• Thank you, Mother Nature…

    Oh, goody. Because there’s nothing I want more to be doing on my birthday (and the days immediately following) than dealing with possible snow, possible hail, possible lightning & thunder, probable high winds and a definite downpour. If I was (still) the kind of guy who looked for signs in everything, I’d say the universe in general was trying to tell me something.

    Apparently, that something would include the phrase “don’t forget your inversion-resistant umbrella.”

    Geeky side note: I know some “blog” authors like to use the feature of their chosen software that turns the entry title into part of a unique URL instead of just using the index number, but it doesn’t really work out very well in most cases. The “easier to remember” idea is bunk, ’cause the entry address tends to include things like date information, and who’s going to remember that, eh? Another problem is that the URL tends to be insanely long. The most amusing failing of this technique, however, is the way that longer entry titles get truncated arbitrarily. For instance, “Storm on the Horizon” becomes “storm_on_the_ho.html”.

    Methinks it shall storm on the ho and the non-ho alike.

  • I now know what I want for my birthday this year.

    Forget the Amazon wishlist (to which, I almost briefly hesitate to point out, the link is over there on the left), this Real Life comic is not only damned funny but it also gives me a great idea for what you guys can get me for my birthday, which is only two days away…

    What do you mean, “Spectacularly unrealistic”? Bah! It’s so hard to find good minions these days, I swear.

  • On Self-Deprecation

    Here’s the thing: I, like so many geeklings, have self-esteem issues. This hardly makes me unique. In fact, part of my problem in that arena is my lack of uniqueness. I’ve written whined about this before, of course, but it bears mentioning here because coming to grips with the fact that I’m not demonstrably, markedly better than everyone else in some fashion is one of the keys to accepting who I am. (And dammit, it’s tough. I want to be exceptional in some useful fashion. I want not just to be good at something, but damned good. I’m not, unfortunately.)

    The technique I most often use to deal with my feelings of inadequacy is humor, mostly in the form of pointed barbs at my own expense. I’m quite good at it. In fact, I’m so good that I sometimes find myself in the strange position of being angry at myself so I make a joke at my own expense that’s so funny it makes everyone around me laugh, then everyone cringes apologetically because they realize they’re laughing at my pain, and so I have to absolve them of their guilt. After all, I did say something funny, so it’s natural for them to laugh! (An odd side-effect of this experience is that it takes me “out of myself” in the process, so I’m then less angry at myself. Weird, huh?)

    I may not be in the “stand up comedian” class of funny guys, but I’m not a complete slouch, either. This actually presents me with a challenge when it comes to handling my foibles and failings. My knee-jerk reaction is to joke about it, but that’s not helping anything. Is it? Okay, maybe the ability to laugh about it can help, but not the way I normally go about it. A challenge for me, then, is to find ways to express my frustration through the humor I’m so attuned to without turning it into a jab at myself. It’s a neat trick if I can pull it off, eh?

    Not to say that if I stop making jokes at my own expense I’ll stop facing so many bouts of depression, but every little bit helps.
    (more…)

  • Does this qualify as “filk?” I hope not.

    I went to several minutes’ work to create this little monstrosity for a comment on a LiveJournal entry, so by golly I’m going to inflict it on… I mean, share it with my adoring fans. Sharing is caring, after all.

    To the tune of Midnight Oil’s “Blue Sky Mine.”

    So I’m caught at the website still waiting for torrent posts
    Wipe sweat off my brow, keep on clicking search engines
    Hope the crumbs in my keyboard can keep me for another night
    And if the fansub torrent posting scene won’t come to my rescue
    If the anime dubbing industry won’t save me
    Who’s gonna save me?

    But if I click all day at the torrent site
    (There’ll be files on the hard drive tonight)
    Still I scroll up and down on the torrent site
    (There’ll be high bandwidth usage tonight)

    And some have RAWs from a distant shore
    And the fansubbers take what the fanboy hordes want
    And nothing’s as anxious, as a codec not found…

    No, I didn’t “do” the whole song. Would you want me to? I didn’t think so. Hah!

    For those of you desiring context, you may find it at EK’s LJ post which started things off…

  • Portland Bloggers Monthly Shindig, Friday

    This Friday evening. Backspace, downtown Portland. 6pm to (roughly) 8pm. You know you want to.

    In entirely unrelated news, I’m rekindling my love of language. It helps that I came across this semicolon quiz; I learned a few things and remembered how much I love fiddling with words. Hence the following:

    Me: Gah. Gonna go get grub.
    Me: Whoah. I didn’t actually mean for that to be alliterative.
    Kylanath: bah
    Kylanath: suuuure you didn’t =P
    Me: *blushes*

    [… time passes …]

    Me: Finally freed for food foraging. Currently chomping chicken.
    Kylanath: cool
    Me: (That time, I meant it. Heh.)

    Yes, I’m a big ol’ dorkwad. You knew this already, I suspect, so I can assume that fact doesn’t bother you too much or you wouldn’t still be here…

  • Insert Tired Weather-Based Cliche Here

    Just when you thought 2006 couldn’t be more utterly annoying and frustrating and generally dreadful, you get a note on your door.

    March is going to be a very entertaining month. “It never rains but it pours,” indeed.