The Z Axis

leid und elend

As it turns out, she was okay, which is what really matters.

It's been a rather depressing day, though.

And I'm not even reacting to the death of Jerry Orbach yet.

Crapola behind the cut.

Over the course of today, I've managed to exhaust my entire repertoire of things I do when I desperately want to fix or help something that I'm prohibited from doing anything about.

I did a song last night, so I'm kind of burned out on that, plus I can't make as much noise today, and I'm being emotional enough that my music tinkerings would be atonal jackhammering to anyone that heard the actual process. TRB songs are one of those things like sausage, where regardless of your feeling on the end product, you probably don't want to see the manufacturing process.

I slept a lot today to try and distract my mind. I definitely have a point where I can sleep no longer, though, and I hit that surprisingly early today.

Barring writing, which I was left with in the end, this left precious few ways for me to get my brain to stop its round-and-round: getting really drunk, going driving aimlessly, or punishing my lungs with harsh little wuss cigars. I didn't want to get drunk, because I might've been called upon to go somewhere, and I didn't have any of those cigars. So, I went driving. And picked some of those damn things up on the way.

I went on one of my typical Patrick historical-places mini-tour, getting out in various places to wander around thinking and sucking ash.

There were a couple places I considered going, and I'm really glad I didn't. I went to some of the old full-moon places, and added to the halls of memory, mainly beefing up the bitter wing while reminiscing on the sweet.

Nothing quite enhances the sting of helplessness than a tendency to visit the same places over and over when you feel that way - not only reassuring yourself that it's happened before, but that you haven't really found a better way of coping. Thanks a lot, brain.

But, I drove, and drove, and drove some more, finding a place where the moonlight perfectly lit up the finger writing on my windshield, like that piece of paper in The Hobbit. It was here, the Rockbridge Swim Club, where, years ago, I sat and watched planes fly overhead, on a very special February Sunday. A week after that I was picked up there by some friends, who helped me steal a sign from the gate. Tonight, nearly 8 years hence, I reached into my jacket pocket to return the lighter, and was stabbed by a name tag that does not belong to me. I took this, combined with the windshield thing, as a sign that I was being incredibly stupid, and went home. At the least, the experience got me closer to the notion that things would be okay, and that I was just a god damned moron.

I'm still pretty much out of things to try, except writing. Looking over this, I can't say that looks too promising in terms of quality, but that's the next thing I try. And I still haven't given a real holiday weekend recap. I simply don't feel much like it right now.

Come to think of it, this whole entry seems rather drama queenish.

It's just been a rough day.

Or, at least, I've made myself feel like it has been. It's hard for me to tell which it is at this moment.

Anyway, right now I'm going to try to write a comedy sketch that will probably never see the light of day.

I leave you with a bit of a song that played on endless loop in my brain through my unusually music-less driving binge-

I write the B-sides
That make a small portion of the world cry
I like the seaside
And singing songs that make you not want to die

-- eels, I write the B-sides

[ohne deine sonne ist kein tag]

please let her be okay

A new TRB song is available.

the rage box - to hell with you

I needed to work off some negativity, and had the house to myself, so I decided to be loud. This is the result. It's also got a nifty vocal overdub, which while perhaps the most cliche element in all of electronic music, I'm beginning to warm to.

This is not actually the first song I've done since moving the rage box to Atlanta - that honor belongs to one I've dubbed "Mussolini's Underpants," which is quite possibly the worst thing I've ever done. I may post it eventually, if only to prove it exists, as it was a song I made essentially just to make a song with that title.

I had an interesting holiday weekend, and will do a roundup of the past couple days when I am being less of a worrisome ninny. Right now my head is full of stupid visions that can all probably be extinguished with the simple realization that cell phone batteries suck.

Once again, thanks Linds, you gave me ammo against my own stupid brain.

[ring damn you ring]

couple of thoughts

"Merry Christmas" to those who celebrate that way, and "Sorry your holiday gets the total shit-end of the stick" to everyone else-

I'm gonna go to bed in a sec, but I wanted to write down a couple things I came across today, and decided to share here. The first one doesn't make as much sense if you don't know the historical and linguistic origin of the term Bedlam, and the root meaning of the name of the town Bethlehem.

If you rid your life of the chaos, and the insanity, you can turn Bedlam back into Bethlehem.

i'm an agnostic, i'd be an atheist if it weren't for mozart

I love Mozart. His work and the Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade theme are indeed strong musical indicators of the existence of the divine.

And thanks to a CD my dad played in the car, I have rekindled my love for Louis Armstrong. Oh dear lord, Louis Armstrong.

Leslie, meet me at the top of a tall building soon. We goin' dancin'.

on that note, merry thing with the whatever, everyone, and may positivity be your guiding whatchadigger in all your et cetera.

[whistler's demand of james earl jones]

read dozens of books about heroes and crooks

I have indeed chalked up many a mile since the last entry.

Bit of an odd weekend - seems like everything I was doing for other people went incredibly swimmingly, and everything I wanted to happen for me turned into a bad episode of "Perfect Strangers," or at the very least, some kind of comical misunderstanding with a goat joke no one saw coming.

Ah well. I can deal. I've got a lot of good things goin' for me right now, and I'm trying to avoid getting bogged down in my typical grass is always greener glass is half empty or twice as large as it needs to be negative nancy crapola. That's right, negative nancy was the kicker in the rule of 3 joke formula there. I stand by it.

Anyhoo, I've got almost all of my Christmas/Jewsitronicathon (a holiday I just made up, apparently for semitic robots) shopping done, and it's not even the 23rd. Aww yeah. Take that, all previous years' records.

The moving is going quite well, and I'm packing up a ton of clothes right now to schlep back to Atlanta.

As it turns out, the actual narrative of my weekend proves much less interesting than I thought it would in my head, so I guess I'll consider this adequate "Hey, Don't let the blog get stale" coverage and call it a night. I got enough going on in my head without trying to come up with entertaining nonsense for a dingy crew's worth of readers.

It needs to be March, and I need to be at a beach. Like, now, if only for an hour. I'm seriously hearing seagulls in my head here.

[and i learned much from both of their styles]

accentuate the positive

A new TRB song is available.

the rage box - sundown on sunset dr

I debated whether to post this one or not, as it will be the titular song for the second of two forthcoming TRB Cds, and I am trying to include a couple things on each that are not available for download. This is mainly because the 2-3 people who might be in any way interested in TRB cds are also the only people who download the songs, so buying them in CD-format is a waste of their time unless there's some kind of value added bonus with optional pinball game.

I think I've settled on the second of the 2 options for that cd art, which looks vaguely like this hea:

Though, obviously, it will be much larger. Both the album pic and song link above may be down Thursday 12/16 and/or Friday 12/17, as I will be moving the server machine that they reside on.

Oh. Before I forget, here's how the TRB CDs are gonna work. The first one, as it has been planned for ages, is gonna be a bunch of old stuff, stuff I don't consider good enough for a real album but want remembered because it was the stuff I produced while learning how to do stuff. That will be the blue covered album, As the storm quietly brews. It's going to have a system boot up track, 2 unheard bookend tracks, and maybe one or two other bonuses, as well as a bunch of old stuff like Tears of the Unavenged making up the meat of the disc. The second CD, which will be available at the same time, will be the aforementioned Sundown on Sunset Dr, which will essentially be a collection of the 2 minute demos I've been cranking out this year, with one or two bonus full-length tracks to make it a worthwhile CD. The song linked above will be the last possible thing on that CD, as the conceptual time cut-off for that disc is when I move The Rage Box (my computer, for the uninitiated - yes, I give the machine doing all the work credit as the "band") from its perch near Sunset Drive, which is happening tomorrow. So, this is the last Sunset Drive track. It may also be the last TRB track for a while.

I know, I know, just when you all had lost enough of your hearing to enjoy them.

I'll be in heavy-duty moving mode for the next day plus, so consider this long-ass update several small ones doled out over the next few days. I'm in an odd mood now, so I'm gonna take off.

[attempt to defray the negative]

era the fourth

marker.

[it's official]

sending some mojo

From Tom-

My wife and I were watching the local news once, several years ago, and a woman who was being interviewed about her troubles, whatever they may have been, looked into the camera and said, "It's like being nibbled to death by duck-billed creatures."

We looked at each other and simultaneously repeated: "Duck-billed creatures?"

So that's become the catchphrase around chez Tomorrow, and it's how I feel, every time some new idiocy like this comes down the pike these days: we're being nibbled to death by duck-billed creatures.

To everyone facing a tough week, kick those duck-billed creatures' asses.

[awestruck, i say]

screaming that one beatles song

I've gotten a fair amount done since the last entry, but for now, I'm going to focus entirely on the trivial things, because I'm very tired and those are the things that are occupying my mind.

Since I'm moving most of my tools and significant posessions within the week, I've decided there's no way I'm gonna finish a couple of the hardware projects I've had on the slate before I leave town. This is especially sad, because one of them I'd hoped to finish and give away before then. I will now list the ones other than that, including one that just occured to me.

Birdfeeder glowing marble light thing - I have pretty much all I need, I just have to have the time and inclination to do a bunch of soldering. Santa is apparently bringing me a cold heat iron this christmas, so I may hold off til then and focus on some more important things than these silly geek projects.

Briefcase computer - Again, I have the broken laptop, and its screen, and an old briefcase, I just have to devise the best possible way to combine the three into a stylish and functional piece of equipment, and then do it. When it is done, this one will be cool, and will maybe score some additional online Leslie time.

And finally, a project that just occured to me after watching a postal service ad, but I'm adding it to this list so I don't forget - I thought it'd be fun for my first hardware/software interaction project to actually rig up a red plastic mail flag, mounted to the side of a computer, that would raise itself when a software-based daemon checked and found email.

So, mainly for myself, but also for whatever other reason, there's a list of stuff I'm gonna have to backburner for a while, while I move tools and essential life acoutrements like the magic TV box. This whole prospect, as it has come together in my mind today, has great potential benefits and happiness for me, but also makes me sad in some ways.

In the later parts of this evening, when I was physically drained and crashed into laptop-using-vegetation, but not able to sleep, I played some old Atari games that defeated me as a child, and made this icon:

It doesn't play at quite the right speed in either browser, and figuring out why became a sucking maw of time for more than just myself. It has, as of this writing, been ruled the result of evil voodoo magicks.

I think I shall find a way to use this to commemorate victories against frustrating computer hardware or software. Oh wait, I just thought of a way. The way I just said.

In other news, December 14th can't get here soon enough.

[whistling while he works]

passing the time

A new TRB song is available.

the rage box - diversionary jam session

It may be hard to believe in the first 15 seconds or so, but this one actually turns kind of upbeat and groovay.

I'm quite happy with it in a weird way, despite the weird mishmash of styles. It also might get you in trouble in your car though, because part of the bass is way low and well produced, if I may pat myself on the back. It's pure enough that you won't want to turn it down, but low enough that your chassis will vibrate.

Give a listen, leave a note.

I was informed the comments were broken since the move. I'm an idiot. I fixed it now. Next up is to fix part of the patrickcentral template. But after fiddling with that song, I'm pretty tired. Thanks to everyone (read: 2 people) with kind words about the previous post - it was a fun one to write. Hopefullly she'll see it soon.

More on that and other topics when I'm less tired. I'd expect a lot of product out of me in the near future, because I'm trying to busy myself to pass the time, but I have a habit of disappointing myself in that regard.

[meet so seldom, part so often]

she reaches for my hand

It's Leslie's birthday. [Ed. Note- neither when it was written, nor posted, was that sentence actually true. It was written days beforehand, and posted the day after. Today.] I've been sorta hemming and hawing about whether to do the typical me thing and do a sort of big mushy public show of affection type thing, and decided somewhat against it, despite the fact that "public" in this sense means about 6 people, give or take. There are various things I'd love to use this occasion as an opportunity to shout from the rooftops, but I think some of them might be better appreciated in a more private, more quiet situation. So, until I find out, I'm going to compromise. I'm just gonna tell a little story. I'm also going to make the first use of a "cut" like you see on livejournal, because this will probably end up being long.

This isn't a particularly riveting story because of what happens - the plot isn't a barnburner. What it does have is some pretty serious character development. It makes you absolutely love one of the characters, without any gimmicks. Well, at least, it does for me.

Last Saturday I managed to stay in town after Thanksgiving observed, at the end of a rather up and down emotional week. This gave me the opportunity to see Leslie before leaving town, though I knew it would be for a pretty brief period. To my delight, it ended up being far longer than I was expecting, but that's not really relevant to the story here.

I didn't want to impose on her night, as I knew she had things to do, but we both wanted to see each other, and so we arranged it. I had absolutely no plan. As mentioned in a prior entry, I was later than I wanted to be getting to her workplace, because I was doing stuff for my mom. But, I got there, and eventually, she came out. We discussed my utter lack of plan, and what we could do. I sat there in my car, simply overjoyed to just be with her. She suggested we go play some pool, and wished to drive, so off we went. We drove around, found the pool hall, and decided against it, and just wandered around. To me, that was just as fun as playing pool - just being with her. This would prove obvious in my forthcoming suggestion as to what to do - going to Wal-Mart. I had nothing at Wal-Mart I needed, had no reason to want to go, but I simply love walking around places with her, looking at things, commenting on what we see, and teasing each other.

She didn't say "What the hell is wrong with you?," or "Wow, that's really exciting," or even "Oooh yeah, that cashier Javier is a hot little number," though it's possible any of those was running through her mind. She just said Okay, smiled, and reached for my hand, and off we went.

I'm going to go on a little tangent from the riveting aimless-driving-walmart-visitation storyline here to talk about this, because it's something I've wanted to have an explosive little emotional moment about for about a month now, and decided to save it for this, which I knew in some form or another I'd have a big written commemoration for. I can't tell you people how much it means to me when she reaches for my hand - nor how deeply happy it makes me that she does it so often. It's part of why I made the suggestion to simply walk around a giant department store. It's one thing if a girl will let you put your arm around her in a movie theater, or even while walking together, especially if you're a clumsy oaf that makes this type of walking a disaster waiting to happen. It's another if she will take your arm or hand when you offer it. It has been my exquisite pleasure to be around one who will reach out for you if that kind of contact is lost for too long. It is the kind of desire for connection that I feel inundated with on the inside but have in the past been too afraid would look clingy and posessive if I clumsily tried to translate it to action, brought to life in a simple and unassuming gesture.

I try not to show her the sort of watery eye I still sometimes get at that gesture, but I doubt I can hide the heaving warm feeling in my chest that it gives me. It's beneficial in that regard that often times when this happens, she's reaching behind her, so she can't see. I feel silly right now, even, typing this out where I'm not even visible beyond text, for putting so much into the fact that she reaches for my hand. But it's something that means an awful lot to me, and blubbering about it is something that's been building up in me for a while.

Back to the story. She reached for my hand in the car, and I kissed it. We went to Walmart, and she reached for it in the parking lot on our way in. It happened countless other times as we wandered past the post-thanksgiving Walmart crowds. Sometimes, when we need to navigate around people, we break that connection. Sometimes, to maneuver around or change directions, we do some fancy handswitching. Sometimes, just for the hell of it, we combine that with something that turns into a little dance. Sometimes it's a tango, sometimes its one of those spinny victorian numbers, but regardless, its silly, it's sweet, and I absolutely love it. And I could honestly give a flying damn who sees it and thinks we're crazy.

During this same trip, she indulged my habit of never going through a Walmart when I'm not on some kind of time constraint without strolling through the toy aisles. She didn't say "Man, what a dork you are," or "Hey Captain Kirk, the action figures are that way," or even "You suggest we walk through a store, and then the icing on that cake is going through an aisle filled with products aimed at people half your age?"

We wandered through, as we do, pointing out things to each other, cracking jokes, and making references to things we've talked about in prior conversations. Among those things that night was the Goldenbooks series, how they either still have the gold binding we both remember, or brought that back after switching off. The books on that shelf look identical to the ones I had as a child, which were purchased for my brother, which makes them even older. As I would find out, some of them were identical, as she managed to find her favorite one, The Poky Little Puppy. She asked me to read it to her, right there in the store, and I thought that was about the most adorable thing in my life to date. So, I did. We sat there with people looking for Spongebob etch-a-sketches whizzing around us, and I read the story to her, while she softly corrected my numerous screwups, and smiled. When we finished, she thanked me, and kissed me.

I got a kiss for doing that. I'm telling you, there is some kind of karmic math that is going to mean years of torture in my future for that. But for right then, at that moment, I was the happiest guy who ever suggested a trip to Walmart as an activity.

Other things happened at that Walmart, and later we even went to a convienience store, where I continued my lucky streak with lottery tickets. But the actual minute for minute account of the evening loses all the parts that matter to me, and this story's gone on long enough.

If I had only one opportunity to say something nice about someone, and I chose that I really enjoyed walking through a department store with them, that would seem pretty crappy. I've always felt a secret jealousy of the young couples I see in the most mundane places, like grocery stores, dividing up lists, racing each other, one grabbing the other's hand to rush them off to show them something as eye-popping as a surprisingly green bunch of bananas. Making jokes to each other while they squeezed the cataloupes. I always felt those people knew something I didn't, and always had a hunch that I would be like them. The few times I've had that experience with someone, I've loved it. So maybe it's not so crappy.

If you can find utter happiness even in the mundane, the world is your oyster.

I think my reaction to those people in supermarkets will change from now on. I don't think I have anything to be jealous of anymore.

I just gotta reach out my hand, and shamelessly do my own theme music.

Happy Birthday, baby.

[what a goob]

happy birthday la song

Hey. It's Leslie's birthday. I have a whole mushy post typed up, though I'd like to polish it a bit more. Additionally, for diplomatic reasons with her friend and future roommate, and because my birthday plan did not come together as smoothly as it could have and I thought an extra day would prove helpful, I won't see her til tomorrow. So, then, it's fitting that the post will come tomorrow. But, even though she won't see it, I wanted a marker on the actual day. Forces conspired to move things to tomorrow, but I can't resist a good date commemoration.

Yeah, that's the ticket. And the time to polish the post and birthday plan is just a coinkidink. Nothing to see here. Hey, those appear to be the droids you're looking for over there.

you have no earthly idea how hard it is to find shamrock wrapping paper in december

[mildred and patty hill can suck it II: the reckoning]

From the right side of the screen

Collection of web interest volume xrj30:

I found out that one of my favorite comic characters still has a web presence out there. Scud: The Disposable Assassin has quite possibly the greatest story set-up in weirdo comic history, which is even more impressive given that it can be contained on one page. I present that glorious page to you here. Or, rather, they do, so go buy a trade paperback or something to defray their bandwidth cost. And then, if you don't want it, give it to me. Ahh, the perfect crime.

In other news, Strong Bad gets a Laptop. Aside from the unveiling of the new computer to replace the poor shotgunned Compy, this is in every way inferior to the previous email, "Virus," which is my favorite one since like "The Process." Your super box needs words. My mouth was a broken JPEG. Claaaassic.

Thanks to the guys at Red Vs Blue, I may end up tasting Turducken by the end of the year. All I can say is, what in the blue hell.

And now, a word about charity. It may surprise some of you to know I very much wish to be a more charitable person than I am. I have it pretty sweet, and try to share the things I have with those around me, knowing that they can't be bothered to download a shitload of TV episodes, or don't even have net access, or whatever it may be. But that's still just sharing the wealth from my own selfish nature. I would therefore like to be more involved in real charity stuff, but I also have a very deep-seated dislike of a lot of charities. It takes quite a bit to convince me that a charity isn't one of those that withholds the food your money bought until the starving kid swears allegiance to Jesus, or doesn't take 3 lobster dinner meetings for the board of directors to decide how best to distribute the funds to the hungry. This is also true of what I'd consider my number one cause, Literacy. If anyone knows a really great literacy charity that isn't bogged down in horrific administrative boondoggling, drop me a line.

Anyway, the point of all this was that as the holiday season comes around, and I end up giving away pocket change to everyone but the Salvation Army, I often wish I could rally behind a cause or two that I trust.

Oh yeah, and while I'm going off on change, yeah, I give change to bums on the street if I have some. Yes, I'm aware they are in all likelihood going to buy booze. I'm probably going to spend it on Pepsi and Cheezits, and I'm not freezing my ass off and degrading myself to get it, so what the hell. Let 'em buy some booze. I don't have such a huge moral high road there. I don't give it to liars, the guys that give you one story as you go by the first time and another when you come back. If you've got a beef with panhandlers, don't give them money. For those of you who feel the need to scream "GET A JOB" or discourage others from forking over the king's ransom of odd nickels in their pocket, you seriously do not understand the psychology of those people. And I don't much care if you think I'm enabling their lifestyle. Chances are, I'm enabling their life for a brief additional period. And I'm not all that optimistic that a lot of them have many of those periods left.

Anyway, back to the upbeat part, it just so happens I've found two so far this year that I think are winners in the no-bullshit maximum-fund-transparency lotto.

First is Child's Play. I had mixed feelings on this initially, because obviously there are more crucial causes out there than making kids happy with toys and so on, and I can hardly argue that giving one kid a video game is more virtuous than keeping another one fed. However, I think such debates hurt all causes, as prioritization in such things inevitably leads to malaise, at least in my experience. Additionally, as a fan of these guys personally and professionally, I'm absolutely convinced that they are in this for the maximum transparency. This isn't a scam, or even a nice skim for them - I would wager they sink a ton of money and effort on this thing. They're in it to push as much actual proceeds on as humanly possible - or, as Jerry said, bury those hospitals in toys.

Second is The Christmas Bed Project, which is a simple cause, but one I'm also quite convinced is not out to hoodwink natives into becoming Methodists or give the board of directors something to do between cotillons. Read the story, if you think it's as genuinely symbolic a cause as I do, toss em a couple bucks.

I'll be updating on this more, as I try to exorcise some leftover Catholic guilt by actually finding charities that don't suck ass instead of bitching about the ones that do and funding the boozehounds I encounter.

[it's cold out here]