabbit' written on them.

anyway... after the day's presentations were over, i spent some time just randomly fucking around, checking email, hanging out with scott, and not doing a whole lot of anything. at about 11pm i was getting a bit of a headache so i came back to the room and thought about going to sleep, but instead i just spent an hour sitting in the dark thinking about stuff and being a little bit depressed and lonely. see, at last year's defcon, mark was here, and he and i went out and wandered the strip, went to a titty bar, and had a good time while scott was doing his thing plugged into the network and geeking out the whole con. note that there is nothing wrong with that, since it IS a con for computer people, but for me, defcon is half about the talks and learning stuff and also half about the party - fuck, we're in vegas, goddammit, so we ought to act like we're in vegas at least part of the time.

sleep and i did not see eye to eye, though, so i said fuck it and decided to just get in the car and make a run down to the strip and at the very least, get some food, since the stuff they're serving here at the alexis just really isn't that good. so with my psytrace mp3s cranked up i headed down to treasure island and hit their cafe. it should be noted that i generally do not like to go out to eat by myself - it makes me feel like a dateless loser (although, oddly enough, i suppose, i don't have any problem going to the movies alone). well, last night i was reminded why i don't usually do this. the server was rude, and alternated between trying to hurry me up (they weren't busy) and then when i was finally done and ready to go, he took his sweet time in getting around to pick up my credit card. fucker. but i had my revenge on those damn pirates (butt pirates, arrr!!) after dinner. went out to the blackjack tables and decided to fuck around for a bit, and after about an hour or so i walked way with $1200 in profit. my evening was starting to get a lot better. =)

before heading back to defcon, i talked to cory for a bit, since she'd left me a message while i was taking the casino's money, and my night was continuing to improve. but i have to say that vegas just isn't the same without cory. anyway, back to the hotel... it was at about this time (2:30am) that i had planned to write these updates, but i never quite made it. i kept getting distracted because i was talking to people, and this went on for about an hour until i said fuck it yet again and went back to the room to grab my bottle o' vodka. so i started drinking at 3:30 in the morning and more or less gave up on trying to write. over the span of the next hour and a half, i slammed back almost a full liter of grey goose vodka, sitting there on the floor with another guy from phoenix, a guy from ohio, one from florida, and yet another canadian, talking about random shit, laughing our asses off due to our communal state of drunkenness, and trying to convince random passers-by that there really WAS going to be topless dancing on the roof tomorrow at 3pm. i guess you had to be there. stumbled back to the room around 5:30, and i must've been pretty fux0red, because the canadian guy walked back with me to make sure that i made it. it was about this time that mr. vodka decided that he didn't like the closed-in space that was my stomach and thus forced me to bark for sharks at the porcelain altar. oops. looking back on it, i suppose that 80% of a liter bottle of vodka in an hour and a half is probably a little much.

so after my last set of kids were dropped off in the pool, i fell asleep, and woke up around 2:30pm. no hangover whatsoever, which i thought was rather remarkable. although i was a little pissed that i missed the three talks that i REALLY wanted to see today, since they were on from 11am to 2pm. dammit. there are still a few later today that i'd like to hit, so i suppose i ought to get my ass out of bed, take a shower, and get going.

there will be one more update, but it's going to be semi-private, so if you don't see it, it doesn't exist. of course, it may also be because i haven't written it yet. you may never know.
Mood: geeky

Time: 17:05
Subject: this entry doesn't exist.
Editor's Note: this entry was originally mostly private, but at this point given the fullness of time I think that's irrelevant now.
a sort of ongoing problem over the last several months that has been steadily growing and finding me without much solution is what to do about my relationship with cory. for those of you that don't know, cory is my best friend. she and i spend a lot of time together, we have all kinds of fun, and generally just click really well. so what's wrong with that, you say? well, nothing, except that i find more and more that i'm developing feelings for her of a more-than-friend nature. she's smart, she's cute, she's lots of fun - and i'd date her in a heartbeat. only one problem: she's got a boyfriend already that she seems to be quite happy with, and hell, he's taking her to italy for a couple weeks during the month of august.

obviously (or at least i think it's obvious) i can't tell her any of this stuff about how i feel. it reminds me of when i was in junior high or high school and there'd be some girl that i was friends with that i'd start to like in that 'more-than-friends' kind of way, and then as soon as she'd find out or i'd say something, not only would i get shot down, but i'd also lose her as a friend, too. there was only one time that never happened - oh, i got shot down, but at least i didn't lose a friend.

i suppose the only solution is to do what i've been doing, which is absolutely nothing - be happy for her that she's happy and enjoy her company while she's here in AZ (since she'll be finishing school next may and most likely will be moving somewhere, whether for grad school or back east because that's where sal is). it seems that it's becoming harder and harder, though, to continue to do nothing. the matter is additionally complicated by the fact that she and i do things that normally i would think that friends don't do. no, we're not fucking, despite what everyone thinks. but we've slept together several times (read that word 'slept' exactly as it is written - sleeping, catching some ZZZs, whatever) and if she comes over for QAF night or to watch movies or whatever, we almost always end up cuddled up together either on the floor or on the sofa. she says that this is a common thing that friends do. i've never had any friends like that. so i don't know.

in any event, it didn't really hit me, though, until last night, how much i'm starting to really care about her. i wasn't having the best of nights here at defcon (although winning 1200 bucks from treasure island was kinda nifty) until i had talked to her on the phone, and then suddenly everything was great.

chantal used to make me feel that way, but now that relationship is basically all over but the paperwork signing.

blah and double blah.
maybe it's time to get another cat?
Mood: thoughtful

Date: 2002-08-04 19:44
Subject: defcon, reprise...
back home in rainy arizona (yeah, how's that for an oxymoron) and posting my final defcon updates...

to the bored script-kiddies who had nothing better to do than packet-sniff the wireless LAN in hopes of obtaining people's passwords and other such information transmitted in cleartext: yes, it was MY BAD for updating my LJ from defcon, transmitting password and update info over the ether in plaintext. so thanks for not fucking up my journal. but really, it doesn't take a very high degree of sophistication to capture such traffic, and next time you ought to learn a real skill, or go play CTF.

saturday was a much quieter day than friday. although i wasn't hung over from the vodka, i found myself queasy most of the day, which i think was due largely to that horrible stuff the alexis park was trying to pass off as pizza. highlights of the day, besides having to use lynx over an ssh connection to fix my LJ password, came mostly from the black and white ball, which is really just a sort of mini-rave in the middle of defcon on the second night that they have every year. anyway, here are just some random comments.

• VERY cute girl wandering around with nothing but a piece of cardboard covering her breasts that was tied there with a piece of string. on the cardboard, these words were written: "lesbians wanted". ha!
• the best phrase heard all weekend: "the penis is afloat." - referring to a rather large inflatable penis that someone had strapped to the top of an R/C car and set loose in the pool. unfortunately, i didn't actually get to see said phallus, but stories of its existence were still quite entertaining.
• from the sick and wrong department... for those of you that remember the geeky 'arvid' from the old ABC television show 'head of the class', i saw a kid that looked just like him but indian or middle eastern and without the glasses who couldn't have been more than 18-19 grinding on the dance floor at the black and white ball with a woman who looked like she was about 35 and probably a professional escort.
• remember TaoDog, from two updates ago? well, apparently he and his roommate tried to hire some strippers, but TD didn't have the money and L was forced to western union 500 bucks for payment to the girls. however, said girls didn't do what they promised they were going to do (what that is, we don't know) and TD cancelled the wire, thus stiffing the dancers. yet his name wasn't the one on the wire, so they'll be looking at L to be pissed at. oops. i'm glad we didn't spend any more time in the company of TD, or he'd probably have tried to convince scott and i to go along with some recockulous scheme. i hope L bought some of the new-identity books that loompanics was selling. =/

overall, i'd say that DC this year was not as large as last year, and i think that's due in part to the organizers trying to clamp down a bit on the party atmosphere. i can't really complain about that, but i do think that last year i had more fun. the primary reason for that, though, really has nothing to do with defcon - last year found mark and i wandering the strip in various states of insobriety, but he stayed home this year, so all of the fun i had was basically self-created. i think last year i probably learned more, too, simply because there were more people around that one might end up involved in some sort of interesting conversation with (and probably also because i didn't exceed recommended velocity of vodka consumption). ah well, i guess we'll see what happens in 2003.

ravyn out.

Date: 2002-08-12 18:54
Subject: stuff, things, and whatever...
not much to report, i suppose. school starts in two weeks. hopefully that'll keep me occupied for a bit of time during the week and do something to mitigate the unrelenting boredom that seems to hang around like an unwanted mother-in-law. cory's in italy with sal for the next couple weeks, and that definitely plays a part in the boredom. i didn't think about it until the weekend when it suddenly hit me that i really hadn't done jack shit during the last week and i couldn't figure out why. heh. the only other thing to report is that i'm finally going on a real vacation next month - i'll be spending a week in ibiza partying my ass off. yeah, so i'll be missing a week of school to do it, but hell, it's asu - not like i'm really going to be missing all that much.

that's all for now, folks.

Date: 2002-08-13 14:58
Subject: movie review time!
it's been awhile since i've taken the time to waste some money on hollywood and the endless steaming piles of dung that they're passing off as entertainment, but this past sunday i got my ass out of the house and went to see "signs", the third film to make it to the big screen by m. night shayalaman (or however you spell his name). as usual, you might want to skip over this post if you've not seen the movie and don't want any spoilers.

that being said... all i can say is that this writer/director has so far turned out to be a one-hit wonder. i admit that i really enjoyed "sixth sense" - but "unbreakable" was a serious pile of dung, and as it turns out, "signs" wasn't much better, using much of the same tired storytelling techniques that we've come to know and expect after "unbreakable". maybe it's just me, but i like a movie that appears to be going somewhere, as opposed to something that just rambles on and on and finally wraps up with a gratuitious alien-bashing scene at the end, just to try to prevent pissing off the audience. i'd be willing to bet that shayalaman would've ended the movie right after the aliens were defeated, but that he threw in those last 5 minutes in order to appease someone in the chain of command at the production studio. remember spielberg's "AI"? how it could've ended with the robot under the sea staring at the blue fairy, but instead had a bunch of tripe tacked on afterwards with the obligatory alien race? apparently this is becoming a common tactic in hollywood these days. wake up, guys, it's lame! don't do it! when the movie is over, end the goddamn thing. and above all, do it with a convincing ending that leaves the audience feeling like the movie actually IS over.

anyway.... i also think i was expecting a little bit more science fiction and a lot less religion. the movie really had nothing at all to do with aliens and invasions of earth, but instead is just a look at a priest who gave up the pulpit after his wife died in a car accident and the subsequent questioning of his faith as the aliens draw near. sounds like something straight out of the bible, but adapted for modern consumption. it's a movie about faith in a higher power that makes a claim that there is order in the universe and that everything happens for a reason and all that other predestination bullshit that i wouldn't feed if it were the last dogma on earth. yeah, sure mel, your kid's lungs were closed so that he could be saved from the alien's poison gas, and that's why he had asthma. and your brother just happened to be a minor leage baseball record holder so that he could beat that alien into submission. and it all fits together neatly into some preordained puzzle. that is what we, in the business, like to call "horseshit." connections between anything can be made if you look hard enough. hell, when i was a debater we used to play a little thought game called 'nuclear war' -- someone would start by throwing out a concept or a topic, and then the rest of us would have to show how eventually that thought could lead to nuclear war. bottom line - everything leads to nuclear war if taken along the right path. but that doesn't mean it's going to happen.

i suppose the argument could be made, too, that it's a movie about connections - and that the title, "signs", has a sort of double meaning - one for the crop circles, and one for the various things we observe in our daily lives that we often write off as meaningless, but in shaylaman's world, actually might have some current or future relevance. whatever. the concept itself isn't a bad one, and i'll say that i believe in the occasional omen and/or strange connection, but this movie takes it a little too far to be believable or even entertaining. it's just recockulous.

next i think i'll go check out vin diesel in XXX - it looks like pure mindless fun, filled with shit blowing up. yeah, now that's more like it. =)
Music: Karel - Transit 6
Mood: cynical

Time: 15:08
Subject: how to solve saddam hussein...
heh, when it rains, it pours, i guess. here's another comment.

the bush administration seems to be gung-ho on getting us into an unnecessary war in order to remove saddam hussein from iraq. we're told that saddam is developing weapons of mass destruction and that he's a threat to peace and stability all around the world. personally, i think dubya is just butt-hurt because saddam made his dad look like a fool and because he'd rather think about attacking some poor arab country that's been beaten into submission over the last 10 years via economic sanctions than he would solving the problem of corporate fraud, the sluggish economy, and other such issues which i think most americans would deem as more pressing.

well, in any event... the solution to the saddam hussein problem is very simple.

if he develops WMD, his first target is likely to be the israelis, who can take care of themselves. that's not our problem. we should've told the israelis long ago that they're on their own and that they need to work out their problems with the palestinians and their neighbors in a civilized manner and that big bad uncle sam isn't always going to be there to support 'em.

anyway... if he develops WMD and the capability of using it against the US, then we tell him (and the entire world, so that there is no question) simply and unequivocally that if an attack is made on US soil or against US interests by iraq with weapons of mass destruction, that we will turn iraq into a glass parking lot. end of story. and in the meantime, we put a bunch of money into alternative energy R&D. once we're no longer dependent on foreign oil, then we can tell the whole damn region to go fuck themselves.

not like any of this is ever actually going to happen. ah well.

one other note... i was having a conversation last night with a girl from boston about politics, and we both said that it would be incredibly refreshing to have a presidential candidate come on TV and say "yes, when i was in college, i used drugs. i enjoyed it, and i'm not sorry that i did it, either." yeah, that'll happen. viva la revolucion!

Date: 2002-08-15 19:41
Subject: i don't get it.
i saw this today on cnn.com: clicky clicky

"[R]elatives of the September 11 attacks filed a 15-count, $116 trillion lawsuit Thursday against the company run by Osama bin Laden's family, Saudi Arabian princes and Sudan."

ok, so let me see here... a bunch of people in the US are filing suit against a bunch of foreigners in a US court. even if they win, how, exactly, do they propose to get their money? they don't honestly think that Osama himself and the Taliban (or what's left of them, anyway) are going to pony up $116 trillion? the government of Sudan doesn't have any money, and i really don't expect that a few Saudi princes are going to kowtow to a bunch of americans. something else i don't understand, either... these people filing the lawsuits are family members of people who died on 9/11. let's suppose for a moment, they win their lawsuit. let's suppose even further that they manage to get some money out of some of the defendants. then what? it's not like they can go down to clones-R-us and make a copy of their lost loved-ones with all the money.

i don't understand the point of suing someone for money when the money you might get isn't going to undo whatever damage was done. hey, i just lost my husband in a terr'ist bombing, and i sued the bastards for $20 billion dollars. party at my house!!!!

Date: 2002-08-17 04:23
Subject: adventures in recockulosity.
warning. this is extremely long, and it rambles in places without any major sense of coherence.

i guess we'll start off with the good part of my night. i went to see 'xxx' with vin diesel, and i have to admit that i really enjoyed it. diesel isn't really the best of actors, and his kissing scenes are, like a_cleveland said, in need of work, but the film was exactly what i was hoping it would be - sheer mindless entertainment, and despite his less-than-oscar-worthy performance, in some ways i think diesel was the right man for the role. kinda like keanu reeves as 'neo' - they just seem to fit. so yeah, good movie.

and now, on to the rest. although i enjoyed the film, as i was leaving i felt a little depressed. not because of anything related to the movie, but just out of a general sense of isolation. i walked out of the movie theatre and i saw all these other people walking with their friends or their dates or whatever, and suddenly i'm reminded that i'm there all by myself. normally this sort of thing doesn't really bother me; i have no problem going to the movies by myself or whatever else it is that i feel like doing, but every once in awhile i get hit by an incredible feeling of loneliness. i thought about it while i was driving home a bit more, and the conclusion i reached is that any one of the things that're bothering me wouldn't be enough to make me feel like ass, but combine them all and it just kinda sucks.

• i miss cory. i didn't really think about it too much until last weekend, but she's really the only person that i hang out with on any sort of regular basis, and she won't be back for another week.

• i miss the rest of my friends, too - all the ones that i talk to online that i used to actually see on a semi-regular basis, like mark and melissa, or the ones that i used to see a lot at raves, like garrett, or even those that i used to live with, like scott. none of them have gone anywhere (well, maybe with the exception of mark, who's now married with a kid on the way) but it really feels like we've all drifted apart, and i'm not sure why. i guess we just all seem to carry on with our lives and go wherever the spirit leads us, with or without anyone else coming along.

there's more... but first a brief interlude in my evening. i got home from the movie around 1:30, and i found out that djskott was going to be spinning at a rave tonight from 2 to 3 up in fountain hills. being already kinda bummed out, unable to sleep, and without anything better to do, i got back in the car and drove out there for the party. arrived around 2, and he said that he was going to be going on at 3:10 instead and spinning a closing set -- which made sense, i suppose, since the sound people in the 3rd area hadn't even finished setting up their shit. fine, no problem, i wandered off to the main stage to check out mars, and i danced for about 20 minutes until his set was over. he gave me an autographed mix cd, too, which was nifty. yeah, ok, so i got my dance on, and was feeling a little bit better, despite the fact that there was NO vibe at this party, maybe 100 people max... what the fuck was the promoter thinking trying to throw a 3-area party with 100 people??? bleh... back to the area where scott's supposed to be on, and it turns out he's not playing. because of the delays in setting up and other such bullshit he was only going to get a 30 minute set, so he said fuck it and was leaving. so i drove out there and paid my 15 quid for absolutely nothing (well, i guess i paid for the cd). so, yeah, we chatted a bit outside the party, at which time we officially pronounced the phoenix rave scene DEAD and got in our respective vehicles and headed home.

so, now we add more shit to the pile.

• i miss raving. i know i got into it at the tail end, in 98, when things were already on the decline, but i still manged to have 2 great years of dancing and music and fun, meeting people that i never saw outside of parties, but who were always there to smile and say hello and make you feel at home. well, once i got past the whole "are you a cop" bullshit, anyway. heh. but yeah... i remember randall, and deadasleep back when she was a raver, the DTS crew, steve before he became an arrogant little prick, christina, ramy, tedd-e, brandon, jayni and mark, nichiyume, dave, seth, and countless other people whose names i probably forget but remembered at the time (if that makes sense). i remember the road trip to nocturnal wonderland 99, the desert renegade parties, the massives (well, by AZ standards, anyway), all of it... and i miss it. because it isn't like that anymore, and probably never will be again. the .gov is coming down hard on raving, the people are leaving, and the ones that are left just don't seem to understand what it's really supposed to be about.

but it's not just that i miss raving... i miss all of the things that used to give me joy - whether it be raving, or kung fu, or sitting around with friends at coffee plantation playing chess and talking about whatever the hell came up until the wee hours. as it stands, these things are either gone, or they just don't seem to provide the same fulfilment that they used to. and if there's no joy or fulfillment in life, then really, what is the point of being here? and why is it that the things that most people seem to find happiness in just don't do it for me? as we get older, we're supposed to leave behind our childhood, or even our young adulthood, i suppose, and find a mate, have some kids, get a career, buy a house, and shift our focus from ourselves to the future generation. then eventually we retire, and either we travel, or we find ourselves confined to a nursing home at which we play backgammon and shit our pants all day until we die, hoping that our kids will remember to come visit once in awhile.

anyway, my point here... it seems that the vast majority of people is content with this life pattern, fulfilled by it, even -- else why would so many people do it? (yeah, there's the sheeple argument, but still... the numbers suggest otherwise.) hell, even rich people that don't have to worry about a career still go down the family path with the stability and the kids and the house and all that sort of stuff. but i can't help but think that i don't and never will fit in that mold. so what is there in this world for me? i keep looking, but all i find is short-term solutions and/or disappointment. am i just supposed to give up and try to squeeze my round-pegged ass into a square hole? do i keep looking for the square hole? what if it doesn't exist?

at one point not too long ago, djskott mentioned that he missed his friends and family back in maine and that he really wanted to go home. i guess i could say that i want to go home, too, at least as far as the concept of "home" goes, and what connotations it entails - except that i have nowhere to go. this is it.

i'm going to bed. i hope i don't wake up, although i'm sure i will. the cats will see to that. mrrrrow.
Music: Sundeep Gosal - Trancesend - In My Memory
Mood: depressed

Date: 2002-08-21 12:31
Subject: new psytrance == good
not a whole lot to report in this corner of the world today. i went out last night to check out the reliquary / bella morte show at mason jar, and i can only say that reliquary is a seriously good act. i'm all about dark female vocals when it comes to my gothic/darkwave music, and kara, the lead singer, has an amazing operatic /ethereal voice. bella morte, well, they've never really been one of my favorite acts, but i enjoyed most of their music last nigt - i guess they're better live - although there was one track of theirs that really sounded kinda like an attempt to do gothic hip hop. i had this overwhelming urge to stand up and start waving my hands in the air singing something like ... "crusin in my hearse with the zombies in the back, goin' to the graveyard yo yo yo.." ok, so i'm an ass. =/ =)

in any event, 'tis time to head down to the asu bookstore and pay ridiculous amounts of money for books that i probably won't even read. today's also my grandfather's 85th birthday, so if i can get past the depression of going to a nursing home, perhaps i'll drop in and say hello and see how he's doing - it's been almost a year i think since i've seen him. =/

-ravyn out-
Music: Psydrop - Angels Dust
Mood: content

Time: 14:28
Subject: the anal rapings of a college student
no, this isn't a porn entry... this is a rant about the price of college textbooks.

i'm signed up for 3 classes next semester. i'm taking modern linear algebra, women in contempoary society, and ritual, symbol and myth. total books purchased: 4. total cost: $158.75. ok, the math book was used, and it's hardback, and i've come to expect anything in the sciences to be expensive, so its price of $51.75 wasn't all that surprising, although still a bit high, methinks, for a used book. i picked up the womens' studies book for $12.75, used, and paperback, so that's all good. the other two books were for my religion class - both paperback, and one of them was $63.50!! for a fucking paperback book! i don't care if it's brand-new, it ain't made of gold - what the hell is up with this? everyone talks about the stereotypical "starving student" - well, maybe if books weren't so damn expensive, college students everywhere might discover that there is more to a good evening meal than a packet of ramen.

anyway, i also noticed that it looks like i'm signed up for one of the shittier sections of ritual, symbol, and myth (REL 305). while some of the profs that are teaching this course next semester have such authors as joseph campbell as required or recommended reading, all i get is a survey book called "exploring religion" (for 63 fucking dollars) and an anecdotal book called "religious autobiographies". i dunno, i'm getting the feeling that i'm going to be taking these books back and dropping the course. there's no way i can sit through a 3-hour lecture once a week with lame-ass titles like these. we'll find out on monday, i suppose.

i imagine that the appropriate signoff for this post would somehow be related to religious studies.

fuckin' christ!

Date: 2002-08-27 08:58
Subject: dreams...
i started this entry yesterday but never got around to finishing it... anyway...

normally, i don't remember my dreams - to the point where i often wonder whether or not i dream at all. sometimes, though, if i have a particularly weird REM encounter, i'll remember it the next morning as i wake up and think to myself "damn, that was strange." well, last night i had my first lucid dream. it started off like my dreams usually do (that i remember) where instead of being an active participant in whatever is happening, it looks like i'm watching it unfold around me, as if in a movie or a television show. this one started off like a cop drama, somewhat reminiscent of the last episode i saw of HBO's "the wire" about a week ago. some black dude was being threatened by a white lady cop because he'd stumbled upon some departmental corruption, and then he went to his connection in the department and told him what was going on. it then cut to a scene where the lady cop was in some superior's office and there was some sort of extortion or blackmail going on, at which point somebody else came in from behind and started choking her. as i'm watching this in the dream, i'm thinking that the guy doing the choking would've been better off using piano wire instead of his bare hands (morbid, i know) and suddenly his hands had piano wire in them. so the woman dies, and the guy's in the captain's office (i guess) and they're trying to figure out how to dispose of the body. they close the office door, but some little black-haired kid saw the two guys and the body through the window. so the captain sends the hit man out after the kid. it's at this point that i actually "enter" the dream and become an active participant (this, in itself is a strange phenomenon for my dreams) and i take over as the would-be hitman. i catch up to the kid, but instead of killing him/her (i can't remember) i at this point realize that i'm in a dream and i try to wake myself up - yet i can't - and i know i can't - so i somehow transform into a plane and we go flying around. it's about this point that i become totally aware that i'm dreaming, that i'm in my own little universe and that i can manipulate the whole thing. so i grab a pile of goop from the universe and start playing with it like it's some sort of protoplasm, and all i can remember thinking is that "damn, this is cool" - i can think about how i want the properties of the stuff to change and instantly it does... then the phone rings and it's some telemarketer looking for scott, who doesn't even live here anymore - and that's the end of my lucid dreaming adventure.

anyway, i was pretty excited about the whole thing all of yesterday and couldn't stop thinking about it. and i wonder what kind of meaning this dream has - not so much the beginning part with the cop drama, but the rest of it. maybe it's my subconscious trying to tell me what i've claimed to believe all this time - that i really DO have ultimate control over my reality and that it's time to stop being an observer in life (i.e., the cop show) and jump in and do stuff.

sounds like a good interpretation to me, anyway.
Mood: thoughtful

Date: 2002-08-29 12:56
Subject: birthday fun
ok, so yesterday i turned the big 27... yay me... and normally i don't have much to say about birthdays other than they suck, mainly because most people that i would expect to at least remember them tend to forget completely and not say a damn thing about it. i'm not generally big on sentimentality and that sort of thing, but a simple "hey, i remembered, it's your birthday, have a good one" or whatever is a nice reminder that people actually do give a shit. anyway... all i really have to say on the subject this year is this:

thanks, cory. what you did was really unexpected and a nice surprise. =)

Date: 2002-08-31 11:14
Subject: strange happenings
so here it is, almost 11am on saturday morning, and i've been up all night, taking part in what has to have been one of the most interesting nights i've experienced in a long time. unfortunately, to protect the innocent, i'm going to have to leave out certain key details. more like just no desire to discuss participation in societally-frowned-upon activity, but whatever. -Ed. but anyway... about 6pm last night ben and mike and i went out for dinner at kona grill, and then ray dropped in after we got back and he and i went to freedom with the intent of seeing dj irene. before we left the house, i ate a pill. one pill. i didn't actually expect that it would do anything, because in the entire history of my chemical adventures, i've only rolled off of one pill ONE time. so we're off to the club... the first DJ was annoying - his music was too slow, too housey and really not very danceable. the second DJ was better, and it was about this time that, lo and behold, some chemical activity was being registered in the brain. i couldn't really believe it - one pill! so anyway, i'm dancing around, having a great time, slightly enhanced but not fucked out of my skull, and then on a downstep i feel something not right in my left knee (which has been bothering me of late anyway). so i try to work it off, massage it out, sit down for a bit, but nothing works - it's still fucked up to the point where i can't dance. so my evening mood is rapidly going down the shitter - i didn't go there to just sit on the floor like a moron, but that's what i was doing. so i decided to go home - since ray had drove and he was having a good time, i didn't see any reason to interrupt his night, so i decided to walk. yeah, i know, i know, hurt knee, walk 8 miles, not too smart. but by this time i was rolling along rather nicely and didn't care - i figured that the walk would give me time to think and the weather was decent and my shoes were comfortable, so why not?

yeah, it took awhile to get home, and i actually got lost in my own subdivision because i tried to take a shortcut. oops. but eventually i got home and realized that i was still rolling rather hardcore and with nothing to do. so i ate another pill just for good measure and found stuff to keep myself occupied for the next few hours. around 7am, i did something i haven't done in a long time - i fired up my keyboards and just sat there and played for a good hour - just random jams and whatever i felt like playing. i'm kinda amazed, really - i haven't been inspired to do that in so damn long. i've noticed lately that i seem to be taking a bit more of an interest in a lot of things that i haven't really given much of a shit about over the last couple years. maybe some of the passion for life that i used to have is starting to come back? kinda odd how these things happen, i suppose, but i really won't complain. now i just have to make sure to make the correct decisions so as to not fuck up what embers are being ignited here. yeah.

anyway... so i killed 20 minutes writing all of this. i'm supposed to be at kung fu at noon, but i'm still rolling (off of 2 pills, total - another amazing thing, since i'd sorta made it a habit of taking at least 5 in any given night) and i don't know if i'm going to go or not. past experience with trying to do any sort of workout following a chemical adventure would tell me that i'm better off staying home. on top of that, i'm supposed to be going out for dinner with the family tonight at 6 - i hope i can get some sleep scheduled in between now and then.

life is good, even without sleep.
Music: Digitally Imported Trance
Mood: impressed