Zippidy doo-da

Been a while since I have posted due to some RL (real life) drama. I have had to re-think certain measures of security about my web site due to a certain someone using it as a way to follow me around. Sort of creepy. Also if you have my phone number written down, you'll have to email me for my new phone number.

Anyway, my birthday is coming up October 1st. Yay! Mike D. is taking me and some friends out to a German restaurant which should be a blast! This weekend I am going to visit my grandparents on a dinner train which should be pretty neat. It is their 50th anniversary. Wow! After that as we know is the infamous Sparge! trip coming up the weekend of Oct 10th.

In other news, I am really looking forward to World of Warcraft and it is hard to play any other game at all. I have gotten a little bored of Star Wars Galaxies for no reason I can think of other than not many of my friends play with me there. I did pick up the .Game Boy Advance SP though, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Woo hoo! The GBA SP is the best portable gaming system I have ever used. Long battery life, direct plug for recharging, backlit screen and surprisingly easy to hold and use, all in a compact package that I now routinely carry in my front pocket. FFTA is really great too because it is all turn based so you can stop pushing buttons at any time and nothing bad will happen to you in the game. One of the things about portable games is you are out and about and easily distracted I have found so this game is a boon.

Music pick: Critical Mass, Vol. 4 - This album has some great songs on it. The one I like the most right now is ASSEMBLAGE 23 - Drive. Great stuff!

Movie pick: Ran - Boy, this Akira Kurosawa guy is really good at making films. He even got me to like Shakespeare.

Game pick: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

Web pick: Spinnwebe - His site is a little rough to navigate, but there is some funny stuff in there.

-Aaron

Now for a taste of things to come

Okay, first off I'd like to bring up some ideas for events that I am organizing for the near future.

First one is a trip to Knott's Scary Farm to see if we can be scarier than the monsters. Afterwards we head to Medieval Times for some dinner. So, October 25th. It'll be about $45 for the dinner (which is right across the street from KBF) and about $40 for Knott's tickets per person. For those that don't want to spring for the Medieval Times dinner there is a buffet in Knott's for about $15.

Also in the works is a goth camping trip. I don't know when or where yet but I'm planning on taking care of the details on a large group camp site and making it a weekend long event. More details on this will be available shortly.

If anyone wants to go to these events I ask that you sign up on the events board. If you have any ideas related to the events or want to help in some way, let me know there also or contact me. In particular I would like to know if anyone with vans, busses or SUVs want to go to the Goth Berry Farm event and can carpool, and I appreciate group campsite suggestions for the camping trip.

In other news, I'll be spinning tonight at The Box. See ya there!

-Aaron

Badgerbadgerbadgerbadgerbadger... MUSHROOM MUSHROOM!

Just a quick line here. I'm moving some of my stuff this weekend, yay!

Web link of the week: It's astounding... Umm, it was cute at first, then it was annoying, then it was intriguing, then it made my eyeballs bleed, then it was addicting... by the 11th hour or so I was enlightened.

Mortality presses us to do

If we were immortal, we would not question ourselves so much. Less would be the question of, "Am I really happy or not?" because being content with just being happy would be enough, and not include concepts such as, "What will I miss?" and "Where will I be ten years from now?" Even with one, though, who has an infinite future, the questions, "What did I miss?" and, "What am I missing?" are still possibilities. I think they are not so extreme as reflecting on one's mortality. So when one is mortal, much anxiety and unrest can be achieved in a state of complete happiness. One can be content and happy and still contemplating an end feel discontent. This drives us to improve. This moves us. This lends us, in fact, to our desire to do more, for if we were immortal what would be the motivation? Why would we need to better ourselves? What would we try to achieve? Then, you see, we could always do it later, and later, and later until it becomes clear that it would just be better not to do things at all. Perhaps then it is the end of our lives that gives our lives meaning more than the beginning of it.

Ignore the world around me

So, I read a post on Wil Wheaton's site and he posted about some advice his mom gave him about not watching the news to relieve stress. Interesting, and it made me realize something.

As some of you know, I completely ignore almost all forms of news media, sports media and religion. As some of you also know, I'm a pretty easy going guy, not many concerns in my life and not generally stressed out about much. I wonder. I have always thought the media that brings us the news is generally biased, over dramatic and targeting things for shock value. The news *should* have the sole purpose of distributing information to the public, the most important information taking precedence, but I do not think this happens much. So, I skip it. Sports I tend to skip because absolutely nothing they do, points they score, games they win, none of it effects me in any way. Why should I waste my time on that? That's generally my outlook on religion as well. Besides what my beliefs are now or will be in the future, I will always believe that practicing a religion is a waste of time. The little snippet of advice I read just now though turned me on to the possibility that maybe all this time I have been saving myself a huge amount of unneeded anxiety, stress and depression at the same time. Lucky me. I look around and see people agonizing over little things, their job doesn't have pens in the supply cabinet, their car has a chip in the paint now and they don't know how it got there, the holidays are coming and they'd better start shopping really soon or the crowds will make it physically impossible. These sort of worries people have always seemed foreign to me. What's the fuss? I just don't see why these things should have enough weight to encumber their thoughts. I never have. I have been accused before of not caring about the world around me, but now I have a reason that I can respond with.

Very

Okay, it's confirmed. Adam got his house and I'm moving back to my beloved Santa Cruz. I'm very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very excited. Maybe one more very will help emphasize this. Just trying to say, I'm very excited. Okay, there was the last very, I think I have gotten the point across to you now... that I'm very excited. Now I've overdone it. I'm sorry. Very sorry. Okay, I'll stop now before I hit myself in the head with a mallet.

I got my sword in the mail. It is sharp. Very sharp. See? My floppy sword dream was wrong. It wasn't floppy or un-sharp, it was sharp. Very sharp. Yay! No, no, back Mr. Mallet. BAD mallet!

Now I am going to have lunch at a Japanese restaurant where they do the flippy things with the spatulas and throw fried shrimp at you and stuff. That should be fun. Whenever I go to this restaurant during lunch I always see the flippy spatula guy over by that throwy shrimp table making food for like two girls who are giggling and talking about shoes or something. The guy always looks like, "Why oh why did you girls make me put on this dumb hat and flip shrimp for just you two?" The girls however are oblivious to this and one answers a cell phone call. It's the same every time. I'm going to the throwy shrimp table with like 16 people though so I'm sure the flippy spatula guy will look much more fulfilled to be serving food to so many people. The flipped shrimp won't be wasted in the midst of a cell phone call.

Until later.

-Aaron

Update: The flippy chef was cool, I caught the shrimp, yum, yum!

-Aaron