I'm sort of baffled by people who refuse to drink water.

I find Apple's "Genius" feature underwhelming. It doesn't seem to take many factors into account. If anything, it just looks at the artist of the song and finds similar artists from the semi-same genre and time period. I wish it would at least take my input into account when assembling lists, such as ratings I've given songs. Don't put songs on the list that I've rated one or two stars, please.

I'm not all that impressed with Apple in general, but I feel like I'm stuck with them, and all I even own is an iPod touch! But I have a lot of apps I've purchased at low prices. I sort of wish I'd gotten one of Samsung's fake iPod touches that run Android instead. Then, someday, if I got an Android phone, I'd be good to go. With an iPod touch, I can get an iPhone... but the service contracts are outrageously expensive.

The saving grace of the iDevices for me, though, is iMessage. Mary has an iPhone (which she does not have under any contract), and we're constantly iMessaging, anytime we both have wifi to do it with. So that has made it worth it by far for me.

_________

Nothing in this update is anything that I actually really care all that much about, other than Mary, but sometimes the human mind is like an orange, and when you squeeze it, you just get a little dribble of juices, and the actual contents remain inside.

Metta Sutta

This is the work of those who are skilled and peaceful, who seek the good:

May they be able and upright, straightforward, of gentle speech and not proud.
May they be content and easily supported, unburdened, with their senses calmed.
May they be wise, not arrogant and without desire for the possessions of others.
May they do nothing mean or that the wise would reprove.

May all beings be happy.
May they live in safety and joy.

All living beings, whether weak or strong, tall, stout, average or short, seen or unseen, near or distant, born or to be born, may they all be happy.

Let no one deceive another or deceive any being in any state, let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another.

As a mother watches over her child, willing to risk her own life to protect her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, suffusing the whole world with unobstructed loving kindness.

Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, during all one's waking hours, may one remain mindful of this heart and this way of living that is the best in the world.

Unattached to speculations, views and sense desires, with clear vision, such a person will never be reborn in the cycles of suffering.

(version by Gil Fronsdal)

From Teachings of the Buddha, edited by Jack Kornfield




But it seems like it can all be summed up in just one of the lines: "As a mother watches over her offspring, willing to risk her own life to protect her only child, so with a boundless heart let one cherish all living beings, suffusing the entire world with unobstructed loving kindness."

"Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon."
-Susan Ertz

I'll never understand these developers who resurrect old franchises and then, with the new games, both alienate old fans and disinterest new ones.

Cases in point:

Jagged Alliance: Back in Action
They took a wonderful turn-based strategy game and turned it into something that tries to be everything to everyone and ends up nothing to anyone. Why does everything have to be "real-time" to appeal to new gamers? No one new is going to care about it anyway.

Syndicate
This one was already real-time, but they took a really cool, overhead strategy game, and they turned it into a first-person shooter. Why does everything have to be first-person and/or a shooter these days?

X-COM
They've taken one of the best turn-based strategy games of all time and made it into, again, a first person shooter. Gag. It's not out yet, but it'll probably fall just as flat as the previous two.

Luckily, X-COM is also getting a faithful remake by Sid Meier's company, Firaxis, makers of Civilization, which I don't think they could possibly screw up badly enough to make it unawesome.

I want to be an exceedingly simple, idle person.

I want to be calm and peaceful, gentle, quiet.

I want to be the sort of person who tears up at the beautiful shapes the coconut milk makes in my tea.

Michael Keaton

tags: writer's block

One of my LJ friends passed away a few days ago. It seemed totally unexpected to me. She'd been in the hospital a few days, which I didn't know. In fact, if it weren't for another good LJ friend, I wouldn't have even known that she passed.

I tried to post something on her Facebook wall. It didn't post, but that's just as well.

Death is always such a strange, foreign thing. Having it be an internet friend who has passed just makes it all the stranger. What do you do? How do you react? If she'd lived here, I would absolutely go to her funeral. But you know, she's also the type of person who wouldn't so much like funerals. She'd tell me to do what I wanted and maybe have a party for her instead. But then she'd say, "Well, I know you're not really the party type, Jesse. So have a quiet party for me, in your head, and play me a song." I made that up, obviously, but I don't know she'd have thought something like that.

She was a true and fine friend. Often she was unhappy, but she was a sweet person and a good influence on the human race. She was always kind to me, more than I deserved. She was constantly complimentary, encouraging and appreciative. She would tell me all the time I needed to write a book, and she'd tell me I should buy hers. :) She was always encouraging me with my music and trying to get me to do more.

Isn't it almost always true that, when someone passes, you think to yourself, "If only I'd appreciated them more when they were here"? You feel guilty and strange, and you can't tell them so, at least not in the same way; you can't call, e-mail, or ask them out for coffee to apologize, because they're gone. You feel like you owe them something, but in the end, whether they're an internet friend or an in-person friend, whatever you do after they're gone won't change the fact that they're gone, and it won't have the same meaning it would if they were here.

You were good here, my friend. You will be good there. All is well, and I'm blessed to have made your acquaintance. I appreciate the influence you had on me, on the planet, and I would ask that you maintain that influence. Be well.

I also want to thank our mutual friend (if he's reading this) for letting me know what happened. I would not have known otherwise! It might have taken me ages to find out, and I'm much happier that I was able to know.

I ordered a pizza. $10. Not bad, even with sales tax and a donation of $1 to help end world hunger (does it really? I don't know, but it's worth a shot). But since I'm too lazy to drive 5 minutes to pick it up (Pizza Hut is one of the few things we have on this end of town), I end up paying a $2.25 delivery charge. Okay, fair enough. But then it says, "Total does not include tip. Remember to show appreciation to your driver."

...

Who gets the delivery charge then if the driver doesn't? Sounds like they need to show some appreciation to the driver, not me.

Yeah, yeah, I'll tip him/her. I just think it's dumb how things work. A good deal turns to a rather poor one, as I end up paying $16 for a large pizza instead of the advertised $10. But that's life, and the way prices have hit the sky around here, it's still actually a better deal than most stuff.

...Unless you consider that pizza is one of the cheapest foods to make...

Mostly I'm just really tired and lazy. I work 70 hours in a week for extra money, and then I end up spending the extra money on overpriced food that I don't need.

Might as well update while I'm thinking of it. I've been kind of drifting confusedly and moodily.

I got four wisdom teeth extracted yesterday. So far the biggest problem is nausea. I've blamed everything from the huge sugar increase in my diet to the meds (800mg ibuprofen, percoset (which I'm gonna stop now after the first day since I'm tired of being constantly poisoned) and amoxicillin (which I hate more than anything but MUST FINISH and will be taking every 8 hours for what seems like ALL ETERNITY). I've also blamed the dairy I'm now eating (yogurt, ice cream). If I can think of anything else to blame, I will do that as well.

Last night I wrote like three really long, confused, upset e-mails to my life partner (MARY) about how I felt like I had overdosed on cocaine. Ha. In retrospect, I really don't even think it was the percoset. But whatever it is, I feel nauseated again now too. Could seriously be anything! Just gotta deal with it.

I've been on a liquid diet. Kinda/sorta/mostly. Mashed potatoes and yogurt are not necessarily liquid are they? Ice cream, vegetable broth, pudding... That's about it. (No wonder I'm nauseated, going from eating as healthy as possible to this sugar-laden, messy, gross eating style.)

Cramming gauze in my mouth is not much fun (it tastes bad), but it could be a lot worse. It's just of hard to get it where it's supposed to go. The bleeding will stop soon though.

Wrote a few baffled and baffling e-mails to my work partner, supervisor and boss as well (in order of decreasing length, thankfully).

Sorry, this is a really boring entry.

At the office itself, they made me take off my two bracelets. This was sad, as one was one MB made me, BUT, I'd had it on me for 15 months anyway, and that's a pretty good run. The other was one my life partner (MARY) made me, and I felt much more sad about that! But the nice nurse helped me get it off without doing any cutting whatsoever. Hopefully someone soon can assist me with putting it back on.

Ew I feel nauseated...... sigh.

Anyway, I think waited in a gown in a room for what seemed like an age of bares (har har kind of literally). As I was in there, I heard someone else getting operated upon across the hall. Screaming drills. Not fun. Then I heard them YELLING AT HIM to wake him up from being anesthetised. He made gutteral screams at one point. Needless to say, the former rather disturbed my meditation! And I kept waiting and waiting as they shouted. "ERIK. ERIK, OPEN YOUR EYES." I was about ready to shout myself. Erik, for f*ck sake, wake up!

The anesthesia guy/nurse was really nice. They got me on the table, got an IV in without me even feeling it hardly. He told me to think about my favorite food, so I thought about pizza for about 3 seconds, but I had I swear five people talking to me all at once. Maybe that's part of their strategy. I don't even remember falling asleep. I woke up in another room with a woman in it. I laid there for the longest time, eyes open, trying to talk to her. Finally she was like, "You're not sleepy at all," and I was like, "Nope, I'm not (can I go now please??)"

According to Wendy, on the way out, I was speaking briefly in various accents. I do not remember this. I clearly remember getting into a wheel chair, being wheeled out, leaving, asking them to please thank the nurse for me. I do not remember using accents. I do remember speaking through a mouthful of gauze.

We waited in line at the pharmacy FOREVER FOREVER FOREVER as my mouth filled with blood and I whined to anyone in earshot disgustingly about it.

And that's about it. I came home and had a pleasant day chatting with Wendy. I wanted very much to talk to Mary, but by the time Wendy left, Mary was asleep. And then since Mary was asleep, I sort of wanted Wendy to stay, but she had to run off for something or other, probably to see her boyfriend. I was fine though.

Um yep anyway I'm getting tired now, so I should finish eating more food that makes me sick, take meds that make me sick, and haul my sick ass back to bed.

As for my MOUTH, feels pretty good! At 2pm or so, I'll be able to begin gently rinsing with warm salt water, and I can brush my teeth gently, yay. I'll then be on a "soft" diet, whatever that means. Hopefully it means I can eat things that will settle my poor stomach.

They annoyed be my requiring me to come back to the doctor for a follow-up. I understand this, but the only days they could do it were Thursday or Friday at 8am. I am going back to work Tuesday. Why could they not have done it earlier, like Monday? On Thursday I was supposed to go to Devil's Lake, and I had a meeting Friday. I've had to cancel the trip to Devil's Lake, which I can hopefully make with my boss another time.

That's life I suppose.

Sorry this is so long and boring. Should have waited to write it til I was drugged up.

Meanwhile, I have not even had any meds yet this morning, just some ice cream and mashed potatoes, and I already feel SICK. Ugh. If I were to highlight anything in this entry, it would be that: nausea. How can I make myself feel less nauseous? It's awful.

I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow morning. I wasn't really nervous at all, but now I am a bit. Mostly I just want to make sure I take care of myself and don't do anything to jeopardize the healing process.

Can't eat/drink anything after midnight tonight. Can't use straws or suck or rinse or eat anything normal for 24 hours after. (I've got pudding, ice cream, mashed potatoes and vegetable broth, so I should be okay.)

If I'm looped up afterwords, I'll try to remember to post and hopefully write something totally nonsensical to laugh at later.

Oh well. I'm a pretty careful person, so I should be fine. I was looking forward to five days sitting around eating pudding and ice cream and sleeping, but then I got nervous!

Going to England to see Mary again in about 35 days. :)

Some people celebrate the new year by getting smashed out of their minds on brain-altering liquids and substances.

I binge on Chinese food and chocolate cake.

I spent the day and night talking to my future bride. We rang in the new year at 6pm my time, midnight hers. She made a valiant effort to stay awake until my midnight and fell short by just 65 minutes. I still had the best new year's eve ever with her, and one of the best nights of my life.

I hope you guys are all having a safe night. I'm going to have a little more Chinese food and probably fall asleep just shy of 2012. :) But I expect it'll still be here when I wake up.

Bless you folks. Make this next year the best of your lives so far.

"I have no routines or personal history. One day I found out that they were no longer necessary for me and, like drinking, I dropped them. Your problem now is that you're too real. Your endeavors are too real; your moods are too real. Don't take things so for granted. You must begin to erase yourself."

-Carlos Castaneda

I'd start a crusade to abolish Daylight Savings Time worldwide.

tags: writer's block