Pendulum Fall —
A little bass riff/loop I came up with. Yesterday I came up with a melody to go over this, may post that later.
Grunge —
I was born in 1980 so my pre teen and teenage years were heavily influenced musically by grunge. While my first tapes purchased (apart from the oldies tapes my parents gave me for a radio + tape player mini jukebox for my birthday) were Appetite For Destruction, Alice Cooper and Weird Al, one of my first CDs were Nirvana’s Nevermind. I remember sitting on my living room floor one day looking at the insert and reading the bandmember’s names and the instruments they played.. “Bass” by Krist Novoselic..what’s bass? lol.. I remember hearing Pearl Jam at my friend Travis’s house, where one of the songs Eddie Vedder belted out an F bomb. It was love at first listen. Rebellious, electric, raw, grungy rock …everything I wanted to be.
With SoCoRock, Cool Mic, being a musician and general music and technology addict, I was really drawn in by the documentary. I grew up and loved the music and bands they focused on – Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana.. but it really brought it all together into a story that made the whole grunge movement make complete sense. Seattle, an economically struggling area, cold, wet, far from any other major areas.. harvested a completely unique music scene with its roots in the music itself. Kids that were music fans hung out and figured out how their drums, electric guitars, etc. worked in musty wet garages. All day. Every day.
The scene grew seemingly with groups of friends that were into music simply hanging out together. When Mother Love Bone shot for the stars and really pushed to glorify what was going on there (along with Andrew Wood’s unfortunate Heroine overdose and subsequent death), with Sub Pop Records coming in to promote Seattle and Grunge to far away lands and the feedback loop starting between Britain and the U.S., the media had a feeding frenzy on the organic, raw nature of a completely new scene that was trying to fill a vacuum left by the charismatic Wood. Soundgarden jumped from Sub Pop to a major label first, followed by Nirvana..
The legendary one-time super project was formed and comprised of Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell (who was a good friend and former roomate of Wood), Matt Cameron (drummer from Soundgarden), Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard from Mother Love Bone, called Temple of the Dog. Temple of the Dog was a direct lyric of Wood’s “Man of Golden Words” which I never knew – and both songs, “Say Hello To Heaven” and “Reach Down” were dedicated to him. TotD gives me many memories musically – one takes me back to my dad’s house when I remember using his high-speed dual-cassette recorder to make a dubbed copy of the cassette I must had borrowed from a friend.
I never knew Pearl Jam as a band that took a lot of shit for ‘riding Nirvana’s wave’ so to speak. When the remaining Mother Love Bone members met up with San Diego’s Eddie Vedder, they were accused of becoming popular on the wave that was already being generated. What hypocrisy, I thought, as if it weren’t for the members, a lot would have been different.
Of course those memories are my own and personal to myself and watching this documentary really brings a lot of perspective to the music that created them and influenced me growing up. A whole genre that centered around bringing yourselves up on something real and that means something to you, and then immediately when it’s about to pop, tragedy.. it makes sense. Nothing can possibly create more genuine music than that. And when the media came in and started creating an atmosphere of illusion by getting signed, being a celeb and the whole “rock star” status, most of them scoffed and told them to fuck off. Unfortunately being able to handle stardom itself was difficult for such pure musical souls so addiction was common and unfortunately Heroin’s abundance in Seattle caused many of the best to drop off the face of the Earth.
To me, grunge was the latest in real musical movements. I feel a lot of nostalgia toward it today and I see a lot of style going back to it even here in Hidden Valley – plaid over t-shirts, ripped up jeans/shorts, the whole look is all around with teenagers. Just a while ago driving by Santa Rosa High school I saw a kid walking with a Nirvana shirt on. It made me smile and have hope for the next rock revolution, which I don’t think is far off. I’m going to do my best to make sure I’m a part of how it happens.
Dream Brother —
Last night I went back in time
Met my brother, classroom outside
He was glad to see me
He thought I was forty
These spaces are so easy
I can move about them freely
And I need to show you somehow
I need to show me somehow…
We aren’t locked in here
This distress is self-inflicted
We are a picture painted once
And live it through this dimension
We suffer through dementia
Our sense of time, amnesia
Looking ahead as always
Not realizing we move backwards
He wasn’t surprised to see me
He was excited, smiling
As if he knew it was me
And through this self-determined dreamstate I wandered, like many times before
Looking to my childhood
Wanting to know more
But he knew more
We can travel time in this consciousness
And I will figure out just how
I will tell you the future of now
Precognition is getting stronger
I know you see it in me
But I am still learning the ropes
So please go easy… on me
Let’s slowly remember our abilities
And stop this ruthless game
I would simply die if I saw us crumble
Before we actually changed
Is this picture painted?
Or can we change it along the way?
Keep me informed, smart and strong
Let me show you the way
(Written in 2012/03)
Fear —
“Look closely at the challenges humanity has been struggling with. What is the root cause of the environmental destruction, the poverty and inequality, crime, racism, terrorism, economic instability, mindless consumerism, endless wars and skyrocketing military spending?
These problems exist because the most powerful human cultures and civilizations have propagated a world view that presents life as a never-ending war between opposing forces- a struggle between good and evil, man and nature, friend and enemy, “us” vs. “them.”
Such dualistic thinking can serve a useful purpose at times, but creates chaos, inequity, unhappiness and instability when allowed to continuously dominate people’s lives.
For thousands of years, those in power have sought to perpetuate mindsets of competition, insecurity, scarcity and fear among the masses, in order to maintain their “ruling” positions. Nationalism, militarism, materialism, sexism, racism, colonialism, slavery, industrialization and consumerism are culturally conditioned ways of thinking and behaving rooted in a competitive and cold hearted view of fellow human beings and the natural world.
Like Adam & Eve, we continue to feed one another the lie of good vs. evil, rather than sharing the true story of ourselves as sisters and brothers, magical children of the Tree of Life. It’s almost as if the human family has been living under a spell, brain-washed and hypnotized to live in fear, to close our hearts to greater generosity, joy, wisdom, creativity, cooperation, peace and compassion…”
~Christopher Chase
Excerpt from:
Perpetual Curse of the Warrior Mindset
https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/…/perpetual-…/
Balance —
When I was a kid I’d watch this movie because it was about a boy coming of age, learning how to kick ass and get a hot girlfriend. Little did I know that back then, the things I paid less attention to would soak in and manifest in my mind for years..to sprout later in life to reveal some of the most important things anyone can learn in their lifetimes. Balance is one of those things.
My ongoing practice of Tai-Chi, meditation, healthy habits of the mind, body and soul have brought me to a place that I enjoy thinking is at a higher plane than I would be if I did not practice them. I think of the inevitable, the mystery of beyond this physical world and how what I am practicing is preparing me for that journey when I leave. With no thought of my ego, of fear or implications of events to come, I embrace these practices as knowledge… tools I will utilize in the next steps to self manifestation and the journey of everything, before, in, and after this moment. I am not without fault; I am constantly re-training, re-learning lessons I have learned thousands of times before through the same practice. From simple things like how to brush my teeth with my left hand, how to keep my eyes closed and balance one one leg while cleaning the other…and more philosophically, how to slow down, relax and embrace life with an open heart. I have found that honing these skills helps me with the things I care about most in my life – being a good husband and father. It also helps immensely with dealing with stress with work and simply with myself and being able to process the constant influx of analyzing of the past, present and future.
As Mr. Miyagi said, the lesson of balance is not just for karate… it is for your whole life.
Fractals —
Clock is ticking for magnetic tape archival —
Soon, these will all be unplayable, even for one-time digitizing efforts. So much history is kept on these, both of personal and public record. Music, interviews, documentation, even data such as programs and files for computers that utilized them as a primary media for loading and saving (Commodore comes to mind in particular).
Here is a great article on efforts and techniques to expedite the process of tape archival. From the article:
“The Cultural Heritage Index estimates that there are 46 million magnetic tapes (VHS, cassette, and others) in museums and archives in the U.S. alone—and about 40% of them are of unknown quality. Many of these tapes are reaching the end of their playable lifetime, and given the limited number of studio-quality tape players available for the digitizing process, not all the tapes will be digitized before the world loses them.”
RTFM —
*Growl* —
Changing the world is hard, but I’m gonna fucking do it even if it kills me. I will not give up. I will not settle. I will not compromise.
Nerd? —
Is it bad that I think after a long day of Linux sysadmin projects, I feel that I need to ‘unwind’ by cutting the excess slack off of my primary Internet Ethernet cable and re-crimp a new RJ-45 end onto it (with sleeves! Woo!), so it looks nice and tidy going from my firewall to my cable modem?
I am a Laser —
I’ve had this idea brewing since 2011. It has manifested, evolved, shaped itself through my constant attention and dedication. I have a firm grip on my vision and its potential.
I know, and have known for a very long time that my project is *huge*. I say this with as little bias as possible – I consider myself a very modest person. I try to cover all of my bases, especially when it comes to dedicating so much of my time to a project I believe will succeed.
So after years of mulling over, perfecting, re-perfecting, trying to gather interested parties to team up with…to see another project spark itself out of the blue (and believe me, I’ve done my research) and gain instant traction and popularity worldwide; a project that hits so close to my project’s vision that it’s scary… it makes me very, very uneasy.
I am not without my envy, either. I can’t tell you how frustrating and disappointing it is for me to explain my project to others, those technically minded and those who couldn’t turn a computer on to save their lives… and have 99% of both sides look at me with confusing looks and responses such as whether or not it’s even feasible or realistic. I have wondered whether those thoughts by others are valid concerns for me to mull over, whether those people simply don’t believe I have the aptitude to pull a project like this off, or whether they simply don’t understand it. I wonder if I explain it correctly to people. All of this is a distraction from my goal; a temporary punch in the stomach that slows me down.
And to see a project so similar to mine pop up almost overnight with instant success, news coverage by major tech blogs and business/investment sites, and to realize that this is only the beginning of their wild ride to fame and fortune… is a major blow to my morale.
On the other side of the coin, it feels very good to me to see a lot of what I have been working toward verified to be an insanely popular idea. It feels good to see that so many of the ideas I’ve had actually be used by thousands of people, to be sparking a wildfire that is only going to get bigger. The community that is wholly embracing this new project is young and fertile, something I haven’t seen in years and rarely comes to light – only by those few that are daring enough to bet on something brand new and untested in the Internet community.
But I don’t want to live this dream vicariously.
This project that has seemingly appeared out of nowhere is causing me fright. I am both super excited and terrified at the same time. I want to join up with the company that is creating this phenomenon, but at the same time I want to crush them before they throw one last punch that hits the bullseye of what I’ve been working toward for so long. They’ve hit very close – close enough to where their community is using their tool for exactly the same reasons – but there’s one glimmer of hope in that their project isn’t geared toward it specifically – it is the Sun – a strong but diffused wave of light, reaching so far you cannot fathom to focus on any one object it washes over. I am a laser, a thousand times more powerful that hones in on a very specific object that many worldwide hold dear.
I am a laser.
E-mail links via click-trackers —
I rarely click on links in advertising/marketing e-mails (which I’ve opted-in, mind you) that travel through click-trackers such as Constant Contact (though those are one of the more reputable ones).
I guess I feel that when I hover the cursor over the link, the text in my browser’s bottom left corner should be going to the domain I expect (usually the one from which the e-mail originated?). Or at least one that is easily recognizable and is ‘tied to’ the type of content I’m looking at in the e-mail.
Having verifiable, trustworthy link URLs is very important IMHO. It weeds out the possibility of a phishing attack and leaves the possibility of any ill intention up to my DNS server (which could have been cache poisoned, for instance..far less likely).
That’s it.. just wanted to blurt that out.
Dark Forces / Innerlink BBS —
This post is about my former Bulletin Board System (BBS) which ran in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park / Sonoma County, California from around 1996-2001.
“Dark Forces” was re-named to “Innerlink” after Midas had ceased to be a co-SysOp – to preserve the original SysOps (The Darkener & Midas), I felt a name change was necessary. This is the story of the boards original creation, written in 1996 by me.
-=How Dark Forces was Discovered=-
One night, The Darkener was tooling around with a term program, and discovered a mode called “Host”. He was playing around with it, and he thought to himself, “Wow! This is pretty cool! I bet I could just set it up and have people I know call when I’m not here and leave me e-mail! And, I could even put files in here for them to download! This is like a mini-bbs! This is pretty cool!” So he fooled around with it, and talked to Midas the next day. Midas reminded him that he suggested putting up a BBS before, but The Darkener never really caught on to the idea.
That day, The Darkener downloaded Renegade ™ BBS package and fooled around with it. “Wow,” he said, “This is even better than Host mode! I could actually set up my own REAL BBS!!” He thought of a name, (Which was origionally going to be “Deep Forrest” but after talking with Midas, and considering different names, decided on “Dark Forces”. (It wasn’t until later that they discovered that this was also the name of a computer game!) (Other considerations were “Golden Myst”, “Total Darkness”, and “Black Magic” BBS.
Midas came over to The Darkener’s house the next day, and tooled around even more with the BBS, making many suggestions. They made complete new menus, ansi pictures, and put in many popular BBS Door games. The Darkener and Midas were proud of their work and had Merkey call and check it out. He said it was pretty slow (Yeah, Merkey..)
The Darkener spoke with his brother a while later, which asked “Why do people put up a BBS in the first place?” The Darkener thought about this, and concluded that “Well, I guess it is because it is cool to watch people interact with eachother..It’s kinda like playing God or something..” The Darkener’s thoughts on SysOping were widened by this question.
The Duke (SysOp of Fortress Drogan BBS (707) 586-8924) helped The Darkener and Midas with many confusing things on the BBS that needed to be configured. (Thanks again, Duke!! I couldn’t have done it without you!) He was very patient of the rookie SysOp’s questions and explained them to The Darkener and Midas (sometimes, over and over until they got it). He helped with many things, including the Online games, which was murder to set up alone..
After The Darkener’s brother moved out of the house, (With his phone line) The Darkener got his own line, as well as a better computer to run the BBS on (Hmmm..Let’s see…286 is not a very fast computer to run such a BBS on) a faster modem (9600 was fine for him, but 28.8 was better of course).
And here you are right now, reading this bulletin on the discovery of Dark Forces BBS. Pretty interesting, huh? Hehe well enjoy. This place is for YOU!
– –=The Darkener=– –
Note to self.. —
Rhythm —
Rhythm is everything in music. It’s everything important about composing a song. It doesn’t matter if you’re a guitarist, drummer, pianist, anything. You build a foundation with rhythm.
Melody comes after rhythm. Melody is color, it’s spice… it’s the salt + pepper to the meat + veg which is rhythm. If you find a unique beat, people will latch onto it at the core.
Everyone is first exposed to rhythm in-utero (mother’s heartbeat) and they hear this for the first 9 months of their existence. I truly believe this has a huge impact on rhythmic inclinations throughout ones life.
Why “The Darkener” ? —
A perfect picture of how I see “The Darkener” character.
Not sure which BBS this was on, may have been my own (Dark Forces / Innerlink)..
The year was 1996 and the message base was dedicated to users’ L.O.R.D. (Legend of the Red Dragon) character descriptions. “The Darkener” was my first longstanding online alias and has stuck with me through the fall of BBSes and the rise of the Internet. To this day I feel it as much of a name as own – if someone called out, “Hey Darkener!” I wouldn’t hesitate to turn around. ≈)
Grammatical and spelling errors corrected for embarrassment’s sake. Whoops, it’s still embarrassing ;) Actually, you know what? It’s not! I love the idea and character I created. It parallels a lot of what I was going through at the time, and always will to an extent. I have no reservations. Except it was way too easy for other BBSers to make fun of the name… “The Dorkener”, “DorkNerd”, etc…lol.
Date: 9:08 pm Thu May 16, 1996 Number : 169 of 169 From: The Darkener Base : Autobiographies To : All Refer #: None Subj: The Darkener.. Replies: None Stat: Normal Origin : Local
Is a dark cloaked figure… He shows a resemblance to Death, yet his eyes are
that of a red hot fire… You see nothing in his presence.. A large black
cloak, dragging on the ground behind him, and two fiery eyes inside what
should be his face, yet seems only to be a pit of darkness… He is said to
be the kindest of people, IF you are on his side.. If not, he will do
nothing to hurt you unless you disturb his path in any way.. If so, he will
suddenly vanish and appear one last time in your soul, blackening it and
weighting it until it finally drops out of your body and to the ground… He
exits your darkened ball of hell and tears your chest open, ripping out your
heart, catching on every rib bone, every vein, artery, and any other bodily
organ… He shows it to you while you fall to your knees and beg for your
life.. It pulsates in his hand, pumping dark blood onto the soiled ground
beneath.. And before you close your eyes in total hopelessness, the exhausted
heart vanishes from his hands.. You fall to the ground and your eyes close
without control.. You mumble your apologies… He vanishes.. You die.
Woot!! —
I just got “thedarkener.com” !!!
This site will transition to the new domain name in the next couple of days. Finally, the rightful owner has it – the mysterious, dark Warrior (Death-Knight, actually) from Legend of the Red Dragon.
I fucking love the Internet. =p
Sitting in a remote office —
Roadwarriors know what it means to be able to pack a bag. Being mobile is very important to me and my line of work – I’ve come to depend on certain devices, tools and methods to not only make myself comfortable and able to work but to simply stay sane. There are too many things that change technologically to rely on the latest gadget that comes along for important things such as recalling a password, taking notes and looking up information.
Right now I’m sitting about an hour away from my home (main) office at my colocation service provider, Sonic.net. I house my bare-metal primary Internet servers here. I primarily use the server to host my websites, e-mail servers, DNS, and projects such as what is currently called Echonet.
Choosing Sonic.net was a somewhat difficult process (though the choice was obvious if not looked at from a financial-only perspective). I really wanted a data center at least semi-close to where I live (1hr away is doable) so if I really, really had to, I could drive down and fix something myself. But it wasn’t just that – Sonic’s atmosphere is something I love just being around. Like I tell most people, it’s like hanging out at a dot-com company before the dot-com bust. There’s a bunch of nerdy (cool) people walking around, playing arcade games and ping-pong, talking about their projects.. there’s the data center itself with Star Trek style security doors that open on one side, scan your RFID card *and* take your fingerprints, weigh you (so when you leave you aren’t holding a stack of rackmount equipment) and then let you in.
The office I’m sitting in now waiting for some backups to complete is specifically for colocated customers that need somewhere to work quietly. It’s an amazing perk to have access to all of these things…and like I said, I definitely do pay for it – but you know, you get what you pay for. I just wish I had more to throw down every month on a dedicated cabinet so my server isn’t sitting alongside many other peoples’ stuff, where a cord may accidentally get yanked, or worse. Maybe some day.
This, in addition to the fact that Sonic.net continually wins awards for respecting and protecting their customers’ privacy. This was just the icing on the cake for me. Not only are they technically capable of building and maintaining an infrastructure strong enough for thousands of people and businesses to rely on Internet access, hosting, etc., they really do strive to be the best out there regarding what I feel is most important this day in age – giving the customer the right for their data to be protected. They’re one of the most respected ISPs/data centers in the country (world?) when it comes to privacy and security. And that’s one of my favorite things about them.
Cheers, Sonic.net – thanks for giving me the tools, infrastructure, and security my business needs – and Street Fighter, of course.
Periscope #2 —
So I’ve spent another day with Periscope being at the center of my ‘lazy’ attention span(s) throughout the day. A few observations:
1) I can tell that the fever will die down very quickly with its current feature set. The Periscope devs will really need to dig deep into what it means to livestream your life, otherwise the current fire around this (admittedly very, very awesome) phenomenon will very quickly dwindle down and fizzle out. There needs to be search. There needs to be categories. There needs to be more interaction. You’ve got the curiosity of the masses, you must be magicians and amaze even more to amplify its affect on the status quo, or you will be forgotten when the next shiny idea comes along.
2) Periscope reminds me of what Google Glass tried to be, but miserably failed at (perception…of the product itself). Glass is obscure, foreign – but everyone has a cellphone so it’s more socially acceptable to hold *that* up instead of having free hands while your evil cyborg Terminator-esque camera eye records all.
3) Periscope is the ultimate A.D.D. inhibitor. If you’ve spent more than a few minutes on Periscope you’ve noticed that people will usually stop what they’re talking about to answer comments that are flowing by. This is distracting for me (the viewer) when I’m really interested in the subject themselves. Broadcast mode has the ability to turn off comments, right? I know it’s very gratifying for broadcasters to see everything their viewers want to tell them as they’re broadcasting. Most will even read each comment aloud before responding, which is kind of a funny running trait of the Periscope crowd so far.
4) Periscope, right now, is the *definition* of a young, fertile online community. It reminds me of what YouTube was before it went commercial – curious individuals poking their heads out there, experiencing a new kind of way to experience reality. If aliens are watching us to learn about what humans are really like, they’re now watching Periscope…Teleportation, yes. You did it. Congratulations, Periscope team =}
Periscope #1 —
I’ve been infatuated with Periscope for the past few days.
I’ve hardly been on Facebook. I don’t even *care* about Facebook anymore. I do admit I didn’t care very much about it already, but Periscope has become a really good reason not to waste time on Facebook feeling part-way disconnected from my friends. Living through pictures and comments and replies to comments is cool but kind of an “at-work” feeling environment now.
Periscope is sort of how I envisioned Cool Mic + Echonet at one point. I feel I’ve got some pretty good goals and app features laid out that set it apart from Periscope significantly (which also include a better initial business model), but I also know it’s a fast moving target (especially with the capital Twitter brings).
I’ve got to move quickly. Or jump on the Periscope train? ;)
Athens’ central fish market —
June 29, 2015..a man working at an Athens’ central fish market waits for customers.
The Little Fish and the Big Horse —
There was once a little fish who lived in a pond.
On a particularly sunny day, a very big horse walked over to the pond for a drink.
The little fish looked up at the gigantic horse in amazement and swam up to him.
“Horse, why don’t you live in the pond?” The little fish asked.
“Well,” the horse replied, “I don’t live in the pond because I can’t swim.”
The little fish smiled and swam away.
The next day, the horse walked back to the pond for a drink.
The little fish swam up to him.
“Horse, why can’t you swim?” The little fish asked.
“Well,” the horse replied, “I can’t swim because I don’t have fins like you do.”
The little fish smiled and swam away.
The next day, the horse walked back to the pond for a drink.
The little fish swam up to him.
“Horse, why don’t you have fins?” the little fish asked.
“Well,” the horse said, “If I had fins, I would be a fish, not a horse.”
To which the little fish replied, “I bet you wish you were a fish like me!” and jumped out of the water, making a splash.
“Well,” the horse pronounced, “I guess that’s what makes me a horse, and you a fish.”
The little fish then realized he was very hungry. He started swimming around, looking for food in the pond.
He grew tired as he searched and searched, high and low, all over the pond. After a while he swam back to the horse with a frown as he tried to think of how to get some food.
The horse had an idea.
The big horse walked to an apple tree near the pond. He found a worm inside of an apple on the ground. He pulled the worm out of the apple brought it back to the pond. He dropped it in right next to the little fish.
The little fish looked up at the horse, then down and ate the worm. “Thank you.”
The little fish looked up again and said, “Horse, I’m glad you’re a horse.”
“And I’m glad you are a fish,” said the horse, as he smiled… and walked away.
The End
Copyright (C) 2012 (Published under the CC Attribution 4.0 International license)
The NSA Agent in My Dream —
Last night I had an incredibly vivid dream (one of a few, actually). In this particular dream sequence I had parked my car on a busy block and for some reason that escapes me, was walking around the block to get back to it.
I was looking down at the sidewalk and found a couple of dollar bills folded up together. I picked them up and felt very fortunate. I wondered if I would find any more. As luck would have it, I found more bills of different values in different places – some off in a bush, and a large group of them scattered in a grating of sorts in the sidewalk. I wondered if a homeless person had left them there. I figured they were mine for the keeping since they obviously didn’t mean much to its previous holder. I started picking them up, feeling very happy that I finally had some money. As I was doing so, two women walking by tried telling me that what I was doing was wrong. They objected to me taking the money that was lying by itself on the sidewalk. I told them to get lost.
I remember thinking that if the two accusing women had found the money themselves they would have had no moral qualms with pocketing it themselves and they were simply jealous of my good fortune. I felt as if they were simply squawking to squawk; conforming to a general consensus that I should rather go out of my way to find their rightful owners. For bills lying on the street that could just as easily blow away in the wind? I started counting my bills. I discovered that not only $1 bills were now in my possession, but $5, $50 and $100 bills as well. I could not believe I had found it all.
In the next sequence I was sitting down at a streetside restaurant on the other side of the block I was walking. For whatever reason, I had a cupboard of my own at this place, with old dishes and coffee mugs. There were people sitting around, eating and waiting to be served. I noticed a middle-aged NSA agent (complete with short hair, sunglasses and transparent, curly-corded earpiece) sitting across from me at the bar style main table. He reached over the table and into my cupboard, took a small green plate and placed it in front of him.
I looked at him accusingly. He did nothing. I looked at him strongly in the eyes and said, ‘You can’t just take that, that’s mine.’ He stared at me with no response as if he had no obligation to respond. Then, still looking directly into his eyes, I said, ‘You know, the LEAST you could do is ask.’
Apparently that last statement was as much as he could take. He grabbed the plate, opened my cupboard and threw it back in, slamming it shut in a temper tantrum. He then proceeded to grab me, shove me on the ground and attempt to hook some sort of information extraction device up to my leg. I remember a sort of a cross or ” + ” shaped electronic interface on my leg in which he was trying to shove a hose-type connector to, apparently to suck information out of me (obviously against my will and with as much force as possible).
In writing this I cannot deny the curious connection between me finding money and the agent taking my plate. I feel a sense of hypocrisy in my actions in this dream. I feel that dreams are endless landscapes to which play out scenarios that are loosely associated with feelings, emotions, ideas and situations that happen in waking life. An alternate plane of consciousness which has just as much meaning as the wavelength in which we are tuned to here. It is an interesting and intriguing thing to ponder, no?
I am the Reflector —
I am the Reflector
Direct it from me
Push hands
Invade my consciousness
It bleeds around me
I hold my force field
It subsides
It will come again
I’ll feel nothing
It may linger closer
I’ll accidentally let it in
Inevitability
We share the space
And even if we didn’t
I would find it somewhere else
Where am I?
Keep it from me
What am I?
Keep it from me
The Fountain —
The Fountain
At times we pull from it
Stronger than others
Sometimes it runs dry
And we die of dehydration
It is the thing that we live from
We cannot pinpoint
But when it is here
We know it
We drink it
We live it
Spread your arms and yell
Keep the feeling close
We need it more than ever
Benceno —
This is a poem by someone on IRC named Benceno around 2003. He had written this and shared it in the channel (#poetry on DalNet I think). It was really cool, and I told him I liked it a lot and he seemed to take offense to it (he might not have believed I was telling him the truth). He seemed very protective of his work, probably an overly sensitive person. I saved the poem on my computer and it made its way onto my Palm Pilot, which I go through every blue moon and look at old poetry (currently I see 199 entries in my “Poetry” category..almost time to celebrate?). Here it is.
—
Mushrooms like heads exploding
were getting interrupted while
flavoring a mystic narcissism
which covered the heads of millions of laughs and tears
invocating strange treasures.
Like monkeys rehabilitating
or garbage in the center of the universe
I’d rather sleep than watch this miserable game
Reeling old naipes
I am fucking the wind in a constant speed
In any town of the world.
Storm Through the Oceans —
Storm thorugh the oceans
But keep the moon in place
Thrash through the desert
As long as I see your face
Keep it coming
I can take anything
Now
You hide behind curtains
And the diamonds blind my eyes
A million treasured glimpses of,
Those bright, bright bursts of light
Keep me thinking…
Keep me dreaming…
But you escape me
Every time
Every fucking time.
2014/10
Memory of Ultimate Warrior —
I have to admit I didn’t think about Warrior much until the news last year. UW was my favorite wrestler (I was 7-10 years old around his heyday in WWF). At the time my parents were going through a messy divorce and I looked up to him as a pillar of strength and stability.
Last year memories came ‘running’ back to me full force when I heard of him passing. I started reminiscing, I was amazed that I had forgotten about someone I had admired so much. It would be like seeing a close family member for the first time in 20 years.. but when I started reading about who he had become later in life, I realized he and I share a lot of common philosophies about the world and the nature of reality. Those crazy promos full of (seemingly) nonsensical jabber about, spirits, meditation, “Parts Unknown”.. and so much other metaphorical genius that came from him.
My ego at times feels silly for mentioning how a fictional character in a fake sport somehow has become such a powerful inspiration to me still at age 34. But after watching his YT videos and reading about his personal interests made me see that all of that crazy talk wasn’t crazy at all. I’d love to know more about his experiences with meditation and OBEs. So many passed the esoterically centered promos and interviews off as random babble but those who have visited Parts Unknown, those who have SEEN the place they came from but just forgot a little bit… I just wish I had the chance to talk to him about it while he was still here. For now I’ll take what I can get. My heart goes out to Dana, Mattie and Indie.. May what Warrior stood for continue to be the brightest beacon in life for them and the millions of storytellers now and in the future. =}
Dead Beef Cafe —
Found this in /etc/network/interfaces on my BeagleBone Black..lol.
# Example to keep MAC address between reboots
hwaddress ether DE:AD:BE:EF:CA:FE
/me wonders what this refers to, if anything interesting….hmmm…..
Business e-mail —
13 Years after I start my business, trying to give people a clue as to how to do the “right thing” on the Internet…and I still see everyone using generic e-mail domains for themselves. “my.office.name@gmail.com” ….
*sigh* The world is doomed.
sysvinit vs. systemd: Dividing and Conquering the Linux/*nix ecosystem? —
See title.
The Game —
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7081157&cid=49231117
Embers —
Stuck in the cruft
Of an illusion and a fantasy
Reaching up to find the solidification
Of what I can call real
But nothing is
Time is
Matter is
Intentions are
A green folding plastic enveloping me
Reminds of my fantasy
A portal to that which is unseen
By the conscious, by the living
I walk the line of distinction
Day after day I beat him
The intangible reflections of ether
I’ll keep her
A game
The fame
Recognize what is gained
What I can find for myself
And when I return I will remember
I will tally the embers, the echo chambers
And after a while
I will yearn to forget once again
What this is