There’s a magic card called Gifts Ungiven that’s totally awesome. 

This entry has absolutely nothing to do with that card.

I buy a lot of gifts for people. It’s sort of my natural inclination. I like giving people interesting things that I think they will like. Sometimes I guess wrong and get people random stuff that they look at and then look at me and think “is that guy crazy? Why the heck would he get me that!” But most of the time I think I’m pretty good at picking interesting gifts.

But a lot of the gifts I get remain ungiven. I have sort of a stack of them lying in the corner. Gifts I meant to give to people. Things I was going to mail out. I bought them when the thought hit me. When It occurred to me that this or that might make a good gift, or when I knew that person’s birthday or a relevant holiday was coming up, or just at some point when I was thinking about the person.  I saw it and thought, this person will *love* this! So I bought it.  (or burned it, or downloaded it, or made it, etc.) But I never mailed them out.

Why not? Sometimes it’s because I come to think that the gift is somewhat lame after the fact that I bought it. I think, I can come up with a better gift than this! Something more meaningful! Something more interesting!  Other times I come to think that the gift is inappropriate. That it will be seen in the wrong light or give the intended recipient the wrong idea. So I hesitate. I don’t want to send a harmful message. Other times still I think of something else I want to add to the gift and send it in a package. Maybe I want to write a personal note or I want to buy something else that would go great with it, or I want to burn some DVDs or music CDs to send at the same time. Or I want to configure it to make it more useful to the person I am giving it to. Or something like that. Only I never get around to adding that something to it. Or maybe I ordered it and I’m waiting for it to come in the mail or something like that.

And lastly of course, sometimes I just plain forget to send it. I’m so lazy and absentminded sometimes that happens. And when the occasion on which I was supposed to send the gift is long past, it then becomes weird to send the gift now. So I feel weird about it. And I end up thinking maybe I should wait til next year or the next major relevant gift gifting holiday.

Sigh. My ungiven gifts have really been accumulating since I moved out here too.  It’s starting to tick me off. And then I feel a little guilty every time I talk to the person I owe the gift to for not having given them their gift. Sometimes I even end up avoiding communicating with that person because I feel bad about not having given them their gift. That’s stupid I know, but I do that sometimes.

The funny thing is probably by the time I give these people these gifts they may have already bought their own and I’ll end up stuck with a bunch of junk I don’t even really want. Ha! Serves me right.

This guy:






Nokoru Imonoyama


Kicks ass.

He’s from the manga and anime titled: Clamp School Detectives.



Yeah I want to be him when I grow up. Yes I’m aware he’s only 12 and I’m well… somewhat older.   But
he’s awesome. Sort of a cross between James Bond, Bruce Wayne, and
Richie Rich, with something uniquely anime thrown in there for good
measure.



Here are what makes him cool in bullet form:



-  He’s lazy and never does his required work, in fact goes out of his way to avoid it and waits till the last minute whenever possible



-  He’s completely disorganized and randomly loses papers throwing stuff in the trash when he can’t be bothered with it.



-  He’s terrible at sports and athletics. It’s his worst subject.



-  He never cooks (just has others cook for him)



-  He disregards anything that isn’t of immediate importance to him



-  He spends money extravagantly on things like parties and does not ever hold back funds



-  He’s infinitely smooth with language and incredibly polite. A perfect gentleman they say.



-  He’s a super genius with a photographic memory. NASA has been trying
to recruit him since he was very young. And he presents physics papers
on time travel to to the university faculty at the age of 12.



-  He’s super wealthy. He’s the youngest son of the wealthiest family in Japan.



-  He tries not to make many friends and keeps everyone at a distance
because his life is constantly at risk since he’s the son of said
wealthy family and he doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt.



-  He has two incredibly cool friends which he purposefully recruited to be his “crew”. 



One is a pirate (technically a master thief, zorro-esque):

 



And the other is a ninja:





- His crew is specifically chosen to compensate for his own weaknesses.
Akira (pirate) for example is an excellent cook and Suoh (ninja) is
super organized. And both have extraordinary physical prowess. And of
course they are both also exceedingly intelligent.



-  He has a unique super power  that is the capacity to develop
enhanced memory, awareness, senses, and physical capacity when
answering the plea of a woman in distress. For example he can detect a
woman in distress from up to 2 Kilometers away. And he has the daily routines of every woman on campus completely memorized.



-  He doesn’t take anything seriously, except for women in distress



-  He enjoys having fun and messing with people



-  He started a detective agency because he was bored:







Their mission to help any and all damsels in distress of course.



-   He builds a robot replica of himself so he can take a nap under his desk rather than do his work.



-  He always carries a hand fan even though the entire school is
climate controlled. He does it cuz it’s unexpected and it looks cool.
He can make dramatic gestures with it and the likes.





Really this is pretty much one of the most unique and interesting characters I can think of.



Hmm I just need to find two people to be in my crew…

It’s really all this guy’s fault:
 

You see some idiot writer decided to make Vulcans the logical race. OK well that part’s actually pretty brilliant. But then in terms of being “logical” they made Vulcans emotionless. And not just emotionless, but absolutely opposed to emotional expression. That was dumb.

But now we’ve all got it in our head that being emotional is illogical. It’s irrational. And as a result it’s somehow wrong. Or worse it than wrong, it makes us stupid. And we feel this little sense of guilt whenever we express ourselves in an emotional way.

How often do I read blog entries that are all apologetic? “I’m so sorry I wrote this emotional piece” or “I know I don’t usually write emotional stuff like this” and blah blah blah.  And you know it’s really weird cuz generally the emotional entries are often amongst the most popular entries on xanga. So why do people feel bad about it? Same thing in real life. If someone cries or shouts they go all effusive in their excessive apologies. What for?

It’s worse than that too, we critique and attack emotional displays as a society. We do it almost without thinking, it’s become so ingrained in us. Emotional people are oft the product of our scorn and ridicule. It’s in fad to complain about how we don’t like it when people:

gets angry too easily
is too negative
is too giddy
rants and raves and complains too much
is too sappy
whines and moans too much
cries too much
is too “emo”
is too cowardly
is always down or depressed
is too cheerful and happy go lucky
is not serious enough

etc. etc. etc.

All of these are examples of the same complaint really. Stop being emotional! That’s what we are saying to each other. Or at least stop, *showing* us your emotions. Be as depressed or angry or giddy as you want, I just don’t want to see it. That’s right clam up! Shut your mouth, hide in your hole and conform. You’re a Vulcan damn it! Act like one.

Oh wait… if you’re reading this, you probably aren’t a Vulcan.

But even if you were or wanted to be, does it really make sense for us to be so condescending toward emotional display? Why do we get to the point that we feel so disgusted by it? I don’t get it.

It would make sense if it were a social protection mechanism. That is to say, if emotions really are the bane of logic then society needs to encourage people not to exercise them so as ensure that we progress as a people in rational ways.

But is that true? Is Spock right?

I don’t think so.

I can prove it rather easily, actually. Imagine I get into a fight with you and all of a sudden I scream at you in rage and anger something along the lines of:

“IF A IMPLIES B  THEN NOT B IMPLIES NOT A!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Well… did that become not true? Did my anger make it false?  Would it make a difference if I was shivering in fear or floating in a cloud of love sickness?  What if I insert a bunch of random curse words and insults? No? I rest my case then.

So if logic and emotions are not logically opposed, the idea has to be that emotions just make us less likely to exercise our logic.  But I wonder how true that is?  Emotions are definitely motivators. I mean if I get pissed at you chances are I’m going to want to do something about it. But that doesn’t mean I will be motivated to the point that I will act unreasonably. I might. But I might not too. There’s no reason I have to.

Quite the opposite I’d say. Emotions on some level are always our motivators. There is nothing else that can motivate a human being to make any choice.  So in that case emotions are behind both are rational acts *and* our irrational acts. It’s just the irrational ones get all the attention.

Logic without emotions is quite impoverished in fact. If you ignore emotions in all your logical inferences you are in a sense blocking off a whole massive category of information and intuitions upon which to base your decision making processes. A truly logical person would be very cognitive of his or her observations of emotions in his or her self  as well as in others  and would analyze them all equally when determining a logical course of action.  And a logical means of communication between people should involve using emotion evoking terms, phrases, and actions otherwise you are likewise closing off an entire category of expressiveness limiting the amount of information you can confer.

The last point I will make is that far from being helped by it, society is actually harmed when we perpetuate the anti-emotional bias. That is people are hurt in a very concrete and noticeable way when they repress or suppress emotions.

First lack of practice in studying and talking about our emotions makes us emotionally ignorant. That leads to all kinds of conflicts and confusions. We don’t even know or understand what we are feeling cuz we’re taught not to analyze it and not to talk about it. So of course we make poor inferences on the basis of our own emotions let alone that of others.

Second, fear of critique of our involuntary emotional displays makes us all feel ashamed, self-conscious, and limited. We can even get to be depressed. And those feelings can be a barrier to our being happy. Ironically here our anti-emotional bias actually leads to an excess of certain emotions rather than an elimination of them.

Thirdly, obsessive repression of emotions just leads to longer term wilder and more extreme emotional displays where in fact logic is more likely to be left aside. If I try as hard as I can not to get angry, the one time someone really pisses me off I’m likely to really explode in a manner that will probably be destructive and dangerous.

So we’ve just gotta say so long to Vulcanism, abandon our hero Spock, and just stop criticizing everyone for expressing their emotions. We should encourage it. Logic and emotions need not be opposed. They can go hand in hand.

It’s a head with a clubbed tail sort of. This reminds me of some creature from a video game I think but I’m not sure exactly what. Maybe a little like those ball and chain creatures from Mario?

This was supposed to be a flower originally. I’m not sure what it ended up being. It’s something though.

I love these toys. It’s funny though I would probably have never found out about them in my entire life if I hadn’t visited my friends last fourth of July weekend.  I think that was when it was.  Was it really only a year ago? Geez it feels like an eternity. Maybe I’m confused and it was two years ago. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve made that mistake. (<<< absentminded king remember) But anyway if that hadn’t happened then what would I be doing during my free time at work? That’s another debt I owe to those two I guess.

I was never a big lego fan when I was growing up and I didn’t own any. Or any kind of build kits or modeling kits or anything like that. I’m not very artistically minded. Generally I’d say if it isn’t crafted out of words I’m not particularly good at creating it.  That goes for cooking, painting, drawing, and music of all forms.

So I wonder why I love these things so much?  Building things out of them just feels so natural to me. It’s like programming… or messing with software stuff… only actually fun. Maybe it’s a little like building a Magic deck or playing a game like Sim City which I used to love, only in this I don’t have to worry about whether I win or lose or do a good job or not.

Well that was last Fourth of July (I think). It was fun but sort of a sad memory of a bygone era now. But this Fourth of July looks like it might prove to be interesting too. Different city. Different people. But interesting nonetheless. I hope so anyway. But that’s a long ways away now. I’m getting way ahead of myself. I have to finish my work before then.

Hmm last 4th of July I was ridiculously sick hacking and coughing for weeks and months leading up to it and for weeks afterwards. I had a nasty cold and my allergies were the worst they’ve ever been.

And now I’m getting sick again. Huh. History repeating? Well the good news is my allergies have been way waay better since I moved here. Here’s a good rule for you, don’t go to the DC or Delaware valley area if you have allergies. I love the East coast to death, but it’s no good for the allergic.

Yeah I’m still bored and that’s why I’m boring you with a post like this. 

And yeah I did all those things I said I should do but didn’t want to do including go to work.  Aren’t I awesome?

I should probably write an interesting blog entry or two, respond to comments, emails, facebook messages, and post comments on other people’s blogs and pulses and I don’t know… do stuff I guess.

But I just don’t feel like it.

And I really really really don’t feel like going to work today. I will of course. But I won’t be very productive.  It’s not like I’m tired. It was a busy weekend but I don’t feel at all tired. In fact I’m wide awake and up early enough to get to work early if I want like I prefer to do.

And yet I do think I might be coming down with a cold. Or something. Maybe that’s the cause of this lethargy.

Some anonymous reader(s) has clicked on like a gazillion blog entries of mine over the last few days. I despise footprints. They are an evil thing.  Cuz whenever anyone reads something I wrote and I *know* that they read it even if it might be a stranger or a bot for all I know I always end up going back and rereading or skimming it myself and that’s just no good.  I don’t like reading my own writing. heh. But I don’t mind strangers reading my blog and I’ll never lock it.

“I don’t want to think about tomorrow”

Eh. That’s not exactly true. It’s more like I have no thoughts about tomorrow. Or maybe tomorrow just doesn’t seem interesting enough to inspire thoughts.

I have many foibles. I won’t mention them all here because in my experience people give you really odd looks if you say more than one thing bad about yourself in any given conversation.  But of all my many foibles my very favorite is that I am probably most likely the most absentminded person of my age group on the planet. I’ve yet to meet anyone who can come close to matching me.

Why do I say this is my favorite foible? Why because it makes for such interesting and funny stories! Well maybe not funny to anyone else but they amuse me to death in a dark and twisted way. Being absentminded is fun. Really it is.

Let me tell you about a single evening in the life of abensetmindedness king and maybe you’ll see why I like it so much. This is a true story.

One day I decided to go out one evening and get fast food. So I jumped in my trusty Suoh (I just renamed my car that) and drove on down to McDonalds. Well first I had to stop and get gas cuz I forgot to do that earlier but that’s no biggie. I make it to McDonalds all in one piece.

So far so good. I ordered a meal, they made me wait. Eventually I got my food drove all the way home, up the stairs to my apartment, sat down, ate my food and then I think…

Man I thirsty.

I’m really really thirsty.

Wait a minute, why am I so thirsty?  I ordered a value meal. Damn it! They forgot my drink!

grrr. 

Well I’m not about to go all the way back to get the soda now. So I check the trusty fridge to see what there is to drink. 

And I find… Orange Juice… only it’s expired. I forgot to drink it.  And then I look further and find…. Milk. Guess what?

Hmm…  Water maybe? I look in the fridge, my water filter pitcher isn’t there. Oh yeah there it is the sink I was going to wash it. I guess I forgot.  I look in the freezer. No ice. I guess I forgot to make any. Luke warm non-filtered water today?  Nah.

Suoh! Come! I have another mission for us!

And we’re off to the supermarket. Now I thought this was a damnably brilliant idea. Cuz not only could I get something to drink and alleviate my thirst right now but I could stock up on non-expired liquids and maybe even buy some *actual* food so I don’t have to get fast food in the future. It’s a win win win situation! Am I wrong? Thank god super markets are open 24 hours.

I drive all the way down, grab a cart, fill it with junk go to the check out aisle…

“That’ll be <insert some price here> ” says the cashier.

I confidently reach for my wallet…

“Umm… Uhhh… Shit!”

Of course I forgot my wallet. Sigh. No I don’t have any other means to pay on me whatsoever.

I drive all the way back home cursing Suoh for not reminding me to grab my wallet. No it’s not Suoh’s fault, but he can take it.

I get out the car walk all the way up the stairs to my apartment and…

Where’s my wallet?

I spend like twenty minutes tearing through my apartment looking for my wallet. No luck.

Finally I go back downstairs and lo and behold… of course! There it is right in my car. Right where I put it when I took it out to pay for the McDonalds. It was there the entire time.  I just forgot.

Sigh.

Back to the supermarket. Bought the food. No further mishaps. It’d be funny if I got home and had bought the food but forgot to buy something to drink wouldn’t it? Haha. But no… that didn’t happen this time. Could have though. I wouldn’t have been surprised.

In retrospect I could have drank some tea but I forgot I had any!

And that’s the story. It took me like two hours altogether. Just to get a meal. I really wasn’t that upset though. I’m used to it. It’s just the way I am. And like I said it makes for interesting stories.

That night I also sat down to read my manga but I left it in the car of course and had to go down to get it. But eh. That’s just a normal occurrence and doesn’t really add to the story. By now you should get the idea. I’m really really absentminded. 

On the plus side during that whole endeavor I was also lost in thought and managed to completely compose in my head an essay on the nature of anti-emotional bias that will one day become a blog entry here, provided I can remember to write it!

Anyway, hope you all are doing well.

Happy Weekend everyone!

I brought in toys to work. Yes the boss said it was ok. They help me think sometimes. I just need something to do with my hands. I’m a fidgiter.

At first I started with a weird circular shape and put it on a tower. Then for some reason I decided to knock it over on it’s side. That’s when I started to see it might look better as some sort of a bug or something. So I built out the other “wing”, added some feet or feelers or something so it could stand up and here you have it.

 

I still had pieces left over so I started messing around first adding antennas and a short tail but then I turned the antennas into a full fledged head piece.  I’m not sure what it looks like now.

 

I tweaked the head a little then my boss suggested I add points to the wings. Doing that almost made the whole creature fall apart since the wings were now too heavy to be supported by the feet.  So I removed the feat and used them plus the remaining left over pieces to make the longer club tail. Then I had it rest on one wing. It’s sort of draconic is it not? Yeah in a lame sort of way I know. But it’s a first attempt anyway =]

And so goes another productive day at work.

(ps note the books in the background, those alone should be explanation enough for why I have so much free time on my hand. certain programming languages are so powerful they almost do all your work for you.)

Sometimes I look back and I think the most hurtful things I ever said or have ever been said to me were also the nicest. And at the time, they also seemed the truest.

So what exactly is sincerity I wonder?

In the manga Chobits there’s this manager character who is described as always sincere in everything he does. I hate that guy. But even more I hate the main character who is the “good guy”. I have an irrational overwhelming dislike for him.

And that’s not even why I don’t like the series.

Sincerity though… I think Chobits trivializes it. Makes it seem easy.

It’s more than just truth or honesty or intent. It’s more than the desire for the words to be true or to be believed. It seems like… it’s even harder to be sincere than to be certain, harder even than to know. And I wonder if it’s even a good thing to be sincere. Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s dangerous.

There was a story once I read, it seems like a long time ago now. The story was oh so short. Really not much of a story so much as a lesson and though I don’t and didn’t know if it was directed at me specifically, it had a direct impact on me as I could relate strongly to the lesson being taught. It was a lesson I needed to learn. A way of thinking I hadn’t fully understood but felt I needed to. A lesson about the dangers of words.

I said that too, when we talked about it. It’s the words that were the problem. I could see it so clearly. But it hurt to think about it too. The scope of that hurt I thought I might have caused with words was almost unimaginable. I’ve only ever heard of one case as bad.

And no, the story wasn’t really about words either…

Words, I came to see, forge a sort of link between speaker and listener. They are more than just the meaning behind them. They are even more than the sentiment expressed. There’s sort of a bond forged. A trust. Sincerity, I think, reflects a kind of fealty to that trust. To honor it. It’s like… every spoken sentence needs to be more than a assertion, more like a sort of an oath. To say it means to accept it, to believe it, and the intent to follow through as consistently as you are able with the words spoken. To act in accordance with that statement as if it were a inviolable truism. And, indeed, to act in accordance with many many unspoken words implied by the ones said.

That’s why the same words, or even similar words spoken to two different people can be a cruel thing to do, even if the statements are literally true and non-contradictory and even equally strongly believed by the speaker. You are in a sense, breaking the unity of the trust. Violating your oath. The words lose their specialness. They are no longer something meaningful shared between the two entities. No matter how eloquent and well chosen the words may be, they become… just empty words…

These days I am far more cognitive of these truths than I have been in the past. I think about that story well just about every day, though you’d think such a little event would have long since fallen out of my consciousness.  But now I find myself with another bind. I find myself hesitating all the time. Everything I want to say or write I hesitate. Every real question I want to ask, I halt myself. I wouldn’t want to hurt someone again by being sincere now, if it will prove insincere in the future. I’m trying not to forge any oaths I can’t keep. I’m trying not to build bonds any closer than they can stand to be. But it feels terrible holding back from saying what I want to say.

And still I know I don’t do a good job of it. I’m naturally a reckless word-slinger. I love words. I use them to express myself. Really, to be myself. Saying certain things, writing certain things, in a certain way, are a part of who I am. And I don’t believe in forging light or insignificant bonds either. I’m not much for empty conversations. They bore me to death.

But many many times I think I’ve said or written too much and too quickly. Exactly the words that first pop in my head. The ones that I think the subject will benefit from hearing. The words I believe. The words that are true. But still, I am very cognitive of the harm they could be causing. Are almost certainly causing. And still I can’t really learn the lesson. Not fully. And I end up feeling like I’m hurting people with kind words over and over again.

Or maybe I don’t really understand it at all. This idea of sincerity is just beyond me. Maybe I need another lesson.

This is a random little thing I’ve always wanted to be able to do in Xanga. I don’t know if anyone else would want it or even care but it bothers me to no end. 

Every once in a while somebody will make a post on their xanga to which I am subscribed and it will just… annoy me.  Or even sometimes disgust or repulse me. Sometimes a particular post I disagree with so strongly that I just don’t want to ever see it again.  It’s not that I have anything against the poster or that I want to be unsubscribed to his or her blog. It’s just that this particular entry doesn’t sit well with me. I want it gone. Perhaps it has pictures or graphics or music or video that disgusts or disturbs me. Or perhaps it is discussing a topic that I don’t like or care about, or expressing an opinion that I so strongly disagree with that I cannot find the words to express my dissent. Or perhaps it is just something that I feel, in particular is directly offensive to me. An attack on me directly, either personally, or as a categorical representative of a stereotype. It may be against my faith or against my principles or against my traditions. I may just feel as if it is against me, as if the fates themselves were conspiring to just tick me off.

Whatever the reason, I just don’t like it. And sure, I guess I could mod it down and give it one star or no stars and maybe post a hate filled comment describing how violently opposed I feel to what is being said. But why would I want to do that? It might give me some momentary sense of satisfaction, but in the long run it only hurts me. It’s not like I want to make enemies. Not really. And usually, as I’ve said, it is a post on a person’s blog whom I otherwise respect and admire and enjoy reading the posts of. So it’s not like I want to unsubscribe or ban this person either.

No. The issue is just this *one* post. So what I want to do is block or collapse this one post. I want to get rid of it. I want it out of my sight. That way it won’t keep ruining my good cheer, depressing me or making me feel bad about my life or the universe in generally. I don’t want to see it as I page through my subscription list. I dont’ want to see it when, god forbid, others recommend this post to me. And if it makes the featured content, I’d happily not see it there either or when I browse that person’s blog directly I’d love it if it was invisible to me.  In short, it is just my personal desire to see it gone. I don’t like it. I don’t believe in it. Even if everyone else loves it and thinks it’s the best thing since sliced bread. I don’t.  I have no interest in ruining anyone else’s fun. But shouldn’t I have the ability to preserve my own happiness?

It always seems like this for, that several related posts like that get posted all at once. Like it’s a fad or something. Everyone posting the same BS that I reject and jumping on the bandwagon to annoy me. It’s probably not intentional and certainly has nothing to do with me personally, but it still manages to bother me. Experiences like this make me want to walk away from Xanga for a few days and not sign on again until the fad is over.

It might not even be that I want to get rid of it forever too. It might be circumstances that had happened to me lately that makes this particular post offensive to me. In a month or a year I might rethink my position and not be offended. I might want to read it again and I might be able to find the intended humor in it without feeling as if the entry was a direct slap in the face. I might even want to go back and make myself reread it if I think there is an object lesson there for me to learn.  But in the here and now, I want none of that. I just want it GONE! Go Away! Leave me alone! Out of my sight! You evil xanga posts from the abyss!

That’s why I would love it if the subscription browser in xanga had a little button on the side where you could hide a post which will collapse it to a tiny little miniscule representation of itself, which I can then click on again to unhide it again. A hidden post would be invisible to me. I wouldn’t get recommendations for it, or emails regarding it,  or see it as I browse the user’s blog (except for the placeholder). A hidden post would be as unobtrusive as possible. But still there. And it wouldn’t effect my perusal of any other xanga entry.  Also collapsing entries in this way would make general perusal of xanga blogs in my subscription list go much faster. I could collapse anything that doesn’t immediately catch my interest.

So is it just me who thinks that way? Or would others benefit from this? Or do all of you never find an entry that irks you in this way?

Anyway, that’s just one random feature request I always wanted Xanga to have.

Implement it tomorrow please!  

Thanks!

Let’s try a boring journal-like post today:

Last weekend was completely laid back. It was peaceful and quiet in the good kind of way.

I spent most of the days caught up in browsing the internet and chatting online. Really it’s amazing how much time can be wasted just online. I wasn’t even doing much Xanga-ing which we all know can be a huge time sink. Nor was I playing facebook games which can be similarly addictive. Or any online games. I was just browsing the web. Just browsing and reading and chatting and downloading. That’s it. That was the entire weekend.

OK so that’s not ALL I did this weekend. I managed to run some necessary errands, pay my bills, clean up my kitchen and bathroom, and do other tedious day to day activities that bore me to death. It felt good to get them out of my way though. I also wasted a lot of money ordering stuff on ebay. As my friend constantly says, “Ebay is Evil”.

I don’t really watch TV, but I did manage to watch 1-6 of season 4 of Battlestar Galactica. That show is as crazy and twisted as ever. The weird pseudo-religious themes that have been present all along are becoming even stronger now.  And I have no idea what is going to happen next which is just the way I like it. It’s a good show. Dark as hell though and I understand why a lot of people hate it.

I also watched the last couple of episodes of Bleach to be fan subbed. The stupid fillers continue. -_-   But these fillers aren’t as bad as the last filler arc at least. And no where near as bad as Naruto fillers.

I read some too. I finished Card Captor Sakura manga part one on Friday and that was beautiful and awesome and I loved it. I also finished Chobits manga on Saturday.  That… I don’t know. I think I need to write a whole entry just on it. I found it unsettling overall.  I tried to read some Clamp School and X/1999 on Sunday but I couldn’t really get into it. I think maybe I’ve reached my clamp limit for a while. Luckily I have a lot of other Manga I can read.

I found out D&D 4E came out. I’ve been out of it so I didn’t really notice. I haven’t played in a long time. I downloaded the new version to take a look though. I haven’t had a chance to look at it, but I’m sure I will derive hours of amusement reading the hate filled bile spewed at the creators of D&D on the D&D related forums. That’s always fun.

On Sunday one of my online friends convinced me to do some online roleplaying with them. Now I’ve only role played online a couple of times before so I had no idea what I was doing really. But it was fun nonetheless. Really similar to collaborative story telling and brainstorming ideas together for books, something I love to do and I’m always trying to get my other friends to do more of.

This time we did a weird Naruto alternate reality role play. [Begin Spoilers] Basically we had Sakura die during the Sasuke retrieval arc. But this death keeps Sasuke from joining with Orochimaru. He feels deeply guilty over her death. Also casualties include Kiba, Tenten, Kankuro, and Chouji’s Dad. And Kakashi is missing and presumed to be dead. All of this happened when the Kyuubi got unleashed and during the fight with Orochimaru and much of Konoha was devastated.  But Orochimaru was eventually defeated and killed by Naruto and Sasuke working together.  And three years later, Konoha is plagued by constant war, Hinata and Ino have been training directly under Tsunade and Naruto and Sasuke have been training directly under Jiraya.  All of the characters have been radically changed mentally and emotionally by the events of the past and radical change is about to occur. [End Spoilers]

I know it’s a pretty clumsy plot line but it was the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment.  But it was fun to role play the mission assignment and all that which is all we got through yesterday. I’m looking forward to continuing it, but I also want to get back to some of the more original stories I’ve been working on and come up with some more. Not sure when I’ll have time to do it all.

It was weird also that a bunch of people I hadn’t heard from in a while happened to contact me again. Old friends and family. I missed most of the phone calls though. But I answered emails and chats at least a little. Not sure what it was about last weekend that made everyone feel like reaching out to me. But then I guess it rubbed off cuz I reached out to another friend who I hadn’t heard from in a while that weekend too. I probably shouldn’t have though.

I still haven’t set up my video game consoles. And I’ve got a lot of packages I’m supposed to mail out that I haven’t done. But I was feeling really lazy about it this weekend. I’m also suppsoed to be fixing computers. And I did do a little of work on that, but  not a lot. It’s annoying cuz I need  to  disconnect my internet  connection to work on it and I hate being disconnected. I’ll probably try to finish that today and tomorrow though.

I was taught a little lesson on smileys and how to read music. Heh. Two things I should have known a lot about a long time ago. I felt stupid learning these things now but I was grateful to have someone actually be willing to explain it to me.    The same person also tried to teach me how to let go… but I haven’t really learned that lesson completely quite yet.

I burned a bunch of music CDs and ripped a bunch of music CDs I borrowed too. The ones I burned were mostly utada hikaru CDs and a few others.

And I ate pizza all weekend long and slept a lot.

That’s pretty much the entirety of my weekend.

Overall it was a good weekend.

And now back to work.