January 2, 2008

• Year in Review – My Away Messages

  It’s been a long year I think. Lots has happened. Too much maybe. I wanted to go back and rethink all the things that had happened this past year to look back at how I’ve felt and how I’ve changed so that I might be better prepared for the future.

  But my memory sucks.

  I have my blog entries but they are remarkably useless. I spent so much energy and effort into writing them and they all mattered so much to me at the time, but I’m surprised at how little in the way of my old memories they invoke. Plus they are a pain in the butt to read. It takes forever.

  But I found something else I can use to sort of give a snapshot look at the year that has gone past. This past year I’ve been keeping a log of my away messages or trying to. I use gtalk primarily for my IMs (and gaim and skype and msn and yahoo occasionally – why can’t everybody be on the same damn network?!?). As far as I know gtalk doesn’t archive my away messages but it lets you put whatever you want really easily. So I tend to put something there that reflects my thoughts or experiences at the time. And I like to put weird and clever stuff or at least stuff that I think is clever. I also like to use it to sort of send messages to people who I know. Not important messages, just random stuff. 

  Anyway, since gtalk doesn’t archive them or I don’t know how to pull up the archive if it does, I started to keep my own log. Unfortunately I only started this half-way through the year and I think I lost a lot of the really good ones from earlier in the year. Still I found it interesting enough in review and it was a good way to look back at the past year and see what happened in a quick and easy to read format.

  So I thought I’d share it. The list that I have so far. I’ll probably keep a list for next year too. Maybe I’ll make this sort of a yearly ritual for me.  BTW if I reused an away message on this list it appears only once. So it isn’t exactly chronological, but it’s pretty close.

  Here goes my list:

  • there’s nothing like killing monsters and level building to take one’s mind off of the world’s problems
  • reading crazy things while listening to crazier things
  • lost in thought
  • in a strange land
  • listing little likenesses in linear lightstreams
  • only the inhuman fail to fear the future, only the witless fail to fear the past
  • which is better – watching and waiting, or acting and reacting? Maybe the best is sleeping and waking up
  • if i had exactly three days for every one day everybody else had, everything would be perfect…
  • i am the greatest procrastinator in the world and nobody better ever forget that!
  • dealing with blocks and stones and worse than senseless things…
  • who turned ‘escalate’ into a bad word?
  • i feel naked without something clever written here
  • if i could travel through an infinite number of dimensions I think I’d still just stay in this one…
  • all my energy is lost… come back you!
  • wasting time endlessly…
  • off to buy a phone
  • skyping with the traveler
  • “another day, another dollar”
  • searching for universal peace
  • writing (unimportant)
  • writing (semi-important)
  • writing (trivial)
  • trickery and trust may well be two sides of the same coin
  • and if it was wrong for years and nobody cared…
  • .why is it immature to play video games at work but not immature to have a limbo contest at work?
  • My RL fortune today: “You will have a pleasant trip”
  • and so it was
  • fully materialized yet again
  • “i live to serve you”
  • koders vs krugle vs google/codesearch
  • i wanna go home!
  • walking
  • writing (journal)
  • waking up sleeping
  • an
    estimate is by definition when one intends to complete something cast
    as lie about when one is capable of completing something since nobody
    knows the later until it is completed
  • security is just an excuse to give developers a hard time
  • off to see ratatoiulle finally
  • is everyone nicer than they appear or do they try to appear nicer than they are?
  • goodbyes are so annoying
  • anger, sadness, fear, regret, doubt,
    hypocrisy, and shame may well be as much or more virtues as loyalty,
    courage, temperance, selflessness, justice, love, and wisdom.  Let us
    not forget to exercise them.
  • the only nightmare worse than knowing what people really think about you is not knowing what people really think about you
  • not exactly lost in a land that is not exactly all that strange
  • wondering why i never noticed how disturbed the world is
  • magic meandering moths made mystic motorcycles more morbid
  • the thing about living on a sphere is that the faster you run away from something the faster you end up running toward it
  • the
    most common mistake of the clever (or those that think that they are
    clever) is to over-intellectualize their problems and the problems of
    others. Believe me. I know.
  • some things I think if I am damned if I do them but sainted if I don’t,
    I’d still do them just because I have to know what the consequences are.
  • if i could meet my ten year old self, i’d smack him upside the head so hard i might accidentally decapitate him
  • crab cakes
  • “It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward”
  • good old lectures
  • “From
    yesterday to today and from today to tomorrow, realite marchez on” 
  • with all the billions of people in the world, is it the case that at
    any given moment someone somewhere is having the exact same thought I
    am? If not, how many people would you need to have for that to be the
    case?
  • “some are born great, others have greatness thrust upon them”
  • practice test 1
  • score 1… ass
  • hammer < bat < chainsaw < katana
  • rich dad, poor dad, scam artist son?
  • huh, i stink at magic now
  • practice test 2
  • score 2… ass, but not quite as bad ass.
  • it’s so strange that we are so finite
  • my post got featured, that’s insane. people are crazy
  • i’m considering the gasoline canister and match approach to packing. ugh this is such a pain.
  • fun, fun, fun, 2.7 mile walk, $117
  • just pushed the ROB button
  • not even half way ready for the future. Time to turn back time. Where’d I put that time machine.
  • silly trials have ended now will the new journey truly begin?
  • Life is so sad sometimes. I’ll fix that. <casting spell> 1…2…3… EVERYBODY CHEER UP!! There. That’s better.
  • rapid rancid rabbits ran rampantly rousing raking rams
  • 1000000 STRONG!
  • Beowulf 3D!
  • if
    you hear someone shouting “somebody help me!” in the night, is it wrong
    to stop and grab your glasses and cell phone before running out?
  • BestBuy is full of BoneHeads
  • hooking up my free tivo
  • Looking for Inspiration
  • Wishing for Motivation
  • Back in Lord Penn’s Kingdom not so very far away from where those creatures known as swatties are said to dwell
  • formality and ceremony
  • someone
    said “you look really uncomfortable”. I thought I looked like I always
    look. So the question is, do I always look uncomfortable?
  • back to life, back to reality, and back to sleeping too
  • “it’s just a thought, only a thought…”
  • I GET IT already Goodkind! Richard = Good. Jagang = Bad. No need to repeat it every other f-ing page!
  • there’s a fine line between giving it your all and overexerting
    yourself, but usually when you are about to collapse is a good sign
    that you may have crossed that line…
  • time flows like a river and history repeats
  • white fire flows from the heavens and the earth is scorched to icy ash
  • agile amethyst argyles argued amongst amateur ardent augers
  • if you believe that everybody dies alone, then you have to believe
    the corollary that nobody is ever *not* alone. I think that’s crap.
  • one of my fondest childhood memories is lying in bed watching the story
    unfold as my brother played through an rpg. Sometimes games are more
    than “just” games to people.
  • trying to try through trials has yielded trouble so maybe trying without trying to try will prevail over travails
  • off to asian grocery store
  • i wonder what it would feel like to be in a real fight and get my ass kicked, maybe it would be fun
  • free batteries!
  • even though i’ve got plenty of batteries now, I still feel as if I’ve got no energy
  • mysteries abound
  • trying to acquire command and conquer 3….
  • my xbox360 ATE my Halo3!!!
  • shit, now my xbox360 won’t play any games… RMA time
  • WTF! My console is outside of manufacturer warranty!?!?!?
  • maybe I’ll switch to PS3 afterall…
  • why do i feel so tired on days when i haven’t done anything
  • project for awesome, i love weird stuff like this
  • who would have thought that I could play guitar hero and rock band type games so much that I would start to dream about them
  • i’m thinking about going giftless this xmas, instead i’ll pick a random date and give everybody gifts on that day
  • sometimes i feel as if I went to sleep too soon, other times I feel as if I should never have gotten up
  • “success depends on those matters over which you have control, not matters where you have no control”
  • Christmas eve is kinda boring these days. must be cuz i’m old now.
  • People are too indirect for me. I just don’t get them.
  • merry consumerism day!
  • holiday spirit? why would you have to wait until the holiday to have a spirit?
  • no mater how many times I try it is impossible to defeat Air Man!
  • it was a silly holiday but I love it anyway and thank god it’s over
  • de,md,pa – i’m tired of these three states
  • ever wonder when people are talking about you?
  • back in Bethesda, with packs, ready to game!
  • home, home on the couch
  • i am legend! – look at the butterfly
  • sometimes i wonder if one’s fate for an entire year could be determined by the first few days of it
  • it’s strange the far reaching consequences of a single deception
  • holidays are finally over, disaster averted, the world didn’t end, the
    universe kept on plotting along. Here’s to a new and better future for
    all of us!

  There. That’s all I have logged. I’m sure I lost a lot just forgetting to write them down but even that selection brings back a lot of memories and gives me a lot to think about.

  Oh well, here’s to the future!

  • 2:38 am
  • 2 Comments