A Good Looking Icon

I’ve been playing with Photoshop CS3 for a few days now, and I’ve come to realize that in all I know about Photoshop, I guess I just don’t know enough to see the difference between CS1 and CS3.  Because all I see is a prettier interface and…everything else that was there before?  I’m not enough of a power-user to benefit.  There’s more stuff, I’m sure, but I don’t know where it is or what it is.  I guess what I’m saying is that CS3 isn’t really worth the upgrade for me.

I still need to try InDesign and Illustrator.  Those might be more fun.

The Great Knights-Errant of the Sea

I love that phrase. I found my copy of Heart of Darkness the other day and started reading it again. Every line is amazing. The last time I looked at it was my senior year of high school in AP Literature, and upon closing it for the last time, I probably vowed to never read it again, or even look at it. But that was then, and this is now. I hated it so much because we stopped every five seconds to analyze each word—how tedious and mind-numbing! It may have enhanced my knowledge of the endless symbolism throughout the novel, but it sort of ruined the reading experience itself—the narrative was lost. So this is take two.

Since abandoning the progress I had made on my novel idea (…get it?), I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about a great many things—my brain gets a lot of free time at Trig’s since all I really need to keep track of is a steady beeping sound and accurate change-handling. Ironically, it was while reading a completely unrelated (or is it?) passage in Heart of Darkness that I was reminded of a discussion we had in Comparative Politics, back when I went to UWMC. We were talking about Iraq and democracy and whether or not that was attainable in the near future, what the near future was, what democracy was, and so forth. At one point, it was implied by a classmate of mine that democracy what the end-all-be-all political system—the pinnacle, the end. My first thought was, “Of course it is!” My second thought was, “Really?” My third thought was, “How arrogant can we be?” To say that our democratic system is the end to the political chain of evolution is a little short-sighted, isn’t it? I mean, doesn’t it stand to reason that in the next thousand years of human existence we could somehow, however inadvertently, drunkenly stumble upon some system that is better? I’m not trying to sound like a communist here, but really? There’s nothing more? My bigger problem with his argument was that not only was it the best, but that it was here to stay and that we would never, ever revert to a past system. Because that would be backwards. Because there never was a Commonwealth of England…err, yeah.  The debate ended in stalemate, but I totally kicked his ass when we studied China—the  only thing I learned about at Lakeland.

This all relates to my novel because I’m trying to, with some degree of fictional accuracy, figure out what sort of government would be used in the far future, taking into account as much of everything as possible, following my own guideline that we’re allowed to cycle back and forth through systems, and all the while acknowledging that I will be wrong.

Realistically

Apple’s iPhone is without a doubt one of the few products ever to be so far out of my reach that it actually diminishes my want for it.  Like exotic cars and lakeside mansions, the iPhone seems so expensive to an on-again-off-again cheapskate like me that I can’t imagine myself ever being in the position to be like, “Oh?  Yeah?  500 for the cell-phone?  Yeah, sure I guess.”  No.  It will be something more like, “The iPhone came out five years ago and you’re selling it for $50 bucks?  I’ll take it.”  But there are a lot of really expensive things that I still like, such as trips to foreign places, mopeds, and widescreen televisions and I want those more than I want the iPhone.  Maybe it’s more because I just don’t need the iPhone–I’ve got a phone, I’ve got an iPod, (and I can’t afford a data plan anyway), so these two devices already fit in my pockets, and I don’t see why they have to be one.

It’s still pretty.

Slipping.

There’s something about Trig’s that doesn’t make sense–and that something is everything.  It drives me crazy so quickly each morning I’m there.  Things go smoothly until I hear about some ridiculous occurrence that was completely nonsensical, and I lose it.  I must be losing it because today I accidentally left 30 minutes early, actually by accident with no intention of skipping out or anything.  Mind you, had I left on purpose, I would have had plenty of reasons to do so, none of which even include the girls who don’t turn their lane lights on and instead simply goof-off, the baggers who just walk around mindlessly staring off into space while groceries pile up, or the people who hide in parcel pick up, because there is so much more than that.

Grr to being dumb.  I think Trig’s lowers my intelligence.

The Wayside

I don’t want to stop blogging (and I won’t), but some days, there just isn’t going to be stuff to write about, and that’s hard for me to accept that.  Monday, for example: I had a bone density scan.  But it didn’t feel very newsworthy or universal in a sort of “I Know How He Feels” sort of way, so I didn’t write anything.  Tuesday I bought a book which I’m now thoroughly enjoying, but again, not a real topic of lengthy discussion.

I’m generally not a distracted person, but when given far too much free time, a.k.a. summer, I sort of lose my way.  I take on too much and accomplish too little.  I also start second-guessing everything because my mind thinks it can out-think itself.  I’ve already dropped and restarted the story I’ve been posting here.  I just got to a point where I said, “Wow, I can do better, I hope.”  So I’m rethinking a few things and trying, simply, to make it good.  I don’t work on it nearly enough, but then there are only so many hours a day, and between that, learning Japanese, writing here every so often, work, Guitar Hero 2, going out, Tivo and sleep, things get left out.  I’d organize myself and make up some sort of schedule, but that’s not really my style.  Actually, it’s completely my style, I just don’t want to do it.

Just so you know.

By the way.

I got a job last week.  Took me long enough, I know.  I’m back working at Trigs, which is fine by me because it’s money and something to do.  I was hoping to get out of the standing-still-for-eight-hours business, but I’ll live.

It’s about the gameplay…

That’s it. The final straw. The one step over the line. It may sound like an over-reaction, but I’m canceling my subscription to the InDigital podcast, and it’s because of Wil Wheaton.

I’m a fan of his blog, actually. He writes well, it’s usually interesting, and it’s updated fairly regularly. But the minute I see him on InDigital, a deep, dark anger grows inside of me and threatens to explode into, well, into a short diatribe against Wil Wheaton.

How many names can he drop an episode? “Me and uh, Kevin Rose…” “I was talking to the, uh, Penny Arcade guys…” How high can he stick his nose? “Well, for me it’s really about gameplay…” No, for him it’s really about the 80’s! I know I wasn’t around for most of what sounds like a really wicked decade, but I’m sick to death of the Atari/Amiga/Commodore 64 references. Yes, he likes classic games–he even writes a column about it–but there’s more to the world than his recollections of twenty years ago. Good games have been made since, and they’ve been made by evil corporations too! And they have good graphics! They’re pretty! They use more than two pixels! And gameplay can be directly affected by the quality of things like sound and graphics!

Thank you.

(P.S. Leo Laporte…I’m on to you…)

Random Feat of Genius

Two days ago, I was cleaning the basement when I decided it needed a purpose–I mean, there’s a sofa in there, why not sit on it and do something? So I moved my television, Xbox 360, GameCube and stereo out there and hooked them all up to each other. There’s no cable in the basement, but I don’t watch a lot of television anyway, and if all else fails, I Tivo it. But my bigger problem was the lack of ethernet cable hookups. Sure, we have wireless all over the house (mostly), but my Xbox 360 doesn’t have wireless. So what’s a guy to do?

My first thought was to find a really long ethernet cable and run it from my room into the basement, but that seemed impractical. Then I thought of something that could never work in a million years because it made too much sense and was just too cool–wireless internet to my Mac, shared over crossover cable to the Xbox 360. How cool is that? But it couldn’t possibly work, right? Wrong. Someone on the Xbox Live forums at Mac OSX Hints had all the instructions to make it happen, and I rejoiced, cause it worked!  Now I can update it whenever I need to, download demos and whatnot.  Amazing.

Re: B

I didn’t really elaborate on keyboard settings before, but using Japanese input on Macs is fairly simple.  On the International pane in System Preferences is an Input Menu tab.  This lists all the built-in keyboard layouts and input methods.  For Japanese, it offers Romanji, Hiragana and Katakana.  It’s not really a layout for the keyboard, that is it doesn’t change what the letters type.  Since all the syllables have a Romanji spelling, you simply type in the letters and it’ll be automatically changed to the appropriate character.  How does Kanji work?  I have no clue.  Mac has a ton of built-in languages, though I deleted a lot of mine cause they take up space and I don’t even plan on writing in Sanskrit.  Windows, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to include a lot of the languages–you need to go back to your install disk, at least with a standard installation.

On a side note: I love the keyboard viewer you can activate from the input menu on the menu bar.  It serves no purpose for me except to entertain myself with how fast I sometimes type.

If not now…

I’ve written about this before, but it bears repetition and elaboration.

I love to travel. It’s funny, because as I look back through all of my travels, there aren’t exactly a ton. To the east, I’ve gone as far as Ireland, and to the west I’ve made it to Wyoming. There’s the Caribbean to the south, which was a while ago, and…well Ireland is my northernmost trip, too. So I’ve been places, and I’ve enjoyed it. But now I’m in the mood to go somewhere and stay there, for a while at least, this no doubt stemming from my presence in Wausau right now. But I want to live somewhere exotic and different and experience new things and be forced to step outside my little box.

I know before I said my big goal was a year in China, but I am also very tempted by Japan. They’re both distant…and in Asia. I don’t know where this particular interest in Asia comes from. They do have very cool gadgets and technology, and it would put me outside the English/American/European sphere of “Of course someone around here speaks English” safety net that is…well, a lot of places.

Between the two, China seems like it would be much more of an adventure, maybe because of the culture, or maybe because of the, er, Communism. Japan is an island, which I like because something comes from living there–which is why the UK and Ireland have always intrigued me, too–but their language is completely foreign to me, which is thankfully fixable due to the wonders of the internet. China has big cities, which I like, but Japan still seems more metropolitan. And Japan has the Bullet Train. China has the Great Wall.

I could go on and give you the illusion that I can’t decide, but right now I’m mostly interest in Japan. However, my ‘mostly interested in’ is always changing. Maybe next week I’ll want to live in Jordan. Oh wait, I already tried that one. Never mind.

Frustration.

So I can’t find a job.  Okay.  I get that.  But it wouldn’t bother me so much if I could get myself doing something else instead.  Anything, really.  All I’ve done this summer is sit around staring at my computer.  Sure, some of the time it’s to write, but I don’t do it enough.  I don’t go outside, I hardly go upstairs.  I’m just completely off schedule without something to do everyday.  I’m staying up too late at night, getting up too late in the morning.  I need structure, people.  Structure.

That is all.  I’ll have something about Asia later.

Just something I did.

Yesterday, I drove down to Appleton and took a four hour-long Responsible Beverage Server class, which means I can now become a bartender if I so choose, which I might.  The class itself was really simple, unless of course you didn’t know not to drink and drive, and most people just spent the evening zoning out.  The girl sitting next to me was doing Sudoku puzzles the whole time.  I’m not entirely sure why I did this, but now I really think I’ll get a bartending job when I go back to Eau Claire, because then I might just be able to afford going to Europe.  How comforting.

Sneaky Facebook

I was wandering around Facebook today and found something fairly interesting–if you list your AIM screen name in your profile, it now (sometimes, at least) says whether or not you are online.  Now, I guess I don’t have a real problem with this, except the greater ease of stalking, but it would have been nice to know they did that now.  But no.  It just comes out of nowhere.  I imagine there’s an option to turn it off and on, I just haven’t found it yet, mostly because I haven’t looked.

In case you missed it.

There’s this thing on the top of my sidebar that I will update as the story goes on. I include word counts because, well, they make me happy.

(Also know it doesn’t just get longer, since I also revise old stuff every time I add new things.  I like to fix the suck as I go along.)

That makes eight?

I think I’ve applied for eight jobs so far.  I filled out two applications tonight, and there’s another one in my future for tomorrow morning.  It’s getting tough to remember each of the places I’ve applied.  Sadly, only one interview has come of this so far, but that went fairly well and I’m hopeful.  Still, my standards are steadily lowered and pretty soon I’ll be applying at Wal-mart.  Not.  Seriously, I’d take up a life of crime before working at Wal-mart.  We’re talking robberies.

(I wouldn’t really do that.  Maybe.)

It’s science-fiction, if you like that.

But it’s more of a dramedy-thriller science fiction than anything. It’s in the earliest stages right now, though I do have a fairly good plan for it. I know, I know—war in space has been done to death, but not by me so I don’t care. Besides, everything that’s worth doing has already been done, so I might as well repeat something as well as I can, right? Right.

Here it is. It’s nameless as of yet, but of course I have ideas.

Tired. Fresh.

Something is not right every time I try to sleep and so it never goes well and I wake up tired the next morning.  I do listen to a podcast as I lay in bed, but that’s never been a problem before.  I’m trying different combinations of pillows to see if that helps.  Maybe the cat comes in and jumps on me while I sleep.

I’ve started a new story, something I wasn’t exactly planning to work on right now, but I felt the strong urge to just start and see what happens.  It’s hard because I’m really big into second-guessing myself, and even now I’m thinking of all the reasons why it’s bad, but I’ll press on.  I actually almost like my beginning, which is rare.