Adventures of Mediocrity [entries|archive|friends|userinfo]
Chris

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I'm coming up, bitches [May. 12th, 2008|08:37 pm]
I am going to be in San Antonio next week. I'm thinking I could get up there either Wednesday or Thursday and be there till about Saturday afternoon. Well, actually, I'll still be there, but I'll be there with my family. People, who wants to hang out with me? I may or may not have a vehicle (most likely not), so I will require getting someone to come get me if they want to hang out, unless you can talk someone else with a car into the hangout.

Jason C, next time. Hopefully by then, I'll have a monster of a gaming laptop and we can join up for some sort of game.
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But, on the other hand Mr. McCarthy, would it kill you to use quotation marks? [Apr. 23rd, 2008|08:16 am]
[Tags|]
[Current Location |work via mobile device]
[music |the sound of education]

I am approximately 3/4 of the way through No Country for Old Men and I must say that I am actually quite pleased with it and actually could see it as a quite suspenseful and well out together flick. So I want to see it even more now.
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An allegory. [Apr. 12th, 2008|01:01 pm]
So, for about two years now, I had been toiling away at the My Heroes Ability application on Facebook. I had been toiling away, trying to build up my healer abilities, using Calm on the members of my group to slowly push up my exp to get that next level, always in the hope of finally getting those 200 Ability Points I'd need to get Power Negation.

And then they finally opened up the Spontaneous Regeneration Ability. Only, that's a Physical Ability, and not down the Energy Ability tree that I've been going down. I really, really like the idea of Spontaneous Regeneration. It's a whole lot cooler than being just a Healer. And the physical path will help me out in the long run when I start actually going into battle. So I started working on that. I can balance these two out easily, actually. Just work on the Physical until I can get SR, then go back and become Ulti-healer. And then I could balance my time between the two, working back and forth.

But now, since I got transferred to Pharr, Mind Abilities have started looking really good. I've never really considered how to work with mind abilities, but it just seems really easy to take that on.

But, this is kinda crazy. This isn't how you play the game well. Spending a few exp here and a few exp there trying to improve all the bases takes forever. You'll end up losing interest in the game or it'll shut down before you actually ever get any good.

I find myself wondering what to do.

I've never had to ask myself this kind of question.

It's quite ridiculous.

(Yes, Sofi, I realize that this is uncomfortably reminiscent of a certain other blog entry, but I work with what I know.)
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Another quick little thought. [Apr. 2nd, 2008|06:41 pm]
I think one wish I would choose would be for myself, my friends, and family to have one "Groundhog Day" a month. It would be one day that we could repeat over (just once, mind, I don't want to be stuck in a loop forever) with no consequences, but with the experience we gained.

Personally, I'd pick a pay day, blow all my money on movies, and then go back and buy the ones that were actually good. Oh, I'd try to break into a bank, just to see if I could.
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I <3 Texas courts. [Mar. 16th, 2008|09:41 am]
Apparently a district attorney in some county near Dallas used government money to buy himself a gaming computer ostensibly passed off as a backup server.

Here are eyewitness accounts of the prosecution examining the witness, as portrayed by Penny Arcade. Ahem. Lolz.
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Man vs. Wild [Mar. 9th, 2008|12:35 pm]
So, I need to use up a week's worth of vacation prior to Memorial Day. I want to go camping and fishing. I think I would like to go to Bastrop state Park. And I think I would like go May 16th - May 18th. Who would go with me? For further links: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/bastrop/
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there was this nice Shaft parody on the radio that was Obama flavored [Mar. 5th, 2008|09:38 am]
So, yeah. Obama 08.
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Indecision 2008. Seriously. [Feb. 24th, 2008|09:28 am]
Okay, so anyone who's hung out with me long enough knows that politically, I'm rather split and damn-near contradictory. I am torn between an almost Platonic love for pure order and forms (which leads me to love vast systems promising a place for everyone) and an inherent distrust of bureaucracy and rules and regulations that hamper individual choices (inherited from my father and cultivated by dystopian literature).

Democrats, with their promises of increasing the power of the government to provide for even the most disenfranchised citizens, tug at my Christian sense of charity. But I, as a middle class citizen living in one of the poorest regions of the country, see how these government programs are too often a handout (not a handup), and are too often abused by people who don't need while someone who is legitimately down on their luck or just needs a little boost to raise their standing often times doesn't qualify (c.f. financial aid).

Republicans, with their promises of reforming these programs, appeal to my deep inherent sense that one should be responsible for one's own actions. However, having lived through mostly Republican administrations, I haven't seen any change. I've mostly seen a worsening of the situation.

While Republicans are less likely to sire bills that restrict personal freedoms, it's mostly out of a laissez-faire idea of capitalism rather than a concern for the first two Amendments. Democrats, though, have their hearts in the right place, even when the stupidly try to pry my gun shows from my cold dead hands.

That being said, I generally lean towards the Right. And I've liked John McCain for a while.
And I've not liked Hillary for a longer while. So in a race between those two, I know which way I'm voting.

McCain and Obama though...

Everyone here knows I love the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator personality test. The MBPTI is my way of understand people. I type as an NF, an Idealist personality. I believe in other Idealists, and I understand them, and I think that if there were more of us, the world would be a better place. Thing is... Barack Obama is an Idealist. If he's elected, he would not only be the first minority president, he'd also arguably be the first Idealist president.

Hell. I'm even more tied now.
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I want to go fishing. [Feb. 21st, 2008|05:52 pm]
Does anyone have a boat?

Also, I've noticed that my truck seat is getting a wicked ass-groove from all the time I spend in it. I've seen recliners that have less of a one than this. Sheesh.
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Chris's San Antonio Adventure [Feb. 11th, 2008|07:32 pm]
Plans are Tentative.

Saturday
1:00 PM Somewhere Off I-35 Visit with Jason C. Chat. Possibly talk about vampires and/or grad school.


3:00 PM Burr Street, San Antonio Convince Sofi to go to HalfPrice Books. Sell back some books. Buy a box full of crap fantasy and Cormac Mcarthy.

9:00 PM Chacho's Gather people to go to Chacho's. Drink Giant Margaritas.

Sometime after that Peter or Edmond's apartment, most likely Play video games. Drunken video games.

Sunday
11:00 AM N. St. Mary's St. Go to Candlelight for Brunch. Drink endless mimosas.
or
12:00 PM Taco Garage Go to Taco Garage. Drink Micheladas.

1:00 PM Somewhere off Turkey Point Visit the Gonzalez home. Deliver tithe of Avocados (and limes, if the tree has produced more.)

3:00 PM A Dollar Theater Somewhere Put down a $5.00 bill and point at movies I want tickets for.

8:00 PM TBD Baking/Drinking/Movie Watching Party at someone's house. Cranium should be played as well.

Monday
3:00 AM TBD Help clean up kitchen/floors

1:00 PM Crackerbarrel Eat Broiled Catfish, Fried Okra, and Mac-n-cheese.
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I wrote this out freehand first. [Feb. 11th, 2008|06:27 pm]
Written 01/14/2008

I am currently attempting to read Great Expectations for the second time and I do believe I shall finish it this time (Editors Note: He did.). Victorian literature is such a queer time. So many prolific authors and poets, and yet so… dull the style. I know I am spoiled, and that so much of my preferred style of writing was developed thanks to Modernism; it‘s just that the prose is so dense, with dependent clauses ad infinitum and nary a semicolon in sight. And yes, I realize the irony here. And then the p.o.v. It’s always first person, and it’s always being related from the future, after the events have happened. No In Media Res here. We have to start at birth and end (especially in a Thomas Hardy novel) in death.

And that’s not to say they are all terrible, but, ugh. There’s a dearth of wit, of one-liners. I know it’s my popcorn-addled mind that craves it, but come on.

Still, I am reading it, and managing to smelt enjoyment from the ore of the text. And three major… let’s call them theses… come to mind from this. First, I am reminded so very much of my trip to London. I want to go back now, and bring the books with me and compare the descriptions of Dicken’s Victorian London to Gaiman’s Neverwhere London to that paltry imitator, reality. Oh, and also visit Platform 9 and ¾ at King’s Cross Station again and maybe see some young kids smacking into the wall at a dead run. Awesome. More on this shall come later.

A second thesis, which I admit I have not fully developed, is on the nature of happiness, and humanity’s apparent inability to be truly happy. But I haven’t posted in so long that by the time I get around to this one, Mike will have moved to the moon.

The third thesis, which is filet mignion out of this top sirloin, is that, in the character of British Literature, Family is the Deus Ex Machina, the source of salvation that restores the proper identity in a romance, and averts the tragedy in a comedy. On the other hand, it is the Institution (be it representatives of a school, government, or social club) that is the tool of the antagonist, that which causes the tragedy to occur and grind our hero to nothing.

Contrast this to American Literature, where I believe it is familial expectations that protagonists flee from, and institutions (again, schools, offices, etc) that prove to be the Deus ex Machina.

These are broad, seeping claims, and ones that even I can disprove. And, to be fair, I haven’t read much Post-Modern British Lit, but I have read a bit of American Po-Mo, so that my supposed Atlantic divide may just be a temporal one.

But yet, but yet I have read some British Po-Mo lit. A very influential series, in fact, and that is J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. And in this series, familial ties, bloodlines, and inheritances all play important salvatory roles while the Institutions play a greater role in helping the antagonist than the protagonist (How many teachers actually help Harry versus how many try to kill him?).

So if my thesis is correct, if J. K. Rowling had been born American, and been waitressing in an I. H. O. P. in Sandusky, Ohio, writing a story for her kids, it would have been titled Hermione Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It would have been a story of a young person who struggles to get her family to understand her abilities and interests, and through mentoring and intervention by outside helpers of teachers and friends, proves her self-worth in a lifestyle different from her parents.
To prove this, I shall endeavor to research speculative juvenile fiction (from, oh, Modernity on) as an exploration of these themes. I will also look to secondary sources, especially those that explore juvenile literature from an existentialist (i.e. self and society) and social psychological views. Further research in sociology and social psych would also likely be helpful.

And finally, if I’m right, I should be able to come up with some legitimate conclusion for this.

It is entirely possible I am wrong. But, if my premise is sound, this might be as close to a lob as I can hope for in Academic literature, and might finally break this damn block of mine.

Postscript 02/11/2008: Yeah, I’m probably wrong. As I think more and more of it, it is a feature of the genre of children and adolescent literature that family is portrayed in a positive light. No reason not to stop continuing to explore it, but not likely.
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Seriously? C’mon Peter Parker. [Feb. 11th, 2008|06:16 pm]
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On the formerly-prolific, ever-brilliant commentary blog
Websnark, Eric Burns recently posted a post about ret-conning as it relates to Marvel Comics’ latest dead albatross: Spider-Man’s "One More Day" storyline. Now, I don’t really keep up with Marvel or DC, or really any comics beyond what Robert Kirkman is regularly writing for (and even then, I’m only reading the comics, not the press release and rumors about these comics) these days. So, I had seen promotions for this storyline in my local comics’ dungeon, but figured it’d be a fairly standard storyline. But, by the Hammer of Thor, if this isn’t the third-most stupid thing ever done in comic storylines. It is a credit to how stupid it is to put it third in line as far as utter clusterfucks of storylines go. I mean, Squirrel Girl is Shakespearean genius compared to this. It’s not just that it’s absurd. It’s not that. These are comic books, absurdity is assumed as reality. It’s that it’s a terrible choice that I have a hard time imagining a true hero making.

Brief synopsis: Peter Parker (a.k.a. Spider-Man) and his wife Mary-Jane Parker (nee Watson) get offered a deal by Mephisto, Marvel’s ubiquitous Devil-figure, to save Peter’s dying Aunt May. Mephisto will allow Aunt May to live, curing her of cancer or Clone Degenerative Disease or whatevertheheck the editors have said she has, if Spider-Man and Mary-Jane agree to have their entire marriage and relationship erased. And the stupid fuckers agreed to it!!! Hang on a second; I’m going to go outside and scream obscenities until I calm down.

And Screams of rage begin. )
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Office Work: The Dystopia [Jan. 22nd, 2008|12:17 pm]
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01/18/2098: The bitter winter continues unabated. Freezin rain buffets our site, with no hope of letting up. I feel for those poor s.o.b’s up in corporate, toiling in their subzero cubicles. But maybe they’ll get some warmth off the XO’s from HR. Obviously, anyone who makes us work during the worst storm of a millennia must be a demon, and should have the fires of hell burning inside them.

We lost Jimmy today. The stupid sonofabitch trieed to make a break for the coffee across the street. The guard roaches ate him before he got halfway there. In retaliation to our spirit, the regional coordinators turned off our heat. Esmeralda printed out TPS report after TPS report and we heaped the copier-warmed sheets over ourselves to maintain body temperature. Rick and I fought each other in the employees’ lounge/arena during lunch for the recreation of all. He lost. I’m going to miss that big bastard.

I’ll bury the remains and put in for his job on Monday.
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President's Day [Jan. 19th, 2008|08:27 am]
So, I have President's Day off.

Can I crash at anyone's house in SA? All those who offer, I will make it a point to see.
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There will be more substantive posts. [Jan. 12th, 2008|10:44 am]
I have an essay in draft form that is pretty much the same as a post on Websnark right now.

I have one concering "alpha nerds" and why Peter and I will put together an interdisciplinary conference on Aliens Vs. Predator and shall be inviting all to put in papers. We shall holding it in the parking lot at the IHOP on 1604. Andrea, be sure to invite Edmond, so that he can challenge all comers to a pancake contest in between panels.

But until then, quizzes.

I rep McCain for lief.

70% John McCain
66% Bill Richardson
65% Chris Dodd
63% Hillary Clinton
62% Barack Obama
62% Mike Huckabee
61% John Edwards
60% Joe Biden
57% Mitt Romney
56% Mike Gravel
51% Dennis Kucinich
49% Fred Thompson
48% Rudy Giuliani
47% Ron Paul
42% Tom Tancredo

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz
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I totally botched my wisdom roll. [Dec. 27th, 2007|07:18 pm]
I Am A: Lawful Good Human Cleric (4th Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-12

Dexterity-11

Constitution-13

Intelligence-15

Wisdom-14

Charisma-14


Alignment:
Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment because it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.


Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.


Class:
Clerics act as intermediaries between the earthly and the divine (or infernal) worlds. A good cleric helps those in need, while an evil cleric seeks to spread his patron's vision of evil across the world. All clerics can heal wounds and bring people back from the brink of death, and powerful clerics can even raise the dead. Likewise, all clerics have authority over undead creatures, and they can turn away or even destroy these creatures. Clerics are trained in the use of simple weapons, and can use all forms of armor and shields without penalty, since armor does not interfere with the casting of divine spells. In addition to his normal complement of spells, every cleric chooses to focus on two of his deity's domains. These domains grants the cleric special powers, and give him access to spells that he might otherwise never learn. A cleric's Wisdom score should be high, since this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)




And the detailed results, in case anyone wants to compare. )
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And maybe some blue cheese crumbles on that. [Dec. 27th, 2007|12:10 pm]
[Tags|, , , , ]
[Current Location |Liberry]
[mood |Lunchbreakin', fool]

So I picked up another Stephen King Book, for the first time in, oh, two years (that's a long time going between books by an author, especially one so prolific and in my preferred genres).

To describe the sensation of it, I must slip into my favorite metaphor, food. I eat hamburgers more than any other kind of food. I eat one at least once, if not twice a week. If I got to any restaurant regularly for any length of time, I will invariably pick up one of their burgers (or burger-derivatives). And I’m not just talking fast food places and Americana joints. I mean I’ve had burgers from steakhouses, seafood restaurants, Mexican food places, taco stands, everywhere.

I’ve had burgers with sautéed mushrooms, with grilled jalapenos, with pico de gallo; on whole wheat buns, on Texas Toast, on garlic butter ciabatta bread; bison burgers, ostrich burgers, burgers with shrimp; A1 Thick-n-Hearty sauce, remolaude sauce, pesto sauce.

And, by far, my favorite is a bacon-cheeseburger. The specifics of this vary through time and space, but I generally have it with at least the following: pickles, onions, and a spicy sauce. The sauce can be something mild like a Dijon mustard or KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce, or something as fired up as a chipotle mayonnaise or habanero ketchup.

But that's what I order.

And reading a Stephen King novel is like that. A bacon cheeseburger is not something spectacular. You do not order a bacon cheese-burger at your dinner with the queen. You do not go to culinary school to perfect the art of putting cheese onto bacon onto meat.

But in an airport layover, during a pit-stop of a cross-country drive, on your lunch break on a truly shitty day at work, nothing melts the world into quiet submission like a bacon cheeseburger. On those aimless Saturdays which feel like more should have been done but wasn’t; on those visits with old friends that seem like more should have been said, but wasn’t; on those days that are so frighteningly mundane, so much so that you begin to wonder if you are actually alive at all, nothing caps off those days with a sense of accomplishment, of “there-ness” as Doc O’Connor might say, as a bacon cheeseburger.

That’s a Stephen King book. He considers himself the Big Mac of Literature, but I think he’s being a bit too modest. Because there are some truly good bacon cheeseburgers out there, and there are some truly good Stephen King books out there. Reading his books, you can drown out the world, or you can say “I read 180 pages today. I did something.” And they are not thick, heavy things like a steak dinner. You don’t need to prepare it, to cut into the meat of it before hand, trying to go with the grain of the meat so that it will be tender to the bite. No, you just take it in your hands and start shoving it down, working through it in bites and chunks. And it’s oh-so-good. It’s nothing fancy, but it works.

His books tell a story, and they tell it well. The characters have voices, voices that live, salted lightly with reality. The books are paced in such a way that you can read blocks at a time, blurring through and yet still getting all the humor and tension of the story. You pick it up to be entertained, and as you read it, you are.

Except for the end.

Yeah, sorry, no metaphor there. Cell’s ending sucked, ’Salem’s Lot’s ending sucked, and It’s ending sucked. His endings suck. Oh there are exceptions… sorta. The Mist had a “Hitchcock ending”; Eyes of the Dragon has an ending that may not leave you wholly fulfilled, but at least fits the genre; and Needful Things wraps up everything if you don’t poke too closely.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I’m going to finish my Bag of Bones. It’s my lunch break, after all.
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Tin Man [Dec. 19th, 2007|12:24 pm]
Editor’s Note: Okay, yes, I am both author and editor, but that doesn’t mean I can’t go back and offer an apologia about the following. This is a meandering, tripartite kind of entry that starts out with a meme, goes to literary analysis, and finally ends up with self-criticism. And it was fermenting in my mind for about two weeks, so it should be a little bit south of ripe. I beg you to allow me this self-indulgence

As I have re-exposed my friends (most notably [info]sofitheteacup and [info]missmolecule) to that mental virus (a.k.a. meme) that is the Cube as a way for them to re-examine their lives (or to just give me a vicarious thrill), it is time for me to re-explore (Re, re, re. Damnit Chris, you just don’t do something once, do you? You have to go and do it again.) the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, more familiar to people as the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator. INFP, ENFJ, etc. Go out and find a quiz somewhere that will give you your personality type if you’ve forgotten it before clicking on the lj-cut. There’s even a Harry Potter flavored one. Try to find it, it’s quite fun. I was Lupin.

Anyways, there is one commentator on the MBPTI who relates each of the basic temperaments (NF, NT, SF, ST) to a character from Frank L. Baum’s The Wizard of OZ. And because I saw 1/3rd of the Sci-Fi Channel mini-series Tin Man ( which, by the way, was 1/3rd of awesomeness. If anyone is looking for a gift idea for me; that on dvd, be it burned or at a later date when it gets released, would be a good idea) it seems right to explore this.

Enter the O.Z. Seriously, are you guys getting tired with the whole ‘Enter the’ thing? I’ll stop if you’d like. )

And now, this illustrates a problem I have with my writing. My conclusions suck. In this essay, I have a decent enough conclusion because I can make predictions. But, what happens when I’ve already read/seen/heard the text I’m critiquing? All my theses are fairly… boring or unimportant. My essays go thesis – reasons why it’s true – thesis again. “What’s the point?” Andrea would ask so often of my ideas. Why does it matter that [Aliens Versus Predator] is a brilliantly paced movie, or that [My Pal Trigger] is a beautiful example of chiaroscuro?

Conclusions are supposed to answer the question “So what?” and so very rarely do I find something that I can support this with. My best conclusions are in papers where I find something wrong with the piece. I can conclude an essay on why Soon I Will Be Invincible sucked by telling suggesting that the author should have combined the characters of Fatale and Lily into one, (thus giving the piece a sense of unity, rather than that out-of-nowhere-ending twist that makes no sense whatsoever). But that means that I can only truly write essays where I tear into someone.

And I do not like tearing into people all the time. I want to offer hope and encouragement and understanding with what I write. I want people to read my works and suddenly have a greater appreciation of not just the text I’m discussing, but a way to read life.

It’s so hard to do it in a way that’s really relevant. How, exactly, is proving that Die Hard 2: Die Harder is the best Christmas movie of Bruce Willis’s career going to change the lives of my readers? It’s interesting to me, sure, and it’s actually kind of a sophisticated analysis, but in the end, it’s mental masturbation.

But it’s so very, very hard to say something important in a way that doesn’t fill your mouth with that gawdawful saccharinely-sweet taste that gives people diabetes. “And this is why life is beautiful and everything’s great. Lawl.” Sure, you can always say give suggestions for areas of further inquiry. But that just leads to more research, more research, more research. When are you going to shut up and say something, Chris?

But it’s so damnably difficult to actually say something worth being said in a way that can be proven; especially when dealing with literary criticism and fiction, and doubly especially in an academic setting. I might be able to say that the value of The Wizard of Oz is that it showed Dorothy that family and belonging is the most important thing in the world, and thus it shows us this truth. And then Salamon Rushdie comes along and says that the Wizard was a terribly old man; and by returning to Kansas, Dorothy is dooming herself to a proletarian existence in a bourgeois, capitalist society. So, you can’t make meaningful statements without being willing to go down that road of point-counterpoint for ages. You have to give that much of a damn. But you can’t just wrap it all up in a neat and tidy little statement.

This is the point where I can conclude and say that more research is necessary. Because this is building up to the point. The Answer, as D. Adams phrased it, to Life, the Universe, and Everything. This is the part where I can say that I will be back, and I will have a better idea, and then, damnit, then, I will be invincible!
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Max, this one goes out to you. [Dec. 19th, 2007|12:15 pm]
Brie, you can get in on this too, if you still read this journal. Jason, KWT, Mr. B. Fridley, Danie, Pam; this one is in remembrance of you all.

The rest of you all, forgive me geeking out hardcore here.

So, a few days ago I hung out with a high school friend, Lucian. He was the one who introduced me, years ago, to a text-based online multiple-user roleplaying game called Dragonrealms. It’s strange, but for that reason, I have this Livejournal today.

Yes, indeed. Before this was your blog of choice for half-hearted rambles, too much info, and hopefully well-thought-out essays that change your lives; it was a blog devoted to quizzes and game happenings. Go back, friends, and check out the first few ones.

But I digress. )
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Cooking Disaster [Dec. 11th, 2007|12:30 pm]
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I don’t believe I’ve ever truly screwed up a meal so badly that I couldn’t salvage something from it.

Part of this stems from the fact that my dad was the chef in my family, and so much of our father-son bonding was done in the kitchen or making dinner over a campfire. I learned what meat looked like, what fried foods looked like just before they were done. The wisdom of life was imparted to me in grocery store aisles, as well as how to sort the good produce from the bad. So that helped.

Part of it comes from my ironically occasional bouts of meticulousness, in which I follow directions as printed.

Part of it comes from the fact that I didn’t hesitate to call my father for help.

This is not to say, however, that Chris never screwed up at cooking. Oh no. I have failed many a times at the culinary arts and would like to share a few with everyone.

Enter the Kitchen )

Feel free, as well, to share your own disasters either here or in your own journals.
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