disappointment

Nothing makes me want to scream in frustration like the thought of what might have been.

...well, more accurately, the thought of how things are now compared to how I once thought they could be.

The most surprising of these to me... it happened exactly how I thought it would. I didn't want it to happen, but I knew that it would, and after four and a half years I still don't know how to feel about it.

I suppose, all told, this is just what it's like to be disappointed in life... and that's going to happen more, about as surely as the sun's going to come up. If it doesn't, it means Jesus is back. I know that how I deal with it will determine a great deal of how I turn out as a person, and that I'm in God's hands and being moulded in that regard. Even so, my instinctive reaction is still to scream, and it stops me from sleeping.

wedding

So I was playing Fallout 3 and I got two people to get married. I gave the daughter of the galley cook in Rivet City some ant pheromones so she could seduce the acolyte at the local church who she was keen on. Weird, and wrong, i know, but hey. They got married with everyone there, and it was kinda nice. However, my absolute favourite part of the whole thing is how, at the ceremony, she was carrying a big freaking knife in her right hand.

I love weddings.

On a completely unrelated note, Rage is weird. I genuinely mean that. I just found myself staring at it open-mouthed in disbelief of the weirdness.

not 25 things

I feel slightly compelled to ask why everyone is taking up the 25 random things in a note challenge. It's not that I'm confused as to why people would do such a thing - on the contrary, I've blogged for years with the motivation that at least someone in the world would know what's in my head. That part I understand, though I do wonder at its legitimacy. What I wonder about now is the timing and the magnitude. Why now? Why so many? Is there a more profound reason than that it's fun?

back

I'm back at uni right now, just for a bit. No classes of course, just the sandstone and the rain.

I love this place, but I can only assume that in feeling this way I'm suffering from some kind of Stockholm Syndrome. It hasn't been an easy five years, but I can't say I'd rather have spent them anywhere else. My captor has soothed me with old paper and stone, offered me thoughts to sate my curiosities, and tied me up with 5 years of debt that would be useless if I left now.

Sometimes I wish I was potential Ph.D. material. Sometimes... when everything else in life seems even more torturous and less well-defined.

denied

"We're not letting you in. For now." --Facebook

Odd. And possibly not the greatest website error message from a PR viewpoint.

bogart

Too long, world.

At this very moment I'm watching a black and white Humphrey Bogart movie with the sound right down and Pyramid Song by Radiohead playing over the top. Thom Yorke sings "It was nothing to fear, nothing at all" and Bogart kisses the dame. The music builds momentum, tensions build and Bogart drives off... no, I can't describe this well enough. Do it yourself.

It's been a while since I've written much, and I've had the urge for a few days. It's a bit challenging to type at the moment, coz I've only got the use of one of my little fingers. The finger I normally use for the Shift key was taken out of action on Thursday in a commando roll incident. Something stabbed into it mid-roll, which I promptly removed and threw away before ascertaining the nature of it, but not before some kind of toxin was introduced to my gentle white city boy flesh. It's now swollen, pink and bandaged; I'm taking antibiotics and have had a tetanus shot. All from one stinking poorly-executed commando roll.

Wow, a silhouette leaves an injured man in an alleyway as You and Whose Army? draws to a close.

I'm a day's work away from driving buses unsupervised. With my as-yet-limited experience, I have a few words for the general public:
1. Don't drive like a n00b.
2. Don't play chicken with me - you really don't want to lose.
3. Be nice, because it will come back to you and make your day just that little bit nicer :o)
4. If I can hear your iPod from the driver's seat, I will probably laugh at you, though you won't hear it because you're too busy killing your ears.

Hmm... I wonder if anyone who's studied sociology could help me out here. Is it true that we all have equal potential in this society, or is that a myth invented by the upper class and taught to us in school to appease their collective conscience? And from whence comes the sense of difference between classes?

I have decided that prejudice is counter-productive. It certaintly doesn't do me any good to be prejudiced at work, but nor does it help me do my job when I encounter the prejudices of another directed at my uniform. And that's not even taking into consideration the affect of these things on others.

People died weirdly in black and white.

marketing brilliance

Newsflash: I now have a coffee-flavoured computer.

This is an AMAZING potential product. Not only could geeks get their caffeine fix with a simple lick, but it would fill any room with the unmistakeable scent of warm homeliness. A must-buy for the caffeine addict and the discerning real estate agent seeking to add the finishing touch to any house inspection.

Simple to produce: just cough while drinking coffee in front of any normal PC.

I want royalties.

in the other room

Crazy noises:
Guitar, eagles, guns and questions.
Heartbeats, silences, screams and beeps,
Bracketed by plastic music.
fun
empty

All I want to do is write
but I cannot.
Not because of the cacophony.
At least,
not because of the one outside.

To write is to soar,
freer than an eagle,
on thermals high above consciousness;
To take a breath and paint
thoughts as words
before your eyes.
To see with your mind
then speak with your hands.
To create worlds of words;
to pronounce judgment with sentences;
to evince what you desire.

To write would be freedom,
But a stream of consciousness
is all I can muster.
True beauty is wrought of control,
of the deft motions of an artisan's hands
and not of wanton release.
I aspire to gracefulness in words,
to create worlds of my own,
to see sweet black on marvellous white
unfolding the myriad colours of imagination -
my imagination -
before me.

bond

I saw "Quantum of Solace" today. I had heard mixed reports about it - everything from "It was really good" to "It has no plot". So, I sincerely hoped as I went that I would not be sorely disappointed. I was not.

I suspect that most of the disappointment with this movie is due to its breaking with the Bond tradition in one notable way: it is a sequel. None of those in the last decade and a half (the limit of my Bond experiences) have been a sequel, and I don't believe I've heard of any others (correct me if I'm wrong). However, "Quantum of Solace" can only be viewed as a sequel - it is the natural progression of the plot present in "Casino Royale". If viewed on its own, it would be completely unsatisfying. However, remembering "Casino Royale", I found it to be a thorough, enjoyable and satisfying sequel - possibly one of the best sequels I've ever seen. Unless there was an immense plot deficiency in the part I missed when I had a bathroom break, I think the negative commentary I have heard is unfounded, and I recommend you watch it - but only if you have seen "Casino Royale" first.

homicidal food

I saw a frightening sight in Coles today. Five shelves of yoghurt all telling me to die. "Die, die, die..."

Two steps later I realised I was looking at all the "Diet" yoghurt from a surprisingly threatening angle.

They're always telling us that artificial sweeteners will kill us, but I'm pretty sure that's not what they meant.

predominant

I have a question to those of you who are employed:

How long did it take before your work stopped being all you thought about?

I'm already frustrated about how much I talk about it, but it's also frustrating to wake up thinking about it. How long does it take to settle down into something you can safely ignore when you're not there?

Also, happy Christmas to all of you! :o)

self-reflection

"Iain thinks in facebook statuses."

This thought came to me today, after two "Iain is..." statements flashed through my head in a bizarre form of dialogue. I realised then that facebook is actually quite effective at making one think about how they are at any point in time, if that one frequently changes their status. I think this effect is heightened when that one tries to use creativity in their status formulation, since they look around them and into their deeper-than-surface thoughts for material. I'm fascinated by this... it seems relatively innocuous, but over time it has changed how I think. For better or worse, creating a single line of text in the third person at various times in the day has changed how I perceive the world. I don't know whether to be amused or scared... probably both!

In other news, my room echoes when I sniff.

I really enjoyed my time out of the city... I was so relaxed. I was relatively calm [no tired fingers, not clam, calm], happy, and pensive. I even bought myself a little holiday project - an instrument cluster for my car that has a tachometer! Woo! (it's really the automotive equivalent of an oscilloscope on a stereo - it tells you stuff you like to know but don't need to know - meh). I'm going to fit it sometime later this week, once I've figured out how to make the odometer reading match the one in my car so it's all legal and stuff. But yes, calm. I was able to think; this has escaped me over the last few weeks. I don't mean process, I mean think - the kind of thinking one does when one is washing the dishes and just feels like letting their mind frolick for a while. My mind has done some frolicking these last two days, and it's been great.

Also, there is nothing like the bush. I love it. I love that I could sit atop a mountain that sits above a freeway, seeing that freeway dwarfed and insignificant when compared to the vast forested hills and valleys beyond it. Green to grey to black of night... all beautiful.

I was also struck, walking back down the mountain in the dark, with the thought that I am technically a predator. Only in definition, I decided - though we sit atop the food chain, the majority of us have never even had to grow or kill our own food. Food could look me in the face and I'd pat it's head, unless it tried to eat me and then I'd probably run away. Some predator I am.

EDIT: I'm going to Club Veg!!! :oD

slow learners

I found myself wondering today why, after over 200 years of European presence here, we're still using so many European methods. We seem to forget that this country gets very, very hot. We use so many dark colours, we use so much water and recover so little, we don't make use of natural air flow, we dress in suits and ties, and we don't seem to expect the fires that the bush needs. We're pretty much living in a desert, using methods developed in one of the soggiest corners of the earth. I just don't think we've adapted to it very well!

P.S. For some reason I really enjoyed the south-west Sydney heat today. It's dry heat, not sticky. Nice.

P.P.S. I totally smurfed my MR knowledge test today, praise God! Next step: Induction!

second guessing

Something else I aways do is to second-guess the diagnoses of medical professionals.

As an example. I once went to an after-hours GP and was diagnosed with an outer ear infection. I looked it up and disagreed, seeing that my symptoms more closely matched a middle ear infection. My regular GP agreed and I got fixed up good.

Right now, I'm seriously doubting my need for glasses at all. I'm sitting in front of my computer with a bandana (spelling?) tied around my head covering my left eye, giving my right eye a bit of a chance to work. Apart from all the garbage my half-closed left eye is giving my visual cortex right now (funky patters... kinda looks like swarming bacteria), I can actually see letters on my computer's screen clearly. Much better than a few days ago, and no glasses.

Think I'm gonna have a word with my optometrist. First, though, I have to finish this darned essay.

outcomes

I always hypothesise the outcomes of hypothetical conversations.

These conversations aren't very far removed from possibility. Most of them are, in fact, fairly plausible, though I think that over the course of my life (and I have noticed myself doing this for many years), there might have been one time when something I'd hypothesised actually happened. For the most part, they depend on one particular event, or one particular turn in conversation, which is often quite contrived and dependent upon the clear expression of what is going on in my deepest thoughts... a rare occurrence. So at best, these hypotheticals show either what I would like to happen, or what I expect to happen.

When I hypothesise the outcome, it's equally telling. It shows what I want, or what I expect, and generally how much I want or expect it. Often there isn't even a set outcome, but just a sense of it. Whatever the case, it sets forth my feelings before my psyche with false tangibility. This sense of tangibility of the outcome of a conversation actually affects me. It can make me unreasonably angry, or it can make me unjustifiably hopeful. Either way gets me into trouble.

Hypothesised outcomes are hell to deal with when you're working with a limited emotional overhead.

To what extent is the "I'm not here, this isn't happening" approach a rational one? I know it's exceptionally hard to justify, but it's also somewhat instinctive. While the nature of a thing doesn't justify it, I still feel compelled to ask this question as I try to distinguish between healthy emotion and destructive self-pity.

More questions playing heavily on my mind: When did I get so short a fuse? How long is this foul temper going to last? And what can I do about it? What on earth can I possibly do about it? Is there any way I can avoid the hypothetically-concocted outcome?