Life

General ramblings connected to my personal life and activities.

It’s all in the name…

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From an IRC conversation in #flickr this morning: how I first caught Prairie’s eye, and some very abnormal psychology.

djwudi: :nods
cygnoir: AHA! MUD person!
cygnoir points points.
djwudi: not quite…
djwudi: much as it shames me to say this — too many years in Yahoo! Crack
djwudi: when my work ‘puter wouldn’t let me install an IRC client
cygnoir: aaaah.
cygnoir: i used to hang out in the trivia rooms.
djwudi: I was in the Alaska rooms for years
cygnoir: as ‘HoneyIsBeeBarf’ and also ‘cygnoir’ and ‘halsted’ too.
djwudi: I had quite a few names
djwudi: started with djwudi
djwudi: most of the others…well, things just went downhill
djwudi: though I met my g/f because I was using the name ‘pyropedonecrobestiality’
cygnoir hehs.
cygnoir: whoa.
djwudi: she figured anyone with a name like that had to have some actual intelligence behind it
cygnoir: safe bet.
djwudi: it’s the short version of something a friend of mine came up with
cygnoir: so you have sex with dead, aflame, underaged animals.
djwudi: he and his g/f at the time were in an abnormal psych class
cygnoir: er not you.
djwudi: and one boring day, they strung together every term they could think of, then had to figure out what it meant
cygnoir: but the theoretical you.
djwudi: I don’t remember the entire actual word, but it ended up being the fear of being forced to pretend to have sex with an underaged, flaming, dead animal in a small, crowded wading pool at 14,000 feet.
cygnoir laughs.
cygnoir: then claustro and agora and hydro have to be in there.
cygnoir: and acro
djwudi: found it
djwudi: Pseudocoitoxenohematomysonecropyrobestio-acroclaustro-ochlohydrophobia
djwudi: The fear of being forced to pretend to have sex with the unfamiliar bloody infected corpse of a flaming animal at 15,000 feet in a small crowded wading pool.
bringo: oi veh
julian_the: …
djwudi laughs
djwudi: and there’s a conversation killer!
wirehead_: My my.
djwudi: and that’s responsible for getting me my girlfriend
djwudi: i’m not quite sure what that says about us

Whatever it says about us, I’m glad it caught her eye. :)

iTunes “Doctorin’ the Tardis (12″)” by Timelords, The from the album Doctorin’ the Tardis (1991, 8:16).

Gothic…but not a Goth

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Ogre‘s been running a “Kill Your Idols” week on his journal this week, asking people to take their favorite musician, filmmaker, author, and artist down a few notches. To wrap things up, today’s topic was ‘your scene‘, which prompted this brilliant post by chrisbynum that absolutely nails much of why I’ve never self-identified as “Goth”.

Goths, in general, are kind of pathetic. Goths over 25 are really pathetic. As a public service, you should all be made aware that there is a difference between conformity and just growing the fuck up.

The worst offense is self-identifying primarily as “a goth”; it is my biggest pet peeve: “Hi, I’m Vyxqwynn! I’m 29, I’m from Seattle, and I’m a goth…” I think “goth” should be an aspect of who you are, not what you are. I have been around this scene in Seattle for nearly a decade. I think I have a sincere appreciation of fundamental gothic principles and ideals, and many of my good friends are gothic in their styles and attitudes, but, hell no, I’m not a goth! More of a gothic cowboy, if anything, with a healthy does of old-school geek thrown in. After all, I own a horse and 19 seasons of Star Trek on DVD, but I do not have razor blade scars on my wrists. And besides, if you were really all that goth, you wouldn’t have to go around telling people all the time, now would you? :P

So be as gothi_c_ as you want to be — in your beliefs, your style, your self-expression, whatever — but, please, don’t be a goth…

To me, goth means two main things: 1) that subjective experience in any flavor is to be valued (this is actually a classical romantic ideal…), and 2) that settling for mediocrity is an affront to one’s own existence. These are the two principal gothic ideals I can really get behind. I think many self-professed “goths” have never considered either one of these issues and are simply too caught up in the superficial trappings of this fucked-up scene or in their own maladjusted affinity toward darkness, self-pity, and insatiable lust for attention of any kind to actually live gothic.

Y’know what the number one thing I hear goths talk about whenever they get together is? Fucking clothes.

Don’t get me wrong, I love clothes — including gothic clothes — but I’m not deluded enough to think my compulsion to own every expensive black leather or PVC Edward Scissorhands wearable I can snipe from someone on eBay somehow makes me superior to a guy wearing Dockers™. If I had a nickel for every really deep conversation I’ve heard between two goths in the last three months, I couldn’t park on Broadway for 10 minutes…

So keep on keepin’ on, batcavers, but, please, consider giving drama for drama’s sake a rest, and turn the attitude down a notch or so. I promise you’ll still be having plenty of fun, and you may actually have more energy to pursue the dark and important things in life that actually matter…

Damn straight. Yes, I wear primarily black, I listen to a lot of dark music, I’ve been hanging around the gothic scene for years, and I spent years DJing at goth/industrial/alternative clubs in Anchorage…but I’ve never wanted to lay claim to the title of “Goth”. Gothic, sure, occasionally — but not Goth.

For one thing, I’m not depressed enough.

I don’t write enough bad angst-ridden poetry, either. ;)

Unless James is reading this, in which case I’m still too goth for your punk ass, buck-o.

iTunes “Black #1” by Type O Negative from the album Bloody Kisses (1993, 11:15).

Small Pets Allowed

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As Prairie and I are planning on getting a place together in a few months, we’ve started occasionally flipping through ‘For Rent’ listings to see what’s available in our price range around town.

Yesterday, one of the listings caught my eye.

“Hey — ‘small pets allowed, up to 20 pounds.’ We could get forty hamsters!”

Sadly, my idea was vetoed, as was my backup suggestion of one large hamster.

Ah, the compromises we make when arranging living with someone else.

iTunes “Razor’s Edge” by Revolting Cocks from the album Beers, Steers and Queers (1990, 4:45).

Photo Flood

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Yesterday I realized that while my Flickr Pro account allows me up to 1Gb of uploads each month, I haven’t been using anywhere near that much — so I decided to fix that. :) I’ve started digging into my iPhoto archives and adding photosets from past events, working my way backwards.

Last night I managed to get three four sets up, all from 2004: Bumbershoot, the Gay Pride Parade, the Fremont Solstice Festival, and the Folklife Festival.

iTunes “Baseball Dub (Cheeky All Stars)” by Faithless from the album Irreverence (1997, 2:42).

Which religion?

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I know I’m not going to have time to really go as much into this as I’d like while I’m on my lunch break, but I found an interesting little online quiz through Subzero Blue: Which religion is the right one for you? Here’s my results:

You scored as agnosticism. You are an agnostic. Though it is generally taken that agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in God, it is possible to be a theist or atheist in addition to an agnostic. Agnostics don’t believe it is possible to prove the existence of God (nor lack thereof).

Agnosticism is a philosophy that God’s existence cannot be proven. Some say it is possible to be agnostic and follow a religion; however, one cannot be a devout believer if he or she does not truly believe.

agnosticism
79%
Satanism
75%
Islam
58%
Buddhism
54%
Christianity
50%
atheism
50%
Paganism
46%
Hinduism
38%
Judaism
38%

Some points before I head off to work, some of which I might come back and expand on later:

I come from a strongly religious background, specifically the Episcopal faith. Having grown up with that, Christianity forms the base for many of my beliefs.

That said, one of the things I’ve always felt very fortunate for is that my parents never had any problems with the fact that we’re a pretty bright family, and have a tendency to question, poke, and prod at things. Christianity was never something that had to be accepted at face value — it was okay to ask “why?” when things didn’t seem to make sense. In fact, if I’m remembering the story correctly, my father was at a point where he found either Christianity in particular or religion as a whole to be fairly hokey, and first sat down to read through the Bible with the avowed goal of finding every problem, every issue, and every inconsistency so that he could point them out to mom…and while he certainly found a fair amount of all of those, he also discovered along the way that there was a lot of really good stuff in there, too. He’s since devoted a fair amount of time to theological study, and is currently in the long process of getting ordained as a minister.

Over the years, I’ve found plenty to question when it comes to religion, which came into play as I was answering the questions on this test. While I wouldn’t say that I am entirely without faith, I certainly do question things, and I often have difficulties when it comes to my concepts of both God and the afterlife. I tried to be as honest as possible when answering the questions, and these doubts certainly pulled my scores towards the middle of the spectrum.

I’m also not entirely happy with either the questions or the scoring system on the test — there were a few where I felt that having to pick a point on an agree/disagree scale didn’t really do justice to the question, or truly represent the answer I wanted to give. Still, I did the best I could with it.

I am rather amused that my second-place score was Satanism, though. Make of that what you will.

Lastly — why do all of these quizzes produce the most god-awful HTML when giving you the code to post your results? Normally I clean them up, but this one was too complex for the little time I have on my lunch hour. Ick.

iTunes “Skin” by Oingo Boingo from the album Best o’ Boingo (1990, 4:40).

I can’t stop yawning

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Just to follow up on my whining on the last post, I didn’t fall asleep until sometime after 3am — and my alarm goes off at 6am. Most days I just smack the snooze until 6:30 or 7, but I knew that if I started hitting the snooze today, I’d likely end up just falling back asleep and waking up hours late for work (and as I’m the solitary staffer at my position, that would be a Bad Thing).

So now I get to run the entire day on something less than three hours of sleep.

This is not going to be terribly enjoyable.

Background info: this is a regular problem with my neighbor, and this is the first time it’s happened to me with any neighbor in this building. The building itself dates from the early 1900s, and the walls are thick — actually hearing anything from my neighbors has generally been a very rare thing, and the few times I have, it’s been muffled and easily ignored. Until this guy showed up.

I don’t know if he works at all, but if he does, it must be on some swing or graveyard shift that has him sleeping through the day. Afternoons, evenings, and long into the nights and mornings, he consistently has either his television or his stereo absolutely blaring, and when it’s the stereo, he’ll often have one single song on continuous repeat.

Knocking on his door (which I tried a couple weeks ago at 1am when the volume went up suddenly on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, again that same Sunday morning at 5am, and last night at about 2:30am) is pointless, as he never answers. I know he’s there and awake, as in addition to the noise you can often hear him moving about the apartment if you’re in the hallway (the doors in this building aren’t as thick and soundproof as the walls are), but he will not answer.

I complained about this a few months ago ago to the building’s residential manager, and things got quieter for a short while, but lately they’ve been getting louder again. I talked to the manager again a couple weeks ago (after the futile 1am and 5am attempts at getting my neighbor’s attention), and it turns out that my neighbor is something of an odd duck anyway. The manager also has problems getting this guy to answer his door, and apparently when he talked to him about the noise issue last time, this guy accused him of harassing him. Later on, the manager was going through the building with the maintenance crew to check on leaky pipes and such, and when my neighbor opened his door and saw the manager with two husky guys, he accused the manager of bringing along “muscle” to intimidate him.

Bizarre guy. So, now I just need to start keeping a record of nights like last night and get everything in writing so that there’s a documented trail of issues that the management can use if it gets to the point where they feel the need to evict him (which, at this point, I would not be complaining about).

Someday I’m going to get out of the apartment living thing, not have to deal with neighbors on the other side of every wall, floor, and ceiling, and it is going to be so, so nice.

And now, I’m off to yawn my way through my day.

Whee!

iTunes “Pride (In the Name of Love) (Techno Remake Club)” by Clivillés and Cole from the album Pride (In the Name of Love) (1991, 7:59).

Mayan Horoscope

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I may not believe in Astrology, but that doesn’t mean it’s not occasionally interesting. Nitallica posted a Mayan Horoscope, which I’d never seen before. Where I’m apparently fairly bull-headed in both the standard Zodiac (Taurus) and Chinese (Ox), according to the Mayans, I’m a Serpent.

  • 27 July – 22 August: Murcielago (Bat)
  • 23 August – 19 September: Alacrán (Scorpion)
  • 20 September – 17 October: Venado (Deer/Stag)
  • 18 October – 14 November: Lechuza (Owl)
  • 15 November – 12 December: Pavo Real (Peacock or Turkey)
  • 13 December – 10 January: Lagarto (Lizard)
  • 11 January – 6 February: Mono (Monkey)
  • 7 February – 6 March: Halcón (Falcon)
  • 7 March – 3 April: Jaguar
  • 4 April – 1 May: Zorro (Fox)
  • 2 May – 29 May: Serpiente (Snake)
  • 30 May – 26 June: Ardilla (Squirrel)
  • 27 June – 26 July: Tortuga (Turtle/Tortoise)

The Moon of the Snake – La Luna de la Serpiente
2 May – 29 May

This animal comes across in the collection of Mayan animals in the same fashion as that of the fox. It doesn’t have any of the negative connotations that has been given to it in the West. Quite the opposite, it represents the redemptive spirit that illuminates the mind. They like to live well, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a strict and unwavering ethical code. Always refined and exquisite, the snake won’t give its love to just anyone. It is very intelligent and convenient to have it as a friend rather than as a dangerous rival.

(The rest of the descriptions are behind the cut…)

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