Me trying to explain why I can't seem to blog right now

I am sitting here in Ryan’s living room. All is quiet except for the faint hum of our laptops, Death Cab for Cutie and the faint wail of sirens. I wanted to blog I guess. I even selected topics and yet here I sit. On Saturday my wife is coming down for a week. I haven’t seen her in two months. I know for many marriages this is nothing. I mean to someone like Jenn reading this any complaints on my end would be laughable. It’s all about perspective I guess. I have always hated those married people who make a big scene if they haven’t seen their other half for a week. I keep as much as I can to myself about the distance issues. Mostly I can deal with it fine, it’s a choice really, and life is full of situations where doing the best thing requires sacrifice and we can adapt to anything. Dealing with life quietly, excepting hardship with dignity, these are things I have always thought honorable. This week is atypically hard though, mostly because she will be here soon. It’s the same as the way a child can accept that Christmas is a long way off all year with out a complaint but that last week before the day seems to encompass more hours than the rest of the year.

I've been trading ideas with intriguing men, and I...

This weekend I was lucky enough to get to spend a ton of time with Eric’s friend Steve. I really love this guy and we get along really well. We spend most of our time making fun of stuff. Today for example a truck passed us and as we were driving to a movie and we only got a glimpse of the bumper sticker. This is the conversation that followed.
(After we got our first glimpse)
Eric: “Does that say ‘Pist Control’?”
Jeff: “So what the hell is a pist?”
Steve: “And extending that, why do we have to control it?”
Eric: “Pist….maybe pest control?”
Jeff: “I thought it said pist.”
Steve: “That’s what I saw.”
Jeff: “And was it just my imagination or was the picture under it of a shark eating a mermaid.”
Steve: “Really…..I thought it was a weasel in a firefighter’s jacket.”
Eric: “Well at least the guy is making his point clearly.”
Steve: “The funny thing is the standard of deviation between what we saw makes it so there’s no plausible middle ground.”
Jeff: “Maybe it’s a mermaid in a firefighter’s jacket eating a weasel.”
Eric: “…while riding a shark.”
Steve: “Or it could be a mermaid in a shark costume wearing a firefighter’s jacket balancing a weasel on her head.”
Luckily the guy parked his truck in the same lot as us so we walked over to have a look at the bumper sticker.
(On the way to the truck)
Jeff: “I bet it’s going to be a shark attacking a boat which contains a mermaid and a weasel in a firefighter’s jacket.”
Eric: “It’s going to be lame.”
Once we got over to the truck the results of our inspection were predictably lame. The title of the icon was “pest control” and showed a shark eating a seal. Now I could start on a tirade of abuse against this “it’s the seals fault we killed all the fish” mentality but I won’t.
(As we viewed the sticker)
Steve: “Well….”
Jeff: “That’s lame as hell.”
Eric: “What did I tell you.”

Yeah, I know my game play is sub-par.

Readers of my blog rejoice with me!
This is an auspicious day. This is a day to be remembered. On this day I have survived an epic zealot rush. I did this with only a single siege tank and two fully loaded bunkers. My use of supply depots as walls (and yes it’s an old tactic I should have started using years ago) gave me the edge I needed to send those zealots packing.

Of course they came back with a parcel of High Templar and a Zerg Queen and did a bit of damage but with Eric’s fleet and mine we finished off our 6 opponents.

By the way….Starcraft II is coming out. You should be excited, you should watch the trailer, and you should be even now planning attack strategies based on the Terran and Protoss game play trailers.

And in the faces you meet, you'll see the place where you'll die

I have thought a lot about funerals. I think I posted on my blog early on about my general dislike of them. I am not sure I even want to have one. I was talking about it with Ryan and he made the point that funerals aren’t for the person who kicked it anyway, which is true. I think my biggest objection is that when someone dies no one seems to be able to view the person objectively. Everyone is so afraid to say something bad even if it’s true. That’s why I have always been somewhat opposed. I know my failings and they are fairly large and I want in my death for people to be able to be honest about them rather than try to pretend I never had them. The other thing is I don’t want to have a bunch of people hanging out being miserable; funerals tend to be too formal and to rigid for me. When I go I want the service, since I am sure it will happen, to be short. I only want one person to stand up and speak, that person being Ryan Sey. Elaine has already agreed to be my speaker for the dead and to take it upon herself to say all the things I never was able to or took the time to say in life. I trust her to be totally honest and I know she knows more about what I feel than anyone else. I only want two songs to be played, no more. The first being Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape by Underoath and the second being Come, Lord Jesus by Andrew Peterson. I already decided to go the route of cremation and I would rather not have anyone do the whole distributing of the ashes thing. I have had to do that myself for grandparents and it’s not something I recommend. Elaine can dump that stuff in the ocean in a manner of her choosing accompanied only by those she selects. Eric mentioned that he sort of wants to leave a written note to be read by somebody. I think it’s an interesting idea but honestly I would only be inclined to write something irreverent. “Since you’re all hearing this I guess I snuffed it and that kind of sucks. Anyway since I am dead I suggest the open bar, go on get lit, it's what I would have wanted.” That or place a profanity at the end so as to force the reader to swear in front of the assembled crowd. If anyone can work up a good eulogy lament based entirely on Starcraft and or World of Warcraft then they should throw that out there too. I just don’t want it to be a huge depressing, stiff formal, event where people lie about what my life was. Keep it short, let Ryan do the talking, give those who came access to good food plenty of alcohol and by all means keep it light and have a good a time as you can. Dying is far from the worst that can happen, after all what waits after death is closer to life then this ever was. And even if, though I don’t believe it, death brings oblivion I am at least content with the way I spent life.


















Now before you all are horrified by the picture I put up of death with a kitten I need to make one thing clear. First I can't seem to remove it and second this is Death, as in Death the character as conceived and written by Terry Pratchett. His version of death is one of my favorite of his characters, anytime death speaks its allways in all caps. Here a just a few quotes to illistrate.

"I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worth while?" Death thought about it "CATS," he said eventually, "CATS ARE NICE.”

"I MUST SAY THESE ARE VERY GOOD BISCUITS. HOW DO THEY GET THE BITS OF CHOCOLATE IN?"
-- Death has a snack (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)

"DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING", said Death. "JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH."

"DID YOU SAY HUMANS PLAY IT FOR FUN?" "Some of them get to be very good at it, yes. I'm only an amateur, I'm afraid" "BUT THEY ONLY LIVE EIGHTY OR NINETY YEARS!"
- Death discusses the difficulties of bridge

You have caused confusion and delay.

I randomly get the urge to mess with people. I haven’t ever done it but I am always inclined to. What I mean by that can best be explained by a few examples.

A couple of nights ago I went to BJ’s with some friends. It was really busy at the restaurant and they eventually seated us on the patio next to a 10 or 15 year high school reunion. As a result the patio was so loud we could barley hear each other. I personally wasn’t annoyed; I was actually sort of energized by it. What I wanted to do but didn’t was walk over to the reunion and try to pass myself off as part of their class. I figured I could accomplish this by outright fabrications or the equally effective misdirection. I just thought it would be fun, because making crap up is one of my specialties and it would also allow me to partake of their open bar.

Tonight I was at Claim Jumpers and when I walked into the bathroom there was this guy standing in front of the mirror alone in contemplation. What I wanted to do is walk over to him and say something like this.
“Hey, I am doing my best working the table. Now I’ve put in some good words for you and prepped it for you triumphant return from the restroom. But man I got to be honest, it’s a tough crowd. So it’s up to you now to get in there and bring this wagon home.” Then grab him by both shoulders and stare right at him and say “Good luck buddy” and then turn abruptly and walk into a stall before he can react.

Sometimes if I am walking past someone in a fast food line I have the urge to say as I pass something like; “I checked the meter like you asked me because you were worried about the parking here and I want you to know we are in the clear. The thing that you parked next to wasn’t a meter, so no worries.”

P.S. Thomas the tank engine is by far one of the dullest shows I have ever seen. Horrible does not even begin to adequately describe it.

We'll go out babe, drink moonshine

One hand must wash the other
Each man must be a brother
Band up and take cover
We'll go dancing, set fires
Tag buildings and slash tires
Drive go-carts like Shriners

We'll go out babe, skateboarding
Go looting, food hoarding
Whatever you desire

Understanding In a Car Crash

"Death hangs over thee. While thou still live, while thou may, do good."

I was driving back from work today on the 710 north and I very nearly was in major accident. I was lucky because it was close. The weirdest thing is that even as I watched what could have been my approaching injury and or death I felt nothing. I felt no worry or concern, my body didn’t even tense I just watched the car coming with a sense of bemusement so small it was practically nothing.

Here is what went down.
I was driving North on the 710 going between 55 and 60. I was relaxed and listening to Modest Mouse’s song Life Like Weeds so there was a good sized gap between me and the traffic in front of me. Traffic was heavier than usual but moving really well. Suddenly everybody slammed on their breaks. It was one of those 60 to 0 things that I noticed first as clouds of smoke announced the desperate attempts of the cars in front of me to stop. A couple of cars were even forced to swing into the shoulder to avoid collisions. I was humming along with the music and as I watched the cars in front of making panicked stops I remember thinking “oh I guess we are stopping now.” I laid my foot down on the break still humming and completely relaxed. I got my car stopped in time, mostly because I had left myself the room. I was almost touching the guy in front of me when I had got it stopped. I looked in the re-view mirror to see how the guys behind me were doing and saw that the guy behind me was in trouble. He had been going a little faster than me and when he had jammed on his breaks he had trouble keeping it in line. He was fish-tailing all over the lane first to one side then to the other smoke pouring from the tires the whole while. I just sat there watching him approach and I only thought “hmm, well look at that.” My body didn’t even tense. I only looked away because my peripheral caught the guy in front of me moving again. The traffic went from 0 to 45 in a tenth of a second, no indication why we had stopped. I thought to myself “interesting” and accelerated forgetting about the car behind me still slewing sideways across the lane. The combination of my moving again and his slight reduction in speed meant that there was no collision. Had traffic not started moving again that would not have been the case.

I didn’t even think about it after the fact until I went to merge onto the 91 East and the guy cut me off. Then it struck me that I hadn’t felt anything even as I was almost run down. It doesn’t bother me, it’s just strange. Honestly in that moment I probably could have watched a semi barreling down on me bringing death and had no stronger a reaction than to think “hmm, well now” with a almost complete detachment.