You know how it is when you re-visit a place you remember, and they've changed it just enough that it gives you fits until you figure it out?

That was me today.

Rather spontaneously yesterday, I thought it would be nifty if I could visit my old alma mater, Pacific University in Forest Grove. After all, we were only an hour away, and we could go home to Eugene afterwards. I still have a couple of professorial contacts there, so I wrote them and made arrangements.

Everything started out really really well. I had a fantastic coffee session with my American history prof that went for nearly an hour as we caught up and such. It was just awesome to see him again after nearly ten years. While I was at Pacific, I took nearly every class he offered, if not every class. Eventually, because of him, I added a history minor to my already crazy Lit/Writing double major and music minor. And though we've kept in touch all these years via email, being able to re-connect in person brought back so many memories, not only of classes but also of times outside of class when he was psychologist as well as teacher, friend and confidant. Some of my best times from that turbulent period involved him.

Good times continued after that as hunny and I wandered around campus. We explored the new library, took a walk around the labyrinth named after the president who presided while I was attending (now deceased), and generally hung out so that I could re-experience the campus.

Then the both of us met with another ex-prof, this time in the English department. I only had one class with the woman, but sometimes that doesn't matter. She also became one of my best teacher friends at Pacific. This was the woman who got me into a lit conference my senior year because of a paper I wrote in the style of Slaughterhouse-Five...it wasn't just about the book, but actually in the style of the book. And we have also kept in touch over the years via email, but I haven't actually seen her since I left Pacific. We had a very nice lunch at Maggie's Buns (a staple of the campus that went up during my tenure) and just chatted away about life, the universe, and everything.

Finally, though, hunny and I had to start making our way back to Eugene. That's when the adventure turned sour.

There was a road closed on our normal route home, so we had to decide which way would be best in order to avoid having John's car heat up. We chose the wrong route.

It took us an hour or more just to get back to the 217 South, and then to the I-5, because of Labor Day traffic and several accidents. John's car started acting up as a result of the stop-n-go traffic, causing us to stop several times to let the engine cool down. NIGHTMARE. Finally we decided that since we were going to have to cross hell in order to get to clear road (IF there was clear road -- we didn't know the full state of the I-5 South), we might as well bag it and head back to the parents' place for the night, car being the bitch that it was. And so, frustrated as hell after a trip that took twice as long as it should have, we limped back to the storage place, which is where we are now, ready to spend another night before heading home early in the morning.

Although our adventure didn't end so well, I absolutely do not regret going to Forest Grove this morning. For me, it was worth it to see my profs again, and the campus. There were some great times there that I needed to remember.

Current Mood: exhausted

I had totally forgotten about it until, uh, I walked outside and saw all the people outside, but we had another Pixar event at school yesterday! /o/ David Munier, who was the set director for WALL-E, came and gave a presentation about building and dressing the sets for the movie, and asdkjsdksja I could barely wrap my head around it. o_o I have no clue how these artists and TDs are smart enough to do this, but they somehow manage to write displacement shaders that a) simulate tons of small collected trash, b) add in larger bits of poking-out trash, c) compact the trash down so that it looks worn, d) add age to the trash so that it looks like it's been there for hundreds of years, e) blend the trash into normal dirt, and f) randomize the effect so that it looks natural and not like a texture. And that's just the work that goes into ONE GROUND SHADER. And in his presentation, he managed to make it funny, too. XD

He talked about the trash-covered earth for awhile before moving to showing the scale and layers that went into creating the Axiom. Aside from the exterior (which they color-coded multiple times to demonstrate age, shininess, etc.) they also showed how they had to create dozens and dozens of animated moving billboards for the interior of the ship, and then animate THOSE so that they looked like they were holographs that had been running for hundreds of years. Perhaps most amusing was when they decided to integrate Massive for all the crowd scenes inside the Axion (Massive being the software they use for AI crowd control; think Happy Feet and the armies of LOTR), only to have the director go "Let's have all of the hoverchairs and robots move about the ship on FLOOR LINES!" Which is...exactly what Massive is NOT meant to do. XD;

Every time they do these presentations, even though it's often the technical supervisors talking tons of CG jargon, I'm always amazed at the time and effort they put into all the little details of the movie in order to tell the story best. None of the people there, from artists to TDs to effects people, really don't skimp on any part of their job...and the sad thing is, because they're doing their job so well you never even notice it! And David seemed really excited talking all this techie jargon on how they problem-solved these ridiculous sets. Work flies when you're having fun. :O

And it just made me wanna see Wall-E again. EEEEEE-VAH!


Drawing: New LG page; almost done with boards. Not a drawing, but I'm almost done with Brawl!Phoenix, too. :3

Writing: Not much.

Current Mood: listless

Happy 50th birthday, Michael Jackson. OMG.

Fuck you, Gustav.

Yay for Obama's awesome speech!!

Everybody, if you pray for automobiles, pray that John's car Penny doesn't overheat on us on the way home.

The YouTube video below says it so well. In actuality, this is what first had me question 9/11. If no steel structured buildings had ever collapsed because of fire, prior to 9/11, and in fact the cause of the collapse was fire alone, then there must be something VERY wrong with the building codes. And, why in the name of God, are we not keeping the metal from the buildings to figure out this fatal flaw and change building codes so that a tragedy like this never happens again?

As this video dramatizes in a very tongue in cheek way, "thermal expansion" is just not quite enough of an explanation for a perfect symmetrical collapse.




h/t WeAreChange LA.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.


"Do you think we should thank the people?"

"The people?"

"The people who gave us all this."

"Well. Yes, I guess we could do that."


From Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Even though the tickets aren't available on Ticketmaster, I still managed to discover that Celtic Thunder is coming to the Theatre of the Clouds in Portland on December 6th.

I don't yet know how we'll manage it, but I seriously want those tickets. And I want the good ones. It would be an awesome birthday present, since the show happens about a week before.

*sigh* I'll figure it out somehow.


Of course, it would be even more awesome to actually meet the guys, but I won't hold my breath on that one.

Current Mood: hopeful

stolen from griffen

( How well do you know your partner? )

I updated the Alternative News Directory again. I added a couple of links. I'm also working on an Educational Book & Author List. You can see the link already on your right. It is currently under construction since I am trying to make it orderly, as well as contain links to Amazon.com, ebooks, or my reviews of the books I have read. Speaking of books that I've read, I finished The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul a couple of days ago and I should post a review. I've been busy finishing up the stuff I need to do for grad school and for the party this Friday I'm holding at my house. Anyhow, that's a brief update and I'll post with more info in the future!

I LURVES this picture of me, not sure why:

I know I bitch sometimes about being lonely and not having many friends. I suppose I'm more prone to this right now because we just moved, and we are pretty much on our own in Eugene. I'm slowly working on one acquaintanceship, but friends are not here.

However, this doesn't mean I have no friends. I really really really appreciate those friends I do have. I was just looking at pics from my wedding/bachelorette party, and THOSE are the people who matter so much to me. The ones who made my biggest life events so special.

But they're not the only ones who matter. There are those I don't see so often anymore (or haven't seen for a long, long time) who are still friends, who I had a special connection with even years ago that I tend to forget about. I found a couple of journals the other day from my days at Pacific, and in reading through them again, I re-realized how much some people mean to me. These are people I've kept in touch with but have been unable to visit in any meaningful way. They're still friends.

Friends out there, out beyond my reach, I appreciate you. The Cosmos knows I do. I only wish you were with me right now. That's all.

Current Mood: grateful

At times I forget that people don't know where to start or how to get introduced to political topics and/or corruption. Thankfully, there are quite a few good documentaries out there to watch--FOR FREE--on the internet. Below are the best documentaries that I have personally watched, many of them I own and welcome to borrow from me. I've put them in categories to make it easier to navigate and to find what you're looking for.

The links will be checked frequently since sometimes various websites take down these and put them up elsewhere. Also, I'll add newer documentaries as they are released and I discover them!

This list was last updeated: August 27, 2008.


------


9/11
Loose Change Final Cut: Good general overview
9/11 Press for Truth: the story of the families to get the 9/11 Commission
Terrorstorm: a history of government terrorism
The 9/11 Chronicles: Truth Rising: the story of First Responders health problems
Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime: another overview (older)
Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State: documents how America is becoming a police state through incremental implementation


The Federal Reserve/Financial System
America: Freedom to Fascism: how the income tax is illegal
The Money Masters
Money as Debt

Political Secrets/Assassinations
Secrets of the CIA
Beyond Treason (part 1 of 2): how our troops are used for medical experiments without consent
JFK II: details Bush family connections to the assassination of JFK
Big Easy to Big Empty: corruption and lies from the Hurricane Katrina disaster


Global Government/UN/New World Order
Wake Up Call
Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement

The fish that live here at Mom and Dad's have an agenda. You can see it in their little fishy eyes.

Or eye. One of them has only one eye. He is named, rather appropriately, Popeye, and I do believe he is the ringleader of this eerie group of grommies, catfish, and sucker fish.

Numerous are the times when, while sitting here at the computer, I've turned around and beheld almost every single fish in that tank staring straight at me. Slowly they wave their fins around to hold position, deliberately looking in my direction.

Don't tell me they're just hungry. They're planning something. I can feel it.

I am dead sure that they've some unknown technology in that tank, hid fast among the fake greek ruins and weedy plant life. At night, they don water suits that allow them to leave the tank, and this they do every night, coming closer to where I sleep, all unaware, on the couch next to the fish tank.

They're trying to steal my soul.

Fish owners, beware. The fish are ALWAYS planning something.

Current Mood: stop staring at me!

I'm sitting just out of eyeball range of the front office where Mom and Dad conduct business for the storage place they manage. Right now they're working with an older lady who is renting a second unit.

I cannot believe the amount of inane chitchat that is coming out of this woman's mouth. It's like a faucet you can't turn off...she's babbling about her uncle being on the verge of death and how she's inheriting his manufactured home practically before he's even dead (because hospice is there and he's only got days, maybe weeks to live) and how the uncle owes only $12k on it because they thought there'd be backtaxes but it's current so a lot cheaper than previously thought and how she's packing up all useless items from her own home and she's just going to have a second 5x5 unit only briefly, and then she'll have a new home to put everything in and how excited she is to have a 2b/2b place to live in a small senior living park even though it's just too bad about her uncle having this rare form of cancer and OH how U-Haul has this special moving program for $15/hr per person and how when she moves in she's going to wallpaper the kitchen because her aunt (now dead five years) had purple flowers painted in there but how she'll have more room and it'll be hers hers HERS!

Are you KIDDING ME???!?!?!?

In rummaging through my mounds of books, I came across two of my old journals that I haven't seen in eons. The first dates from 1995 to 1997, and the next from 1998 to 1999.

I was just now riffling through the first journal, and I find myself at times snorting and guffawing at myself. How I wrote back then! Of love, of daily activities, of DAMN (Deep And Meaningful Notions). How funny it all seems now.

But then I come across the occasional passage that reminds me of the Simon & Garfunkel line, "After changes upon changes, we are more or less the same." The writing and the thought process may be less mature, but the sentiments are real, and some of them are still with me even now, in some form.

( Something of an example. )

Part of me wants to slap my younger self and say, "Stop being a whiner!" But the bigger part of me recognizes that my younger self was trying to say something much more profound than I could actually get out at the time. When I wrote that, I did have a problem with depression (it still crops up occasionally, but it's not so severe as to be clinical), and I had incredibly low self-esteem because of my weight. That hasn't gone away entirely, either. I still don't consider myself worthy of friendship, by and large, and I worry that people find me boring or irritating.

What I'd also want to remind myself is that, despite all the failure with so many potential friendships, there have been successes, as well. I AM worthy of love, of friendship, and somewhere within, I recognize this because I keep trying to bring love and friendship into my life. Despite those numerous failures, I continue to make overtures to people, to listen to others when they need/want me to, to let them know that I appreciate them and want to spend time with them. If they reciprocate, then I'm on top of the world. If not....I move on. I may not like it, I may worry once again that it's all about me, that it was something I did (which may or may not be true), but I move on. I continue to live.

I'm really glad I've kept all these old journals. It does make me appreciate the progress I've made in my life, even as I recognize the issues that I still wrestle with, that I may always wrestle with. At least I can see my own growth, and I can cherish that growth and use it to keep right on growin'.

Current Mood: contemplative

Four, count 'em, FOUR boxes of books to get rid of. Some of them go all the way back to undergrad and before. Seriously. I can't even fathom it, and they're MY books.

New page for Lunargyros is up today! Blar transition pages. I am so behind on pages, arrgh. D:

WHY CAN'T I STOP WATCHING THIS


I was thinking of making a fandom secret, except then I remembered that going anon makes me really uncomfortable, so I thought I'd just make a discussion out of it instead. (Maybe I'll make a discussion out of the whole anon idea later). I've been thinking about this idea of "elitism" in fandom (and consequently, I guess it's opposite of "fanbrattiness") and how the terms are thrown around a LOT. And probably in both cases they don't really apply as often as people think; it's almost to the point where it feels like fans have to be one or the other. I'm finding it especially weird how "elitism" has developed SUCH a negative connotation on it, when I'm not certain it was always that way. I suspect "fanbrat" has always had the negative connotation. :/

What makes someone (or something, like a community) "elitist" in fandom? What's the difference between being an elitist and just being a highly active member of a fandom? Why does it become such a bad thing to people? Does it have to do with what people perceive/expect from fandom BNFs? Is it the activities people engage in, or what pairings/story interests they talk and write about, or how they treat others? How is it all that different, or worse than, "fanbrattiness"? How does perceived fandom popularity link into being an elitist or a fanbrat? Once fandom at large has a perception of someone as either a fanbrat or an elitist, is it even possible to change their minds? Is it worth it?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts, flist and others! And you can work from whatever fandom you're most into, or even forget fandom completely and say how you think it works in The World At Large.


Drawing: Worked summore on revising 'boards yesterday.

Writing: Schtuff

Current Mood: curious

Somehow, somewhen, I need to find time to make a trip to Powell's Books. I just went through some of the storage unit we've got here at Mom/Dad's, and I found a slew of books that are unmarked and ready for me to let go to someone who will enjoy them. They're useless sitting around, and it's likely that I'll never read/re-read them. PLUS, if I go for store credit, most assuredly I will find books that will be more useful to me in my current projects.

Ah hell. It's just an easy excuse to get lost in Powell's.

Okay, not like I need an excuse. But since we bought a crapload of stuff for the PC and therefore can't be buying anything but necessities for awhile, this would allow me to have a justification for buying new material, stuff that'll be handy for when I write my folklore thesis and such.

And maybe I can sneak in some new sci-fi? Huh?

Well, according to the Anon Meme, this is a mortal sin.

Does that mean I'm going to RP hell twice?

Current Mood: amused

Alabama hits obese workers with fee.

Look, I'm all for being healthy, but I want to be healthy on my OWN TERMS. The BMI is NOT an indicator of health!! As the article says, "A recent study suggested that about half of overweight people and nearly a third of obese people have normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while about a quarter of people considered to be of normal weight suffer from the ills associated with obesity."

Yet the Alabama government is (as far as I can tell) using the BMI as the sole indicator of health to determine who'll have to pay and who won't?

And there's all kinds of wrong in this, period. While I do think that being overweight/obese does exacerbate some existing health problems, it doesn't always create the health problems that people say it does. AND people are different, built differently. We can't measure all people by the same standard and get away with it!

My favorite bit from the article: "Computer technician Tim Colley already pays $24 a month for being a smoker and doesn't like the idea of another charge. 'It's too Big Brotherish,' he said."

Yeah. Get a clue, Alabama!

Current Mood: annoyed