Any Animal that Doesn't Need a Bath is Not of This Earth

I don't know how to feel about the fact that some of the places I shop have started thinking about my birthday even before I have. Adagio sent me a replacement filter and packed in with my order a happy birthday card and a free sample of Birthday Tea. It has sprinkles. I suppose I don't take this as a bad thing, it's not that I don't fully celebrate the amazing nature of yet another year of cherished and amazing experiences and wisdom. It's just that how I celebrate my birthday is just about a given, and what I care about most is spending time with people I consider to be family. One of my most relaxing retreats is to indulge in cooking a very nice meal. Yeah. Davidfest is just about an established tradition, and I'm looking forward to breaking out my grill in a little over a week.

So I found out about an interesting new issue that I guess makes absolutely complete sense, but at the same time kind of crept up out of nowhere. This is going to become a very serious issue if some kind of resolution isn't found. It's a little rougher than the IPv4 limits.

It has been a very big year. So many good changes, and I've grown close to so many good people. I've settled into my new house, Zac, one of my closest friends, has moved in with me. My mom started her new job, and now has a new car and fewer financial worries. My step mom retired from a job she found stressful and has started her private practice again. Lousianime has grown and even changed cities. Mike moved to Germany. Jake has moved out into his own apartment. Jackson and Marcia got married. Almost everyone I know has been promoted or otherwise grown in their chosen profession. Some days, I am simply at a genuine loss for how to feel about how much change can happen in what seems like an otherwise normal year. It's creeping in nature, one change at a time. Before my birthday I will be business partners with not just one, but two of my childhood friends. That's something that a lot of people dream about and talk about but never accomplish.

I learned how to play the song Blackbird. Almost no other song I've ever heard has played in my ears like the sweet notes of that beautiful tune. It touches every emotion in my spectrum, and I am so glad to play it, and I try to play it every single day, and it feels special every single time. I've grown as a guitarist all year long.

This year I'm also proud of how much I've grown as a chef, with how much I've learned. I've put in time and effort, and studied, and I believe that I am more capable than ever. I've made habanero jelly that is the color of sunset twice.

And, that's just off the top of my head.

In the next year I plan to:

* Draw
* Write for NaNoWriMo again
* Pass the CCNA
* Get together a brew setup at my own home
* Learn to play Stairway to Heaven
* Program a new game
* Get a new car
* Make love more passionately
* Find new things that I don't even know I want to do, yet

If you know me, and you remember something good about the last 12 months, or even any significant memory, please leave a comment. I'd like to reminisce...

My potatoes bring all the Irish to the yard,
and they're like, "That famine was hard."
Damn right, that famine was hard!
I could feed you. But you'll have to starve.

We Can't Always Wax Poetic

A beautiful painting by Rafal Olbinski.

Fragment by Amy Lowell
What is poetry? Is it a mosaic
Of coloured stones which curiously are wrought
Into a pattern? Rather glass that's taught
By patient labor any hue to take
And glowing with a sumptuous splendor, make
Beauty a thing of awe; where sunbeams caught,
Transmuted fall in sheafs of rainbows fraught
With storied meaning for religion's sake.


I think I constantly share other people's works because mine are for me. Maybe I don't feel like sharing of myself today outside of what I can find of myself in other people. Maybe that's all I am.

I Want to Grow Old and Be Childish With You

The name of this song is particularly meaningful to me. I am deeply, and magically enthralled with the idea of preserving the part of my soul that is childlike and pure. That little part of you that is so easy to allow to be crushed. That people allow themselves to stop enjoying things that are wonderful, or harden themselves so that they no longer feel fresh pains of sympathy. I think that it takes a great deal of strength to grow up and nurture that part of you such that you are able to make educated and difficult decisions, and even sacrifices, without giving up that part of yourself that feels everything intensely. Without giving up that part of yourself that afterward is able to play with legos, and be simple, and appreciate pillow forts in the living room.

I really wish to grow old and be children together with someone.

People Sometimes Hate Things

Review: The Dictator

In the past I've always had mixed reactions to movies staring Sacha Baron Cohen. For every good memory from Borat, there was a part of the movie I sort of wanted to forget. It's pretty much the definition of cutting edge of comedy, in the sense that it is definitely offensive. In his most recent film, The Dictator, he is surprisingly subdued. The movie is funny, beginning to end, with fewer out right gross assaults on the eyes like in his previous movies. The movie really aims the majority of its jokes in two directions, racist views of other countries and oppressive dictatorships and misogynist cultures. If you're prepared for some brutal and cutting dialog, then this movie delivers.

The plot is pretty straight forward, and it never really transcends cheap comedy, though. While his last two films took the form of mockumentaries, this is a more traditionally directed film. It occasionally detours from its generally direct path through the story for a scene with a punchline. Probably one of the best parts about the movie is that it delivers a lot jokes in the background instead of just in the foreground or via dialog. There really isn't much more that you can say about the movie without giving away spoilers, though. And as it's a comedy, the movie has nothing outside of that. Any details detract from the jokes and will devalue the film. I recommend it. I'd even watch it again, I think.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Clean

Gold On the Ceiling - The Black Keys

"The corrosive effect of the pipe reduces your tongue to a stub. Now you truly are tasteless." - Narrator, Space Quest IV

It appears that once again I am a backer.



When I was a young man, I used to pour over the Space Quest games endlessly with my best friend Jason Cole. I remember the time we went out of our way to make a saved game just before every possible death available in the game. The one liners for most of them had us laughing till it hurt. "As you fade permanently from the club of living organisms, you think to yourself: 'So that's what my spleen looks like!'"

I am tremendously excited to see the point and click adventure game franchise represented on Kickstarter with original content, from good developers. It really just makes me want to go back and replay the whole series over a couple of hours.

And then, there's good music:

I Think of You

Got free screener passes to see The Dictator tomorrow, which is a bit of a mixed blessing. I mean, sure it's a free movie, and it's an excuse to go adventuring down town, but... but I can't remember the last movie that really starred Sacha Baron Cohen that didn't at some point involve him flailing penis at the camera. They're generally funny movies outside of that moment, but I can't really say that any word other than "dread" applies to knowing that it is likely to happen at some point in the film and I am even sort of thinking about not going. I mean, it's a bit of the question of, "What would you let someone do to you under the pretext of that they are doing it for free?"

I mean, there is obviously some sort of demand for that sort of thing, and people pay for it, so there is an established value to having dick flopped around on a screen so large that you feel like you maybe ought to be able to shake hands with it. I mean, its projection is probably taller than I am.

Anywho, that aside, I offer this:



By the way.. Avengers was the best Marvel movie to date.

It Was A Terrible Accident

Got my tickets for tonight. Will be going to the 9:20 showing at the AMC 24. I'm pretty excited to see something like this exist.



I mean, it is a long way from the movie I'm most excited for this year. Heck, it's probably not even in the top 5. Am I more excited about seeing The Avengers than I am about the new episode of Game of Thrones on Sunday? I plead the fifth on that. They're both probably going to be good. Except that Ned Stark is dead.

It is a little sad that I missed my chance to see The Avengers for free on Monday, though. Got free passes for a screener to it in the mail, but I didn't get home from a trip till after it was already over. C'est la vi. It was worth it, I had a really good trip and enjoyed my weekend a lot.

So what movies am I excited about this year?


Because Ridley Scott.

Because Batman.

Because Simon Pegg.

With any luck, I'll be writing about how awesome The Avengers is, though, when I get home tonight.


P.S. Gnocchi. I like to melt goat cheese into the sauce for a complex tang.

Intimacy

Some pictures from my excellent weekend. It's occurred to me recently how purely intimate holding hands is. I hug my friends, I kiss my parents on the cheek, but as far as public affection goes, I don't think it gets much more intimate than the prolonged contact of holding hands. It's a gesture that is at once so simple and also complex. It spreads warmth and care and thoughtfulness. Even offhandedly it shows that you are thinking about someone, whether you are looking at them, or speaking to them, or not.

Made gnocchi this weekend, and hamburgers. Studied and went to a nursery. Had monday off and got free screener passes to The Avengers for monday. Watched some anime with a friend, and made some guitar picks. Shadowrun got funded. I installed curtains in my bedroom, and got a new picture to hang on my wall. We kegged a beer on friday, and enjoyed its bounty. It has been a really, really good weekend. I hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as me.