Category: General

Warning: The following post contains a picture, or a part of it, that isn’t one of nature.

I am sane. It is just a lot easier to keep abusing one poor picture over and over again rather than actually come up with something meaningful to say. So while I’m in this state, such sort of nonsense has to be tolerated. Here is the other half of an image I released a few days ago.

Take a bit of time, map a few colours to different values, place them close to each other in your head, and you have a self portrait. Not usual, but good enough. If you need more help, those black and white thresholded images have to help you with this extremely complicated jigsaw puzzle.

Did I just insult your intelligence? Oooh dicey and risque.

The change is imminent.

ATCGW*! or something like that.

If you haven’t already noticed, I’ve avoided a semi serious post here for a long time now. It’s not like I’ve been lazy, or that busy, or had nothing to say. It’s just, for all that talk about being calm, I am nowhere near it. Everything I’ve tried to put down over the past week or so has been hurtful and groping in the darkey for something I feel I really need, but don’t quite know how to get. So many tossing-turney inducing questions. Do I really dare to know? I’ve been avoiding posting any of it. I wasn’t being very nice.

I’ve had so much to say over various points of time in the recent past, but I just realized I have no one to say them to. Not having someone to listen to all this happening in my life is beginning to wear me out. It either stays bottled up and waiting to boil over while I’m outwardly calm, or avoided totally with cheesiness like taking pictures of my hair care products.

However little you know about me, there are certain aspects of my personality that are fairly obvious. I look for efficiency in things. While doing this, I also look for a reason for existence. Everything needs a reason for existence. I don’t quite know when it happened, but at some point, she became mine. Now that.. I cannot find a word.. It still exists, but has no right to. For the most part, I’ve slowed down, a lot. I don’t particularly care about anything anymore. I can’t even talk. Forming sentences is a pain now. Everything I say at points comes out blurred and stammery. I don’t see the point to any of this any more. It’s like, those weird computer games from the 80’s that have no point really. The levels just get harder and harder (by getting faster and faster or whatever), until they cross human response time tresholds, and you lose. There is no point, just to see how far you can go before you lose. Frickkin life.

I keep hearing on all these TV shows, (as the guy’s being dumped mostly) a (fairly standard) dialogue the woman gives relating to how much he inspires her. For a long time I had no clue what that really meant. I mean, you can be inspired, or uninspired, like me. I never realized a person could make me want to do so much more, or try so much harder. I want to do so much more because of how she makes me feel. I want to be so much more. I want to be better. Now it’s just so hard when your hands are tied behind your back. I’m not athletic. I can’t like win a trophy and dedicate it to her, or use my strength to win like this cute bear thing at a carnival. I can’t create some miracle drug that cures aids/cancer/eating disorder/.. and name it after her. I cannot a do a LOT. I want to, but I cannot. I can however, do the small thoughtful things that I know are cute. I can take a lot of time, use things at hand creatively and come up with something.. worthy.

I mean, I could, but now I cannot. She won’t hear of it. She goes, “no, I don’t want any of it anymore”.

You now see where the problems arise. A normal person might go, hmm, ok, let me just direct these impulses elsewhere. Let me, I don’t know, dress up as a clown and make my rounds making balloon animals for 3 year olds. I stopped.

I stopped that. And that’s not where I stopped. She wasn’t just some inspiration, she was a reason for existence. I stopped living (what little I did live anyway). I am reverting to a bare subsistence existing.

I stopped doing. Not with respect to her. Just stopped.

Again, for those not paying attention, if you haven’t noticed already, the cheesiness in past posts is related to this too.

It HAS TO BE EASIER THAN THIS. At least for someone like me. The lord of self control.

*LBB(?)T – Large block of boring(?) text.
*ATCGW – And the crowd goes wild.

NP. R.E.M – Green

I repeat, large blocks of boring text return in a bit.

This is just a concept trial you know. The image, the stupid white colour, and the general nature of the text and how fast it fades out/how it fades out will be experimented on in time.

Why am I not home at a 10 to 2?

wahgnube.org

– Tables cleaned up and 137 font tags removed.
– Broke a lot of CSS in zealotry. Will fix tomorrow.
– Templates very elaborate, but almost no work per page. Quite a bit of ugly SSI you won’t see.
– New content worked on for all pages, but not moved in.
– Still finalizing the the automation scheme for the photos page. Need another guestbook (and counter) to sever ties with uni servers.
– You shouldn’t see too many differences, except nice URIs. (wahgnube.org/photos/ etc.)
– Probably allow journal to be reached via wahgnube.org/actuality as well. Will move it to wordpress once theme in mmmaybe matches this.
– wahgnube.org will be replaced by wahgnube.org/static/ when things get .. stable.
– Will reset the counters to current values when pages stabilize.
– All “powered by” images hosted locally to reduce connections to external servers.
– Search domain in google box changed.

Large blocks of boring text return in a bit.

I’m starting to fashion an idea in my head
where I would impress you
with every single word I said.
They’d come out insightful, or brave, or smooth, or charming
and you’d want to call me..
And I would be there every time
you’d need me
I’d be there every time…

But for now I’ll look so longingly
waiting…
For you to want me, for you need me, for you to notice me.

NP. Dashboard Confessional – So Impossible

And post a bunch of test results.

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	Very High
Schizotypal:	Moderate
Antisocial:	Low
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Low
Narcissistic:	Low
Avoidant:	Low
Dependent:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Low
— Personality Disorder Test – Take It! —

Thanks Adi. My opinions when I make the time.

Again. I apparently like naming my images black and white. I also like taking fewish snaps and abusing them to the fullest.

You know you want to click me.

NP. Oasis – The Masterplan

Update: Worked with a 5-10 colour indexed mode image to get a very small gif. Rethresholded it to different values to get more detail. I am new to indexed images. They are a lot more restrictive than the usual ARGB. GIF *shudder*. In other news, been helping out a bit on mmmaybe.gimp.org. Menial stuff for now, but someone’s got to do it.

I feel so cheesy when I’m like this, but it has to be done.

If you were having one of those “Maybe he’s born with it, may be it’s Maybelli Dov Garni Jerge a product” moments inspired by catch phrases from hip companies, I plan to dispel any such doubt.

You’re free to laugh now. Go on, I know you want to.

Honest. Just trying out life a little. This will have to do for now. Don’t let the fake half a smile fool ye. And no, the whitish glare in the general vicinity above my head has nothing to do with a halo.

NP. Lenny Kravitz – 5

Today was huge. One of the hugest days of my life. A few days earlier, I had declared it the “first day of the rest of my life”. Now, I think that was my first small step, but even that wasn’t as major as the events of today. Today was a much needed reality check. I am a broken man. I mean seriously broken. But I am peaceful, and not sad. I’m not crying anyway. It is very hard to go on through normal life holding onto threads whose other ends aren’t attached to anything. You’re always hoping and pining for something you don’t even know you really want, but are constantly hurt realizing you won’t have. It’s stupid when the head loses control of the sequence of events. It just keeps telling you, calm down and back off, it is going to be fine, when there are other rogue portions of your soul deciding to take matters into their own hands.

It was just too hard riding down a path of life with hope, knowing it leads no where. It’s even worse when you didn’t even know where you wanted it to go. I don’t hope anymore. I made sure I got her to cut all the threads. I have nothing to hold on to. We’re too.. her words which I eventually accepted, “weird” together. Nothing has ever been “normal”. The circumstances we met, the circumstances where the magnitudes of feelings rose to points that couldn’t be clearly classified, changes, distance, insecurity issues, … and anything else you care to throw into the mix. Weirder still, were the reasons for the feelings. There is just tons and tons of “stuff” which I’d just assumed would magically “go away” because of how we felt. For once in my life, I was being the man about it. I was all gung-ho about my abilities to fix everything and protect us keeping us happy. None of that was my role. Parts of it were her fight. She had to deal with it herself, to get rid of her issues forever. These things have to be give and take from both sides. Not give and give and give from one side, while the other is beginning to feel weirded out because they’re “taking too much”. Yes, I could have stopped and tried not to overwhelm. But it wasn’t something whose repercussions I would know until it was too late. Maybe I could have been distant, and she could have hidden all her “flaws” from me. But that wouldn’t have really worked. I’d like to know someone totally before I am willing to entrust them with so much power over my emotions. Maybe she could have told me like it is, and I could have been human about it rather than attempting to elevate myself to a guardian angel who she could never have. Maybe I should have had more faith in me as a person, and realized she would probably want me just as much even if I wasn’t constantly “there for her” when she was down. She hates the use of the term “be there”. I’m beginning to too.

But, the sad truth in all of this is I still will do the exact same things, so there is no point hypothesizing about me being “less selflessly there”. She needed, I was there by her side. If she needs, I will still be there by her side. If that elevates me again to some sort of selfless person who cared for her more than he loved her, then so be it. All I needed to feel from the conversation today, was she would have seen me as someone she wanted, even if I weren’t all those things to her. Just me. The person, not the social worker turned idol to worship. I got that out of it. She gave me that. Which is why I am calm now. If I sensed all my life, all that she felt for me, were purely based on my actions given the circumstance, I wouldn’t be peacefully broken. I’d be crushed and depressed.

And I now believe I am psychic. I knew this was coming. I sensed it last evening. I knew I had to be strong for this and not some cowering weakling all lashing out when we were trying to express the harsh realities. How muddled things are. What led them to that state. What needs to be done to get out of this mess so we can be happy. I just knew it. I took the day off for one. I spent all morning venting my emotions through other media. I had gotten it all out. I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t scared. I was prepared, and sane. It worked perfectly. We talked for the longest time, and nothing that was said fazed me. I already knew it all and was quite ready to deal with it. I felt strong, and for once in control of my own emotions.

To steal lyrics from a very very apt song, U2’s Kite:

Something is about to give
I can feel it coming
I think I know what it means
I’m not afraid to die
I’m not afraid to live
And when I’m flat on my back
I hope to feel like I did

‘Cause hardness, it sets in
You need some protection
The thinner the skin

I’m a man, I’m not a child
A man who sees
The shadow behind your eyes

I want you to know
That you don’t need me anymore
I want you to know
You don’t need anyone, anything at all

Who’s to say when the wind will take you
Who’s to know what it is will break you
I don’t know which way the wind will blow
Who’s to know when the time’s come around
Don’t wanna see you cry
I know that this is not goodbye

Did I waste it?
Not so much I couldn’t taste it

Now, I’ve set some milestones along this journey out of this ambiguous mess. The first goal is rather simple. (To put down in words anyway. Achieving it is a whole different story.) The aim now is to separate my happiness (and state of mind in general) from her. Not separate her from my life – just attempt to prevent her from being the primary determinant of my state of mind. “Her” is fairly generic, and it includes “our state”, “her state in life”, “her actions”, “what she feels”, “what she feels toward me or other people”, “how she sounds and what she’s saying”, and things related.

I’ll leave you with the most important sentences anyone�s ever expressed to me. The moment I felt I had her, forever. The moment I wasn�t just her best friend anymore.

I need you implicitly
I trust you totally
I love you, and hey, it�s stamp marked forever

Now all I have to do is remember why we’re doing this. And why I have to be strong and attempt to forget how much we mean to each other. I have to. I really would like us to be “normal” parts of each others lives without all this chaos and nonsense causing so much confusion.

I don�t want or need it to be true to be very happy. I would really like it to be so to be even happier.

NP. U2 – All That You Can’t Leave Behind

The Second Annual FSF Associate Membership meeting will be on Saturday, March 27, 2004, from 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM in Cambridge, MA, USA at MIT in Building 1, Room 190.

If you wish to attend, please RSVP to membership@fsf.org by Friday, March 12, 2004, in order to guarantee a space.

The meeting will feature presentations by and conversation with the FSF Staff and the members of the FSF Board of Directors. So far, Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen and Bradley Kuhn are confirmed as speakers. More will be added shortly.

There is no charge for attending. Breakfast and lunch will be provided.
This year, we are also organizing a dinner for after the meeting, at The Middle East in Cambridge, MA.

Geeks, free food, social aspects of technology – AT CAMBRIDGE MASS.

Goddamnit! And here I am fishing around far far away.
I repeat. Goddamnit!

Times like this are when I wished I had actually saved those frequent flyer miles.
Or was born with a silver, make that platinum, spoon in my mouth.
Or was in a better school.

So much has been going on, the only way to get all of this in is to break it up into small chunks. (Either that, or actually talk about all of it in one large post and have nothing left to say for the next few weeks. You know I’m going to be sneaky about this.)

At work, say, there have been huge changes in the lab. Things have been moved, shelves and furniture added/removed, and all sorts of other remodelling has gone on. The previous set up was quite dingy, and not entirely productive. I mean, no one I know actually sat here and did major portions of their work. They’d all be in some lounge/library/cafe or somewhere else. Being one of the younger (the youngest, if you need the details) guys here has some drawbacks at times like these. I’d been delegated a bunch of the moving things around, throwing unneeded stuff out, moderately heavy (by my standards) lifting, and so on.

But, it’s done, and it seems so much larger. It just feels a lot warmer and a lot more inviting. I mean, I’m actually sitting here. We now have plants :). Poor widdle things might die from neglect real soon. We’ll see.

Switching gears, but keeping to our central theme, change, I looked at a couple of studios today. And I think I’ve pretty much settled on one. It’s very small compared to where I’m living now, and three times as expensive, but I think it’ll be fun. It seems quiet and warm. There are, however, the important things still to be judged. Like how good the eating places are in and around these parts. Here is the view from a sandwich shop at the corner of the street from the house.

And here’s the half-eaten-sandwich-eye view. Since that’s what counts.

Yes, I’m a glutton. Sue me.

NP. The Corrs – Talk on Corners

Update: Stolen concept. Just checking if this looks better.

Hmm. It does. Damn it, it’s more work.

Try this. Next time you’re, say, in the shower don’t think of, say, Eskimos, and I’ll give you this big bag of money. Yes, Eskimos. Just don’t think of them. Anything but, you heard me, ESKIMOS.

I know it’s hard and I doubt you can do it. That’s kinda sorta been the story of my weekend. I’ve tried so fishing hard to be normal. I’ve tried so hard to just sit down and enjoy a movie. To forget sad events attached to movies. To be able to watch 30s of the film without this pang of emotion shooting through me… and for what? Shouldn’t I have forgotten by now? They obviously mean very little in the grand scheme of things. What is wrong with me?

And I tried it both ways, a Moulin Rouge DVD last evening (my favorite musical, though I haven’t seen too many movie musicals, I admit) and Mystic River in the theater earlier today. It was a very good movie, extremely serious, dark (and hence sad) with everyone acting very well (Tim Robbins especially). Quite interestingly, they all spoke without pronouncing their ‘R’s’. “The goils aww wather late awwent they?” – Kinda like a cross between Elmer Fudd and a Mafia guy from Italy (or wherever else these types are generically assumed to spring from). It screamed Massachusetts before it was made clear where the story was set. It’s just your usual story formula – evil child molestation ruining childhood (and hence life), coupled with hot woman dying, a whole lot of (well reasoned out) violence, and obviously a generous dose of sadness. It was very disturbing, but was brilliantly portrayed, if that’s how one has to put a positive spin on these sorts of things. Movie goers apparently want more reality in the movies. Not fantasy. These people should just see more of the news. Just what is wrong with happy endings? Why couldn’t that be real?

But a movie review wasn’t where I wanted to go with this. It’s this need to rid myself of senseless emotion. After a point I begin to wonder whether it’s the sad thoughts I have attached to the events that is bothering me, or whether it’s the extreme effort taken to forget them running behind “normalcy”. It’s pretty messed up. I hate being this way.

NP. All Saints – Saints and Sinners
(Yes, that’s right. The girl band. I do things when no one is looking you know.)

I seem to have lost the drive and inspiration to do anything. I’ve slowed down, been rather dull and life seems pretty pointless. This is the primary reason for the reduction in frequency of journal updates. I’ve not been able to convince myself to sit down and try. This post was typed out in bits during the course of a day, whenever I felt like adding to it. It is probably lacking in general continuity and structure.

Salons are nice places. I fear them like a normal person might fear the dentist or the plague, but they are inherently nice places. I mean, where else are you going to find a bunch of women with fabulous hair comment about how long and sexy yours looks? Now that isn’t the fun part either. The fun part is that sets up the “Why thank you.. for now” sequence of (well worn and worked out) humour involving everything from faulty genetics to old bald men. I will maintain my affected understated air of dry dynamism, and they will laugh. It’s a good thing I do this only once in 6-8 months. They tend to forget I basically repeat the same thing every time it happens and they crack up each time. The reason why I’m usually a bit apprehensive is because I don’t want all that work ruined by some snip happy maniac.

But this week has brought about a few major changes in my life, and I made an appointment for this too earlier, thinking I might try something brave and exciting. But that’s not quite how things turned out. And I’m glad. I love how it looks now. So while I called it a “haircut” and the entire procedure took like an hour, less than 10% of that was actual cutting of any sort. The woman was totally sweet. For once I was having a normal “totally pointless but fun” conversation with a perfect stranger and was enjoying it. So while getting it shampooed, conditioned, volumized, my head massaged and other such general niceties, I was all relaxed and started to open up about changes, and how fast I felt they were happening, and how scared I was and how unprepared I felt and things like that. I don’t know, I felt like this person all alone in a bar cribbing to the bartender about her life. And this guy sort of listening because he had to.

Anyway, she was totally sweet about it. Either that or insanely lazy. I’m going with sweet. So it was settled then, I wasn’t emotionally prepared for anything major. I just needed some neatening up, trimming and evening out. No fancy anything. So 726 brush strokes later (you doubt I counted?) and some careful alignment and precision snipping, I lost about an inch overall. Then it happened. During the “rub stuff in while blow drying while straightening-styling-stroking” phase, I was introduced to a wide array of cool hair pamper products. I mean woah! Smooth down creams, detangler oils, frizz reduction mist sprays, shine (forgot what it’s called) inducing something, and so on. Good god was I excited. Curiously stared all wide eyed when I noticed these magical things do their trick. I loved how it looked and the texture. So I just had to. I found out a nice combination that works for my sort of hair and mentally noted their names.

There goes the eat healthy and your hair will radiate health theory. All you need is a bunch of fancy chemicals. After a long time I could walk around without a cap, and have hair out of my face on the windiest of days (yesterday was especially bad) and in general stay soft and shiny. Needless to say I ran down to the nearest store that stocks this sort of stuff later that evening and went through the whole 3 year old in a candy store experience all over again. It was awesome.

So here I am, many hours later. A small fortune and most of a day spent on all of this. Looking not particularly different. But happy that it’s a constant. (For now.)

No, you aren’t dreaming. You just endured a boring account of a boring day in a boring person’s life. One so boring that trimming dead keratin was a major enough event to dedicate an entire post to.

NP. Dashboard Confessional – The Places You Come To Fear

And I do have stuff to say. It’s just, my head is killing me right now and the bright glow from the monitor isn’t helping. I will try this again tomorrow.

NP. Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra – Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 5 And 7