Grimmway

I'm done my exams and essays for this semester. That leaves one semester to go, assuming the best. I think I can do it, though I suspect that the 35 page history paper due in March will take a considerable toll on my sanity. After that I have my joint honours in history and philosophy. (>insert requisite 'flipping burgers' degree joke here<)

Then what though?

Grad school may elude me this year. I've procrastinated too much on applications and in combination with the unhealthy levels of debt I have accrued it might be a good idea to find gainful employment for a bit. Maybe at least bring some of my fidicuiary concerns under control.
I'll still apply, but if I'm lucky enough to get accepted I might defer a year anyway.

Despite the cliched jokes my family would likely make about my degree I'm not too worried about my job prospects. I've got my foot in the door in government (6 years should probably be considered more than a foot actually) so that seems the most likely direction. Maybe a policy position...if anything should apply to policy work then history and philosophy should.

Maybe I should spend a year or two just working. It couldn't hurt the perception my family has of me I'm sure. They've never thought much of my pursuit of a degree. My dad never needed one and if he didn't need one he pretty much assumes that no one else does. My mom seems to actively despise degrees, or at least resists all attempts to understand their purpose, use, and the work that goes into them. My step mom is the only one in my family who has really supported the whole thing.
Randomly: I often feel the most akin and related to the one person in my family with whom I share zero genetic material. I suspect this is why I am a fairly firm rejecter of genetic determinism, hard line materialism and the nature over nurture argument.

I could rant alot about my parents, school, money, but that's pretty L.C. Forget it. Move on.

Don't get me wrong; not having a degree and having a degree, are both equal states of being in my mind. What you do with your credentials is more important than the paper bits themselves. I have certainly encountered enough morons in University to be sufficiently disillusioned of the univeral attribution of intelligence to university graduates. That said, I appreciate what university has given me, and I've really fallen in love with learning. I think my degree has improved me in a number of ways, but I don't think a degree is a mark of betterment. It can be a mark of engagement with certain ideas and aspects of one's life, but again, there's all sorts out there... I do think degrees are valuable economic tools as well, but that's a whole other conversation.

On topics less dreary; I'm teaching myself how to use Sketchup. It's the first modeling program I've ever used that's intuitive to me. I've already begun modeling for a project I mentioned in an earlier post. Since sketchup doesn't do organic modelling that well, most of what I'm working on is mechanical stuff. It's a science fiction project that I think may progress in a graphic narrative direction (webcomic or novel or something). That entails creating the interiors and exteriors for spaceships, stations and buildings, making locations for certain scenes, building the props (weapons, equipment, robots, vehicles). I have a very general story arc that would be a good intro to the setting and some characters in nebulous first draft form. It's all very ephemeral right now, but I think that if things head in the general direction I'd like them too...there could be something here.
My intent is to use Sketchup as a drawing aid; a way to deal with perspective and blocking, background, scene setting and all the other stuff I really suck at. Then I just need to work at figure drawing which I suck at slightly less and storytelling which I'd like to think I suck at only a very little.

I self deprecate not for attention, just out of respect for my friends.
You all set the bar pretty high.

So yeah. Dragon Age. I'm not going to lie, most of my free time from here until 2010 is probably gonna be taken up with this game. It's basically Baldurs Gate with better graphics and a new story. And I loved me some Baldurs Gate.
I've only been playing it for a few hours and it's already in my pantheon of great games; Mass Effect, Bioshock, Fallout, Privateer, Homeworld, Civ... that's the short list.
I could go on.
For pages.
Ok, now I need to do something productive. Maybe read and clean a bit. Then I can reward myself with some more delicious nerdery.
Mmmmm. Earned my treat.

( Happy Halloween )

Yeah, I'm gonna put pictures of my cats in my livejournal. I may be a 6 foot physically intimidating bald guy with a penchant for collecting swords and the internet moniker Grimmway, but that doesn't mean I can't love my cats.
Represent
( Read more... )

Reading week has started. I've rented a copy of Halo:ODST and Brutal Legend. They're both pretty fun, but I think the best part is the voice actors. Nathan Fillion plays one of the main characters in Halo and does his thing pretty damn well in it, but apparently there's a while bevy of other good actors doing voices in it as well. Brutal Legend of course has Jack Black being hilariously metal.  BL is a little wierd in terms of genre, but still fun. I'm really not a huge metal fan so the soundtrack gets irritating at times but it's all worth it for the hilarious take on metal lore.

I also recieved my Google Wave account. For those of you not in the know it's a pretty neat little advancement in online communications and collaboration technology. It's sort of a chat/email/wiki/bulliten board thing all wrapped up into one. Lots of enterprise potential and whatnot, but as a mega-geek my only real interest in it is for story-telling, role playing and collaborative creative endeavours.  Someone's even created a dice rolling robot for it already (not the dice I use though, but it's a start).

I've invited a few friends but the invites take time to send. I've still got 16 14 left so if anyone wants in just let me know.

So while preparing to post a bunch of stuff for sale on craigslist I came across something... intriguing.

http://peterborough.en.craigslist.ca/search/rnr?query=+

The two posts in Rants and Raves labeled My Nightingale and To Juliette are what I'm referring too.

Perhaps an ARG? Or just some people having fun? Or something more? 
Whatever the case I'm not above trying to figure out their puzzles. Anyone have any ideas where 'the cornfield where ravens hide' might be? 

I spent the weekend learning how to make iron my bitch. 
Beyond the basic s-hooks and fire poker I learned how to make a knife. I then made one. It might well be the ugliest damned knife that's ever been made but I made it with fire and a hammer and no machines so I'm gonna count it as a victory.
Now to learn the secrets of Damashqi

Well, there's another year in the bag. School year I mean. I'm now up to 17.5 credits. I've got my courses for next year picked out and in 12 months I'll have my Honours and I maybe a graduate position somewhere. Or I'll get what my parents would call a "real job" (i.e anything that doesn't involve academia for my Dad and anything that includes manual labour to my Mom).

I'll probably stick with academia though, if only to piss them off. (I'm terribly immature, I'm aware)

Honestly, I've mostly enjoyed school. When the subject agrees with me anyhow. Even when it doesn't I seem to do alright. Enough that I think I just finished another year on the Deans List, whatever that counts for. (If I had gone to University straight from highschool it would have counted for several awesome scholarships actually... apparently increased age automatically generates increased financial solvency. It's magical!)

( Regarding my last class... )

I may often complain but really I have it pretty good. No gloating intended, but do I have a job, an apartment, a partner, kittens, friends, general creative fulfillment, and a lot of free time (for this coming month anyhow).  The only thing I need more of is money, and until a better paying or more easily scheduled job pops up in the job banks I can't do much about that.

Barring sporadic working days I have all of August to myself now. Things I Want to Do: 
-Write every day. At least a page. For game or for fun or for future projects or something. I just gotta keep writing.
-Design some Tattoos and brush off my very dusty drawing skills
-Read some good fiction and maybe some history that isn't an assigned reading (I have a few books on Christian Heresies that are rife with story ideas)
-Get some Sun and Exercise
These things seem do-able.

Thus ends my quarterly livejournal post. Amen.

PS: Things I'm listening too right now. No particular order.
VAST - Pretty When You Cry
Justice - Genesis
UNKLE - Burn My Shadow Away
Bat for Lashes - What's A Girl to Do
Zoe Keating - Legions

A Video Link Post for those who feel like they aren't wasting enough time on the internet.

Some of these are obviously more or less likely than others but... these are the sorts of things that make me want to write more Science Fiction.

-Humanoid Robots
-Jelly-Bots, and More Jellybots
-Manta-Bots
-Floating Hotels
-Alien Planets with SF cities and Hoverbikes (Complete with Depeche Mode Music)
-Proper Robo-Fights and none of that Battle Bots hokus.
-I'm such a geek the reason I want this is for running tabletop games
-An M-Theory universe that permits far more than we previously thought (video complete with Michio Kaku and all his enthusiasm)
-Universal Assemblers and Nanotechnology

Science is neat.

( Awesome Commencement Speech, or Awesomest Commencement Speech? You decide... )
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( School Ranting )

Check out this wicked sweet optical illusion!

Just thought I'd ruin some peoples mental image of Darth Vader.

I have never laughed so hard at anything on the internet. Your milage may vary.

So it's probably obvious to any of the people on my friends list that I am, at best, the most infrequent of posters. This isn't to say I don't keep up with other peoples posts. I read them all actually, and LJ is one of the few guaranteed daily visits I do on the internet these days. I guess I just don't feel like I have much to contribute that isn't said a million times elsewhere. I end up feeling like I need a really good reason to post. I suspect this attitude will keep me from ever adopting much of Web 2.0 with its Twittering and Social Networking Games and whatnot.

So that this post comes with a bit of a sense of purpose. Mostly a desire to clear my brain and hopefully kickstart it a little. I've been knee deep in academic papers for the past month so my brain is feeling a little... squeezed.

Like oranges. For juice.

To what end you ask? (or don't) Well... in between gross bouts of procrastination, I'm writing papers on:
-The History of Anatomy
-Sufism
-Hume and Locke and their conception of personal identity
-Artifical Intelligence and the prospect of intelligent machines

Having chosen my subjects it would be reasonable to suppose that I would feel some interest and desire in studying and writing on them.
Yeah, you would think that. Silly you.

Mostly I feel like writing fantasy or speculative fiction, or material for my tabletop game or watching the final episode of BSG I have on my computer or playing. I'm even more interested in working for, like, money and stuff but that's out of my hands. Unfortunately I haven't done any of those things either. Instead I spend most of my time getting annoyed at the state of the world and my own laziness. Also sleeping. I should probably talk to a physician about that constant fatigue thing.

Ok so I feel a bit better now. Like my brain is in better order than 10 minutes ago. Lets see if I can get something done.

( Re: The State of the World, cut for Politics )

I just awoke to purring and licking. On my face. 
It was adorable. Somewhat annoying of course, but still adorable.

I woke up out of a strange dream. I was saying goodbye to all these people who I knew, and it was for the last time. Everyone was going home. Something had happened and I guess pretty much all of Humanity was giving up and closing shop, heading back to where they originated and quietly waiting the end out. It wasn't clear when I woke up what that end was, but dreams are like that right?
I remember saying goodbye to a very nice indian couple who had just had their first child. He was maybe a few months old and he was riding in a satchel on his fathers back. He seemed to purr (which was clearly the kitten in real life impacting my dream life). I remember saying something to the effect of 'at least you've got him' and the couple smiled and the baby giggled. It was surreal.
I remember a pair of women, middle aged, partners who shook my hand as I was leaving. There was something very familiar about them, not real or anything, but as though they knew exactly what I (we?) were going through. I remember getting choked up in the dream, saying something that I don't recall now. One of them was very vague (faded into the background) and the other striking, with tattoos, dyed red hair and a pair of peircings in her lip.
We were all of us in an intersection in a large city. It was night time and I could hear bugs and tree frogs nearby though. The indian couple owned a restaraunt with a mobile food cart. The lesbians did crafts of some sort. It was Ash and I, I think, who were headed back to the country. I don't think the cars were functioning so we were all kitted out with backpacks and whatnot.
The most vivid part about the whole thing was the emotions. I felt genuinely connected to all these fictional people and the world they lived in, and I was so sad to see everything breaking apart. 
I wish I could recall what I said. It seemed profound and important.

Dreams are so weird. In a couple minutes my brain had composed a world with characters who felt very real, whose backgrounds I just knew  as though they'd always been close friends of mine and in a place where I had full knowledge of some impending ending to the whole world. And then I woke up and everything just vanished. The emotion lingered for a heartbeat until I realized that Alice was cleaning my nose and purring. 

Oh yeah, we have names for the ladies now. Alice and Astrid. Alice is the friendly snuggly one with 3 orange paws, pink nose and a more orangey coat and Astrid is mostly brownish with a black nose and she's a little more solitary. She snuggles but in a more aloof manner if that makes any sense.
Astrid reminds me of Raven. 

More Pics

Papers are done. I'm a little jittery from lack of sleep but mostly relieved to be done for now.
 
In other news, Ash and I decided to adopt some kittens in an attempt to up the level of cat in our apartment.

Here they are...

They're very curious, which is probably not out of character for kittens. They are sisters and so far I've simply been calling them the ladies or the sisters or the twins, or the wee misses. Names are forthcoming when we have a better idea of their personality. They've got hearty little appetites and they love to wrestle each other. The lighter one is a bit of an attention whore. She's already made fast friends with Ash.

Though lovely in their own right, they've yet to warm up to me, which is of course my main concern.
There are hints though...
I got a tiny purr from one, so this relationship may be headed somewhere.