Ah, the joys of the NyQuill-induced coma. I’ve had the strangest dreams since taking this stuff…

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 12:35 PM EST

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Sometimes it’s hard to sleep because of all the stupid things going on in my brain simultaneously. I’m the kind of person that likes to concentrate, single-mindedly, on something until it’s finished (rarely) or until I’m bored of it (more common). All that chaos up there makes it hard though.

At any given time, and I’m sure that I’m not unique in this regard, I could be thinking of umpteen different things, all at once. Anything from innane distractions (any RPG campaign that I happen to be running or playing in, video games, books, random musings), to normal day-to-day stuff (working on my car, my job, “taking care of business” [tm]), to more serious matters (what I’m doing with my life, worrying about inevitabilities like death and taxes). Sometimes I think that I must be somehow deficient in that I have trouble processing all this crap at once. Good thing I’m not a computer; I’m just not cut out for multitasking. I guess that’s very male of me, since supposedly men have a more difficult time doing more than one thing at a time, but there are plenty I know that can handle it just fine.

So at the end of the day, there I am, lying in bed, doing all I can to try and meditate myself to sleep, and there are all these thoughts bursting through to the surface of my consciousness. Each time I try to dismiss one, another pops up to take its place… much like all the popups you get when surfing the internet using a crappy web browser.

Getting back to the title, if there were 40 more hours in a day, I think it would only work if the rest of the world spent that time sleeping. More bonus points if you know where that came from.

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 2:04 PM EST

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Lately I’ve heard this really neat song on the local “college radio” station, which is broadcast out of the campus at Lake Superior State University in Soo Michigan.

The song in question, which features an extremely electronic sounding voice (known as a vocoder, I think) doing the lead part, is what you might call ‘electronica’ and sounds like something one might expect from Daft Punk. It might, in fact, be Daft Punk but I would never know about it because 90% of the stuff they play goes totally unannounced (think 1,000 disc CD changer). Anyway, I don’t know why I like the song, because it kind of grates on the nerves, but is simultaneoulsy very, very catchy.

This station has introduced me to many, many cool tunes over the years, thanks in part to my sister, whom used to listen religiously to the station and tape the good stuff. Most of those cool tunes have included things which I likely will never know the identity of, but that is how I found “The City Sleeps” by MC900ft Jesus, and this other neat one, more recently, which I think may be called “Man the Battle Stations.” The song is done in a social-political punk rock style vaguely reminiscent of Fugazi, mixed with a healthy dose of Bad Religion. If anyone knows what I’m talking about, feel free to let me know.

Over the years there have been way, way too many cool musical tidbits to remember, but most of them, I’d recognise if I ever hear them again. I kind of have a knack for that - I was one of those guys that could figure out the basics of a song on guitar from hearing it only a few times on the radio.

There is another place on the airwaves where I’ve had similar musical awakenings; National Public Radio (NPR) which broadcasts from Central Michigan University, carries a program early in the morning, usually 6-8am, called Echoes, which is hosted by John Diliberto. Echoes focusses on ambient, new age, jazz, folk, neo-classical, “world music” and other not-so-mainstream genres, and over the years has been responsible for introducing me to many cool artists (most of whom I can’t recall since I was usually half asleep while listening). Though, to their credit, they keep detailed records of all their shows, including transcripts and playlists, so I can at least find out what I heard when I can’t remember. They also offer a subscription to selected tracks from their broadcasts called Echodiscs, and select live performances compiled into what they call the “Livingroom Concert Series.” Neat stuff.

Posted by Ron as Music at 2:00 AM EST

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Blargh… I think I’m suffering from the opening volley of a cold or something. I’ve got a fun little sore throat developing. I really hope this isn’t whatever my co-worker’s wife has, because it sounds pretty nasty. Well, as they say, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” so I’ll take that advice and head to bed early tonight.

So that means no Wolfenstein for me this eve. Well, my ISP is supposedly doing maintenance on their systems in about six minutes, so it’s just as well I guess. Even if my connection doesn’t drop, I have a feeling my ping is going to blow chunks. Normally I get around 100, but tonight I think it’s a lot higher; even loading this page was laggy.

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 1:54 AM EST

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I have a new blog on my list of ones to read: that of Charles Stross. I began reading it and found it hard to stop. Of particular interest initially was the insightful section on the internals of a nuclear reactor. Fascinating stuff, and the blog overall seems very left-wing politically-minded and anti-corporate, which I find appealing. Thanks to Luke for this one.

Posted by Ron as Computers at 1:46 AM EST

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As noted, I despise the mall. However, one of the perks is that occasionally, I run into folks I know, many of whom I haven’t seen in a dog’s age. Take today for example; I ran into the parents and “little” brother of Jody, an old friend of mine from Blind River whom I haven’t seen in about 5 years. I have no idea if he’s into computers or the internet, so I asked them to please say “hi” to him for me. I hope to hear from him again someday.

I also saw, but didn’t get to speak with another friend of mine that I had made before I left Blind River. I suppose I could have flagged him down, but I didn’t want to be embarassing.

Every single time I’ve logged a shift here, I meet someone from my past. It’s kind of fun, but also shaming in a way. Most of them have moved on to bigger and better things, but I’m still here; same as always. One of these days I’ll get a life.

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 5:40 PM EST

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Today I got roped into working the POS in the mall. Ugh. I hate malls. Between the fetid stench of the Sears perfume boutique wafting throughout, the ne’er-do-well teenagers addicted to the snowboarding game we have set up here, and the annoying customers…

Well, the ne’er-do-wells are better off playing games than stealing shit, the perfume can’t affect me if I’m suffed up, and no annoying customers so far. This keyboard stinks though…

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 1:06 PM EST

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Okay, so I can’t sleep. That should be fairly obvious based on the nice timestamp on this entry. After playing hours and hours of video games, I am still not sleepy. Could be something to do with the things I’ve been seeing everytime I close my eyes tonight… things like naked, dead bodies half buried in the sands of a desert; centipede-like parasites with chameleon powers that live within the bodies of C’tulhu-esque beings, coming out from large pores in their skin to infect their human hosts; dark spaces lit only by flashlight and brief, yet terrible glimpses of things lurking in the shadows.

Normally, crap like that doesn’t bother me, but for some reason, tonight, they are preventing me from sleeping. I don’t get it; I haven’t even been playing any Silent Hill lately. Maybe it was something I ate?

Oh yeah: bonus points to anyone who can guess where the title came from.

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 4:26 AM EST

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Update: I still officially suck at ET. I guess I got lucky the other night; either that or I was playing against a bunch of total noobs. Last night I had my ass handed to me on a silver platter with “not fit for gaming consumption” stamped all over it… or maybe “last day of sale” or something else equally humiliating.

Posted by Ron as Games at 12:31 PM EST

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Last night I was up way too late playing this game on a server run by a friend of mine that I met on the Stratusphere. I think my skills are actually beginning to improve somewhat; my frags-to-fragged ratio is getting better, I’ve been getting some medals, and am actually beginning to feel more comfortable in the roles of the different classes. I think I might just go back there again tonight and see what happens…

Posted by Ron as Games at 12:56 AM EST

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