Sunday May 29th, 2005:

One Revolution Later

     So I'm back working at Sportstime again almost exactly one year later from when I started working there. Some things have changed: I've got a degree; I've met new fantastic people; I've accomplished the big DVD project. Other things haven't changed: I'm still without aim regarding what to do with my life. Not that I have a big problem with having no aim, I'm fairly happy with my life.

     Once some is content with where they're at it's hard to change that. I see that everyday at work. The same customers come in the same days of the week ordering the same food. Even after one year later after I left and had returned, like clockwork, I can expect to see regulars come in and order that same beer, or that same food item each with their particular preferences. There's something to be said about that level familiarity with a job.

     As I told a friend and fellow coworker Richard, working here doesn't even feel like a job. It's like I'm chilling at home but with a bunch of guests over who keep asking me for stuff. To which he replied, "If it was my house, they would be getting things for me." It might be a bad comparison, but that's what I feel. Combined with the fact that everyone that works there is very laid back and cool, it makes the job hard to leave.

     I have another interview this week. It's a job that's not even really worth going over the details that much. While the opportunity to make much more money is there, I'm still in the frame of mind that says, "Is this really something that would work out?" There's a lot of doubt in my mind right now. This may clear up by Tuesday afternoon once the interview's over. That will the determining factor if I accept the job(assuming they want me).


Friday May 27th, 2005:

Not Enough Time

     Before I get into a number of topics. I'll start off by announcing that I an RSS feed/Firefox Live Bookmark on my page. This will probably only come as good news to one person: Aaron. He insisted on a couple of occasions that I should have an RSS feed. On the last instance that he asked me I asked him if he was asking me "from the bottom of his heart." I can't remember the answer but it was so important to him I decided to take the time to learn how to do it.

     For the rest of you asking "What the hell is Shawn talking about?", I'll explain. Not too long ago somebody came up with this way to check websites without having to load up the page. To quickly explain it these RSS(Really Simple Syndication) feeds are just links embedded in an XML file. With a reader, or a web browser, it can load up multiple website RSS feeds, parse the links, and display all the stories/pages/whatever without you having to load up one webpage. Nifty huh?

     Yeah, I know it's not really that great. It's kind of nice for me using my shitty-ass dialup connection, but I don't really see the appeal otherwise. I guess it would be kind of interesting if you have a program aggregate all your favorite sites' new links onto one easy-to-view webpage. But once again, it's not too appealing to me.

     Anyway, if you're interested in trying this out there's two ways to do it. If you already have an RSS feed reader you can point it here. Or if you're a Firefox user you can use their "Live Bookmark" feature. It's pretty much the same thing(parsing XML, displaying links) except the new links show up in your bookmarks in your browser. All you have to do is click the little icon that shows up in the bottom right window of your browser. For example, you would see it in my browser like this(indicated by a red arrow):

     So there you go. That's your new thing to learn about the Internet today.

     I had more in store but I'm going to cut it short. I'm getting kind of tired at staring at a computer screen and I want to do something else. I'll leave on one last note of my party tomorrow at 6pm. It's a pool party. It should be fun if the weather doesn't screw me over like last time. Until sometime later this weekend, farewell.


Saturday May 21st, 2005:

A Product of an Overactive Mind and Underactive World

     The point of existence is one of those long standing questions for humanity. Why am I here? For those intellectual bound for a greater understanding of the world, not troubled too much with the problems with everyday life, there seem to be the inevitable big questions: Why am I here? What's the point of existence? Those sorts of questions. You can run yourself into the ground following possible answers to this question but the truth is that there is no one answer. The truth(if it can be said that way) is that life is what you want to define it as.

     That said, taken a person who has no hopes, no desires, or anything, it can be said that life has no point. There are those who find a point to their lives; It's a reason to wake up every day. Those people who are excited enough with that aspect that drives, tend to find a need to promote that when those aforementioned big questions are brought to their situations. The sad situation, is that not everyone is the same. One situation that works for someone's life does not mean it will work out for someone else.

     I hate writing out stuff life this. It's intensely negative. It reeks with a defeatist odor that says "why bother even trying?" I say this because my logic dictates otherwise. I write this to remind myself that no matter how things bad get in my life there's always a way out no matter how bad the situation seems. The world, other people, can dictate their terms to me what they think life is(or what it should be). However, I ultimately decide what life is, no matter the pressure. No person can take that from me. I am who I am and no one can change that.


Friday May 20th, 2005:

A question of action...

     The question that lies before is what to do today. There are a number of things on my mind and a number of things going on: There's the pool that needs to be cleaned( that might be done if the weather is nice out); There's a job to be earned(more about working on that yesterday later)-I was wanting to look up stuff on line for jobs but the awesome 7kbps I'm getting makes that as inviting as combing my hair with a fork right now- because I need the money; Or I could work on the DVD project. However, with out any sort of income right now it feels pointless; Even if I get the entire project done I have no cash to get the DVD made. Same goes for the SBB DVD-ROM(which is almost all but completed). I'm not sure what to accomplish between now and the party I'll be attending Peter's place tonight.

     This isn't even a great topic to write about. I'm only doing this because there's nothing better to do when the sun hasn't fully risen, your Internet connection sucks, and you want to do something a little more productive than play video games. I was thinking about calling a handful of people I'd like to talk to but it's too early for that as well. Thus, I'm stuck gabbing about rather mundane daily details.

     So let's get away from this topic. Instead I'll give you a story. A few nights ago I was sleeping and my phone rings a 2 am The phone, being on vibration, made a startling rattle against the wood. Darting up to stop this horrible noise I looked at the display: Alexander Brandenburg. Though I was tired, I decided to see what was up; Someone calling at such an early hourly certainly must have something important to say.

Big party

     Well, important was pretty relative in this case. He was slightly drunk, roaming the outskirts of San Antonio, and wanting to chat. With the phone having startled me into an alert mindset I decide to chit chat while I calm down enough to fall asleep again. The conversation, not worth chronicling for you readers, landed on one final note before closing: My good friend was going to back home for Memorial Day weekend; He was wanting a graduation party, something to happen, or something a long those lines. My mind was hazy at that point so I can't remember.

     The important of that whole story is now I'm having party Saturday, next weekend. So be there. You've been warned.

Random Internet Shit

     I was talking to Janet a while back and she hit me this link. It's a hilarious series of editorials written by an English teacher in Japanese about his experiences there. I mention this not only because the page is great, but it also it reminded about the program the guy is in. The ministry of education over there in Japan tries to recruit native speakers to work for them, even if they're not fluent in Japanese. I was interested in one point at doing this. If trying a good job around here doesn't work out, I'm seriously considering applying for this.

Shit List

     I decided to start a list of people, organizations, or what have you that has pissed me off in the past to make sure I remember in case I ever get a chance a retribution. I'll start first with:

Buffalo Wild Wings: A while back I worked for this place as it was just about to open it up. There's a number of reasons to hate this establishment. The biggest reason was the egregious waste of leftover chicken. After every so often food would get tossed out because it was "dead" (i.e. too old to have that fresh taste, but yet still quite eatable). Now I can understand that you can't expect people to buy food that's been sitting around for a while. What I can't understand is not allowing any of the staff to have it, enforced to the point where it could mean firing. That combined with shitty employee discounts(50% off 30 before/after a work shift), not being able to hang out and drink(on your own dollar of course) after a shift, and a huge rush all time(even if we weren't that busy) made it a place I will never want to spend a dollar there ever.

Charter Communications: Sometime last week I saw a listing online for some position as a High Speed Internet Specialist or something like that. What it was a customer phone support. From the application, it seemed like it was probably for 1st tier support(i.e. the people that read scripts) given that they weren't require a very technical background. I put in my information knowing I definitely could do this job with my experience.

     Move ahead to a week later when I get a call. A lady tells me about the job, benefits, etc. And tells me to come there for web-based test and interview. So I show up there and I sit down and fill out this dumb test. It's like a personality test: asking questions about how I feel about things, or what I would do in situations, etc. I've dealt with these things before and they are a waste of time; First because they don't really gauge what a person would do in a situation. Second because answering multiple choice question doesn't tell you who a person is. But hey, there's an interview part so it doesn't matter too much about this.

     So anyway I fill the shit out, tell the person, and she tells me to wait. When I get called I was told I failed the test. Because of that they can't continue to the interview and blah blah. She further elaborates by saying the test's "correct" answers are based on what you think the company wants to hear and not your real feelings. In other words, this test is setup to encourage liars instead of honest people. Now I don't care if they want institute a stupid policy for hiring people. But it pisses me off that ask me come out there to fill out this bullshit test, only to have them tell me they can't interview me. They could have saved me the trouble by having me fill out their piece of shit test on the Internet before calling me and having come in.

I've tempted to write to them about this bullshit but the more I think about it the less I care. Instead I'll just say fuck those guys and remind myself never to deal with them again.


Monday May 16th, 2005:

Another Day, Another Dollar...

   ...or make another Boxwine Monday, another $8 for delicious, oh so delicious, Chillable Red. My former roommate, and good friend, Sam Vaughn said I should be a spokesman for Franzia(or what's now known as The Wine Group that's to my Internet researching). I believe I would be a good spokesperson to represent their product. Unfortunately, my vision for these guys product probably isn't the same as mine. And if such a thing did happen we would inevitably have a conflict of interests.

   But anyway, I'm moving on. After a long night's work on Proffessor Productions & Gohmann Films new DVD project, I was thinking about writing something on the way home. So I'm doing it now:

   I'm writing to you now because I saw some else do it once. It looked inspirational. I thought it would do the same for you, I know it would for me. I want to bring up the big topic in life: where you're going and what you're doing. It's rough out there. There's a tremendous weight, a pressure, pushing you to achieve and obtain that which will make you a success in the grand hall of successes. And every day you've got to make the fucking effort to know, to find, and learn how obtain those goals. Why? Because no one else is going to care for you except you. That's it. You've got to care for yourself and make it happen for yourself because these things don't just fall into place.

   There are two people in the world: those who get shaped by the world, and those who shape the world. The real mystery, perhaps even someone's joke, here is that we're both these people. We both shape and get shaped by the world around us all the time. The way out of whatever is troubling you-I don't care what the hell it is-at any time and place, is to learn how to regain control, to shift back to the shaper instead that which is being shaped. Some times it's tough; There's a lot weight pushing and shaping you remember? All that means though is you got to push back just that harder, no, you got to push back even harder. Whatever the world can do, you can do that much more because, guess what? With out you, the world does not exist. If you ceased to exist, so would the world. And that's why you've got to make yourself, and the world around you, the best the best it can be.

   There's more to write but I'm running out of time. There's more to come laters...


Sunday May 15th, 2005:

A Letter

   I decided to write Franzia a letter today. For those hip Internetsters-that word is made up so give me props if you decide to use this lame word-who are asking, "Shawn, why didn't you put a link to their website instead of the old Wikipedia?" The answer to this question is twofold. That's right! 2 fold! It's kind of like 2-ply but instead of being put on each side it's folded. Imagine that! Anyway to get to the first part of the answer: There is no website. And last part of the answer, the fold as it were, is the Wikipedia is awesome.

   Getting back to topic, it turns out Franzia isn't a real company. It's a shell, a front, a dupe, just a name. The real company behind Franzia is some place called "The Wine Group" What a suspicious name huh? The wiki link will point to all kinds of information about this shadowy organization who turns to be the 3rd largest winery in the world. Yes that's right 3rd. So take that all you upper class wine snobs. Franzia is #3! Booya! Score one for crass, lowbrow, low class, cheap as dirt, $8 for 5 liters worth, wine in a box.

   There's another small token of info about this so-called "Wine Group" They used to be a part of Coca-Cola's wine assets. Funny that. Coca-Cola has, um had, wine assets. I always think it's pretty funny when I think about the sugary-carbonated-water-in-a-can industry. From a distance it looks like a free for all with all kinds of nutty players like, Dr. Pepper, Mr. Pibb, the extreme Mountain Dew code red, and lets not forget Faygo, a drink who has it's own rap group. If you couldn't tell by that last item mentioned, I'm well convinced that ICP only exists as a market gimmick for the executives at Faygo. In fact that sounds like an awesome setup for a movie: It's a story about a band and some it's biggest fans who find out that the band is just a huge scam to sell sugar water.

   In reality however the sugary-carbonated-water-in-a-can industry just has the two big players. This free for all rumble in the jungle(of carbonated soda) is an elaborate chess game. Soda brands, bottlers, vending machine dealers, and various fast food franchises are just pawns, bishops, knights and other pieces in this elaborate game. The goal of this game? Complete domination of the world of sugar water drinks. Purely diabolical if you ask me.

   After all that useless information of secret soda wars, corporate create rap bands, and shadow box wine organizations I forgot the whole point: the letter. So I wrote this letter which addresses a concern that I had:

Dear The Wine Group,

   I've written this letter today to talk about one of your popular brands of wine. The Franzia box wine, most especially the Chillable Red flavor, has found a special place in my heart. During my stay at Purdue University in the rather gloomy West Lafayette, IN I came across this product of yours, in the delicious red variety. It's sweet taste and economical appealing price helped me through the weeks as I worked hard at obtaining my goal of a dual degree in Computer Science and Mathematics. In fact, it has such an impact in my life during the events at Purdue that I have named a weekly tradition honoring this product, Box Wine Monday as I call it.

   More to the matter I hand, I wanted to discuss the product's holding container. First I must congratulate you though; the Smart Tap technology is truly a great invention for the wine in a box paradigm. In the past, before I was well acquainted with your product, I had previously seen wine in a box with some kind of awkward spigot that was a tab you had to press to release the liquid. Thankfully, I didn't have to live with that kind of dark age of box wine; I wasn't 21 years of age back in those dark days.

   As great as the Smart Tap technology is, there is a problem with it however. After wine is poured through the spigot and the valve is closed there tends to be some residual wine remaining in the spigot. I'm sure we've all experienced this first hand when we've turned off a sink and seen water drip through it. The only problem here is that we're talking about wine instead of water. This causes the box wine to drip small drops of wine, a rather annoying occurrence being that wine tends to stain things. With that said, I humbly suggest a solution to this problem: a rather small cardboard insert at the base of the box which can be pulled out long enough to sit underneath the spigot to catch wine drops. This cardboard tab, a smart tab if you will, would cost next to nothing but it would save much mess that I see occur with the smart tap all the time.

   I understand that as huge wine company, the third largest from what Wikipedia tells me(congrats by the way), you have many daily operational and other sorts of management problems to deal with. Comparably this problem is rather insignificant but, as a big fan of your product, I think this would further improve the well known quality of your already great product. All I ask is for you to take this suggestion in mind regarding your box wine products. Thanks for your time and the wine.

In Best Regards,

Shawn Robert Conn

   More to come.


Tuesday May 10th, 2005:

Shawn Vs Life: Round 9,146

   The great thing about language is the flexibility that it gives us for stating the same truth but with little twists:

I am 25 years old.

I have aged 25 years since birth.

It has been 25 years since I was born.

Or you could do it the Spanish way: Yo tengo 25 años, I have 25 years.

   I think people should state their age in the terms of days. When you think about it, using the year as the unit for measurement of a person's life is kind of foggy. How long is a year? Last year seemed to go by really fast. Furthermore, when you think about last year all you'll probably think of is various memories but I'll bet it's hardly a year's worth.

   It's almost like one of those measurement values that's too large for immediate comprehension. For example, speed, anyone who's familiar with driving has a good idea how fast 0-100 MPH is. Once you go beyond that it starts to get fuzzy. Like what's faster a bullet being fired or a supersonic jet?

   Sure the day is subject to the same problems: some days drag on, others breeze by. But for the most part everyone has a good idea how long a day is. Also, though this might just be me but, life seems shorter when expressed in days. 29,220 days doesn't seem like that much but 80 years seems way off into the future. Expressing age in days makes me think about how short life can be and motivates me to do something with this day. Something more important than just sitting around.

   I guess when it comes to using small numbers the day is too much when it starts to get in the thousands. Also there's the practical question of how tough it is to keep track of the days. That's why we have computers these days. That's what I did. Using the previously thought to be worthless Active Desktop(hence dubbed Craptive Desktop for all the problems it caused in Win98) feature of Windows, I added a small HTML page on my desktop that says how old I am:

   I also modified the page so that anyone could see how old they are.

Topic Change

   I keep staring at the screen, debating on whether or not I'm going to write some more. I'm tired and worn out. My eyes also keep glancing at my right middle finger. Right below the tip there's a mole and a few scars. Put together with the crease on my fingers, it looks like a winking face with a tongue sticking out. It's about that moment that I decide I should forgo looking for other topics to write about in favorite of doing something productive.

 

 


Monday May 2nd, 2005:

Head Hurts...

   That's right. It hurts. I tried to do some drinking today but it just made my head hurt. It continued on for the rest of the day. Yeah, that's about the extent of my day. I went out with some people later on for the celebration of one Ted Gohmann's birthday. I wish I could say I was in more jubilant of moods.

   There's been this aura, maybe even cloud if you want to pull out the metaphors that far, of failure that's been around me for awhile that I just can't seem to shake. Every time I find a new thing, opportunity, hope, or chance to get out of this funk I just fall right back into it. I need to escape this. I can't keep living like this. I need to get things in my life together. Life is what you make of it and I'm doing nothing with it

   Tomorrow is going to be different; I will get some stuff done. I have a long list of things that should, need, to get done. I will make them get done. It's do or die. I need to say, "fuck the bullshit" I need to...

   Ok, enough motivational speaking for me.

   But I really feel bad about my current situation. I feel like I'm just zoned out from a lot of things in life. Just thinking about it just makes me want to stop writing. I'm sick perpetuating this crap so I'm stopping. Tomorrow I will write something good...


Monday May 2nd, 2005:

   Over the past year and half(I can't point to the exact point of time), I've acquired the innate belief that belief that the world will not stand as we see it now. It could be just that I've hit a point in my life where I'm skeptical, disillusioned, and bitter, but I look at the logic of the situation, disregarding my personal situation, and I still see a huge problem. So thus I muse on about...

The energy situation

   I've talked before about how the idea of conversation of energy fascinates me. It's amazing to me that we can find energy anywhere: in light, in the flowing of water, in chemicals, in heat, in ourselves. Apart from that, there's also the idea of that matter and energy are related(you need mass to get energy and you need energy to create mass). To get back to the aforementioned titular situation, it requires so much energy to run all the shit you see around that we call civilization: planes, cars, and other transport, electricity for homes, and all those sorts of things. Right now we get a lot of it, to put it bluntly, by burning shit we found out of ground.

   Society and all that junk function on the assumption that we have plenty of shit to burn to maintain daily operations. But if the scientists, and the fundamental economics laws about scarcity are right, there's only some much shit we can burn before we run out. That said, we're going to hit a stopping point before we run out.

   The real danger of the situation is that it seems like the world is consuming these fuels at a exponential rate. You know, like it's starts a slow curve moving up then it shoots up real fast. That's what I think about when I read shit about India and China, countries with 3 to 4 times the US's populations, rising to become the next superpowers(which I like to dub America2). I think about those countries plans for progress being modeled on this country. Then I think about how much energy it took to get to where we are(i.e. a lot).

   This proposes the question: "does the world have enough energy to support growth like this?" I don't think it does. I'd like to be wrong, really wrong, in this situation just because deep down, despite the current times, I want to be an optimist. But if nature has shown us anything about animal populations it's that, at some point, it will hit a bounding point where the environment can't sustain anymore growth. I think humanity, civilization, is closely reaching that point, if we have already hit it.

   Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe all this shit that we're burning from the ground is renewable like some people suggest. But if I'm right then there's a lot of problems ahead. I could lay them out for you, but it's more interesting to use your imagination to imagine what would happen if it started to cost you 3 or 4x(or insert your own multiplier based on your amount of skepticism/optimism you have) the amount of money to get where you travel and consume the energy we do to enjoy our comfortable modernized lives.

But enough doomsaying.

   Last week I got this present from Coire and Lizz. There was a card included that read as follows:

Dear Shawn,
Happy Happy Happy Birthday! (at the time it wasn't that happy)
Here is a fantastic book about...
#1 Apathy
#2 Fear
#3 Sex
#4 Love
#5 Growing Up
#6 Death
My favorite book. A MUST READ! You will be inspired!

   The book was called A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I looked at the title and read out loud"A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" then added the comment, "It sounds like one those quotes that people slap on books." Lizz insisted that I'd enjoy it. It turns out she was right. I did enjoy it much and I was inspired as well. I recommend it to all.

 

   In the cool Wikipedia entry of the day, did you know someone/s has gone the effort naming generations of people since the 1400's and even characterized each generation in terms of cycles? While it's interesting and might have a little bit of truth here and there, I think for the most part it's BS. I just don't think it's possible to categorize an entire generation. There's just too many different aspects to human life to make sweeping claims about entire group of people born between specific dates. Maybe if you're talking about a generation within a certain socioeconomic class, maybe then you can make those kinds of generalizations.

 

   While I'm rambling off other things that happened to me, I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night. I found it sitting among a stack of DVDs in the house. I decided to watched it. I didn't really care to see it when first came on the basis that I shouldn't pay for propaganda. I watched the movie and I liked it, it was a touching story. A say story because the movie is filled with clever little things that are misleading. Then again maybe the debunkers have been debunked themselves. I'm not sure of all the details.

   Somewhere between the facts, the people that want to get their stupid political agendas across, and the bullshit lies the truth. I personally don't feel like wading through anymore of it to find it. Besides it's not like I have to watch the movie to know that our president is moronic. You can listen to all the dumb bullshit rhetoric that comes out of his mouth to determine that he's the worthless president who's only popular because people need someone to cling to when they their country is danger(or perceived to be in danger as the case might be). On the question on how much oil had to do with us being in Iraq that's debatable. But if there was no oil in Iraq it's pretty obvious we wouldn't be there so it suffices to say that it has a significant part. These things are just common sense. It's a pity that the truth has to championed by people that can't just want the truth unless it means pushing their own political agenda.

   Well, done for now.


Thursday April 28th, 2005:

    The Battleground for Meaning

   Today is another day. I'm not sure it's better or worse than these last few days. When I sat down here to write something my eyes went over my last post, being that it's just below this post. Going over my past words, it came to me that writing has an expiration date.

   I have no recollection of the words, feelings, and state of mind below. Other than what I remember on Saturday- an ecstatic feeling of Saturday, being sick and cold, severely depressed, and having a touch of bitterness- I don't recall anything from that day that I wanted to convey in that post. I read over it and I still feel some of what I read. Then there are other parts that feel just like echoes of past sentiments.

   It might just be that I'm not a good communicator. It could be that writing here is more a freestyle writing than a sort of organized structure of writing. There's the possibility that when some one is pounded with a lot of emotions at once they tend to expelled a lot of junk as writing. I'm writing as if one of those is the solution to the cryptic problem that I never really explicitly stated. If there's an answer in this paragraph I think I have to ask, "what is the question?"

   Back to what I wrote above: I think that after someone has written something it has a certain expiration. To further analyze that declaration I'll add to and say: the entire piece of the written work doesn't expire all at the same time. I think of it as decomposition of paper to make the idea much more tangible. Certain parts of old paper products(books, magazines, etc.) start to break apart in different areas while still remaining together. Eventually, if enough of it decomposes the whole meaning, the whole context, is lost, leaving only remnants of fragmented ideas.

   In the same way, organized written structures have a certain meaning when their initially produced. As time passes, the words will age just like it's author. It may still be physically intact on it's medium (unlike it's author), but eventually the words will decay. It maybe be small at first; Some words will fall into the pit of archaism, other words will be redefined by the changing times. Over a longer period, certain metaphors or small phrases will be lost to future readers. It's conceivable on a long enough time line of human civilization that certain works would become totally gibberish if not revised.

   The problem with revising a old work is that it's an interpretation. If a written work extends past an author's lifetime, the best revision will still be only an interpretation. The only person that knows completely what their work exactly means and says is the author. Even on the shorter time scale within the author's life, the exact meaning tends to decay; The author's mind changes with every passing day, at some length of time it's reasonable to expect that he would forget some(or all) of the exact meaning of certain piece of written work he did 10, 20, 30 years ago.

   That's what I feel to be true anyway. It certainly feels true for a lot of what I've written. I'll leave it at that. I'm too tired for any other chronicling of a rather boorish and seemingly mundane life. Farewell.


Sunday April 24th, 2005:

    Meltdown

   The graph you see above is just some of the stuff I did in differential equations. The topic in math in math deals with the study of changes in equations. In terms of math topics related to the real world this is one of the big ones. Differential equations model a lot of things we see in life and in nature.

   The graph above is called a slope field if I remember. It's a graph that charts velocity vs. distance. That graph above is a model of a swinging pendulum in a frictionless environment. Each line represents a different position starting point and velocity. The wavy lines represent the state where the pendulum slows down as swings up, but it's fast enough to overcome gravity to flip around the top where swings down again. The circles represent the states where gravity is stronger than the speed thus it swings back and forth. The smaller the circle, the less speed and swinging. Think of the circle growing bigger with the speed of the pendulum until it gets to the point where it's a wavy line.

   Now this is frictionless. In the real world pendulums don't keep swinging indefinitely. They eventually slow down. If friction was put into the equation above it would look similar but the circles would spiral toward the center(the state where the pendulum swings back and forth until it runs out of momentum). And the wavy lines would have downward slope until it was low enough until it spiraled around one point(the state where the pendulum loops around itself a few times until slows down to where it can make the full revolution anymore).

   Somewhere between the circles and wavy lines there's an equilibrium point. Equilibrium points are point in the equation where the no change occurs. There's two types, stable and unstable. Stable points are points where the equation gets "pulled" into that state. In that graph it would be the circles that spiral into the center. That center point represents where the pendulum rest in the middle motionless.

   The other type of equilibrium points is the unstable type. This is a point where the equation get "pushed" out of that state. In the graph it would be a diagonal line almost tangent to the edges of the biggest circles. It would represent the state where the pendulum gets pushed up enough to overcome gravity but stops at the top because it runs out of momentum. Certainly this would be impossible since you'd need infinite precision to make it stand perfectly at the top to where gravity wouldn't pull it either way.

 

   The reason I just wrote this little "get to know your different equations" is because I related to a lot more things I see in life. All kinds of things I see in life has these sorts of equilibrium points that push or pull things into a certain state.

Examples:

   1. Muscle build up, metabolism, and health. Each of our bodies has it's on equilibrium point to how much food it needs a day. If it's below that point we start loosing weight. If we starting eating just a little above that amount though we start to gain weight. When I started doing exercises, my body ached for a while. I could hardly do 20 push and sit ups. But as I kept doing it, I pushed myself past that point where my body aches and that I could 50 push and sit ups without fatigue.

   2. Savings, wealth: I've also noticed there seems to be an equilibrium in how much wealth people. At certain low wage, poor people generally to keep losing money because of living expenses eat up all the money earned and eventually they will spiral into desuetude. But as more and more wealth is acquired, eventually you reach that equilibrium point to where you have excess money. And excess money allow you to invest in things. The more money you have the more potential earnings you have. Thus the rich spiral out. Or to put it more familiarly, the rich get richer.

 

   I mention all this today because I think I came to understand a new equilibrium point today. One that deals with happiness.

   Today was a combination of many emotions. It started off pretty good, very good. I don't know what it was. It was a combination of being partly drunk from yesterday, dehydration, being stoned, and other things. I kept having ephinanies where I felt like I understood everything. There was no problems in the world. I was content. I was very happy. I hit some equilibrium point to where I felt complete.

   Then something set in. I began to spiral out of that state into something else. It was something with the weather. It was something that I felt in my body. I can't label it. Gradually I was pushed out of that state of contentness into being miserable. Miserable in every state of the word. I felt tired, hurt, cold, lonely. I felt like all my senses were fading away and the world kind of didn't exist anymore. I reached some point to where it all broke down. I was at a point to where I extremely sad. I tried to cry to feel better but I couldn't even do that. My throat just kept tightening up. I felt like I was unsuccessfully trying to force out tears.

   For a while now I feel like I've been trying to push myself out of some downward spiral of discontent, disillusionment, disappointment, and self loathing. Every time I get out of this funk I feel like I fall back into it. I have no job, I have no point, I have no one to love, I have nothing. I shouldn't say that but that's I feel. I being zoning out a lot to where my senses just shut off the rest of the world.

   Tomorrow is my 25th birthday and I feel like I have no point in my life. I'm in a sort of play that's forcing me to languish here with no role to play. Like I'm wandering around in limbo. Today I'll be celebrating with my family. There will be gifts for me but it won't be anything I really want. In fact, it will be money that will have already been spent on debts. I don't want money though. I would to be happy. I would to have a point. I want to show a beautiful girl a good time. Actually, make that a few girls. That won't happen though. What will happen is the same shit that's going on now. This how life works. It grinds on you. Eventually, your mind, your body, or both give out on you and that's it.

   With the writing of all this shit I think I'm telling myself something is wrong here. I'm not happy here. I'm stuck in a routine characterized by bursts of happiness and inspiration with mostly periods of loneliness and numbness. It's just that the happy peaks obscure the rough valleys enough to where I forget about them. I keep saying the opposite of what's going on to make myself believe things are good. I think I'm fooling myself. I keep falling back to this state.

   It's been occurring a lot in my lately that I feel really lonely. Whether it be a romantic love or just getting some ass, I feel compelled by one side of me to do something about that. The other side of me is fighting against that. I correct that. I don't know if it's me or the rest of world. That might just be naivety though. Certainly I could control whether I like someone enough to date, love, or screw them. But in a way I don't feel in control. I feel like something is holding me back. It's tearing me apart.

   There's something wrong with me. There's some sort of mean sentiment that lies in my heart. It's like a suppressed rage. I'm not a violent person. I'm not a mean guy. But I feel this terrible capacity to do evil down in my heart. Just feeling it makes me want to hate, like hate everything: the people I know, the things I've done, the world I'm in, and even myself. I don't want to hate though, I want to love.

   I've been thinking much lately about not wanting, or caring, to exist anymore. And at moments, periods where I think I shouldn't exist. I don't know why I exist, or what it is I hoping to get done. Failure keeps looming in my mind. That's what I feel like. Just mentioning all this stuff about not wanting to exist makes me feel like more of a failure.

   There's a lot in life I can't control. But I can control my own existence. I can choose to die. There can be an exit strategy. Problem is I don't want to trouble others. I'm sure my dying would upset people. I don't want to do that. On other hand I'm really unhappy. I hate feeling torture like this. I'm going to stop writing here for a while. Writing down all this negativism isn't helping things. I've been in this state before. I'm tired of it. I want out. I didn't sign on for this trouble. I'm going to sleep and maybe find help.


Tuesday April 19th, 2005:

    Irrelevant Ramblings

   The day began at 8 am, at bit early from the usually routine. I was a bit surprised myself. It's amazing how tired Box Wine and chicken sandwiches can make you. I needed to be up early, if for anything, for a change of routine. A did a few exercises then followed my way to the kitchen. The only thing it had to provide was a doughnut and milk. It's not bad I suppose, but I was looking for a bit more.

   After getting some more flyers printed up for my sister's business, I headed over to Will's to go running. It took a bit more out of me than I thought it would. I shouldn't be surprised seeing how I hardly run. During the run we talked about various things. It was enjoyable despite my lungs burning at the end. I needed a good work out. I hope to be ready for what I believe will be the last boxing match I'll do at SBB. I hope it's not, but it just seems that no one really cares that much about it anymore. This latest sentiment comes from the reaction of a Jon Chapman who seemed very skeptical about the idea of it happening this Saturday. Being one of the foremost boxing supporters, Jon Chapman's reaction has killed a lot of my own optimism about it.

 

   After a couple glasses of water, I said my good-byes; Will had to get ready for work and I had a couple of things to do at home. Mostly these things were of little importance. The first thing to get done was to get rid of the leaves and shit water, which has built up the most horrific nauseating smell, that's on top of the pool cover. This past fall/winter has been pretty harsh. The water level dropped to the level where we had to refill it. Also there was a good foot of water on top of the cover. After pumping that shit off, I had to pull off as many leaves as possible. I did this task throughout the day. Between this I was taking a bunch of shit off my hard drive, burning them to DVD-Rs, then defragmenting it. The purpose of this is to get more working space for the latest DVD projects. With all the games, movies, and music I was downloading at IU, I was left with 3-4 GBs left of space. Now I have around 30GBs; That will get the job done.

   With all this completed there's still a lot to be done. The pool needs to shocked, flocked, and vacuumed. This means I need kill all the living stuff in the water, drop all the random floating shit to the bottom, and then get it out of there. Then it will be ready. I'm still toying around with the idea of having a pool party this summer. Whether it happens, we'll see...On the DVD projects, much of that depends on money and Ted.

 

   Being that I have next to no money, funding these projects is tough. How much money do I have? To give an example, is today I got my only (effective) birthday present: A love Tekken T-shirt. That's a good indication of the state of things. I'll try to put the talk of money aside. If I talk about it anymore I might be encouraged to rouse up anger and hatred in my heart.

   The issue of money I can control. I can get a job. I've been in the position right now to be looking for a non-shit job, but when I need, really need, money I know I can get it. Ted, however, is a factor that's out of my hands. Currently, a lot of the stuff he has for the DVD is on inaccessible tapes; He needs an older, non-digital, camera to get some of his older work. He tells me he's going to get one for his birthday next month. I still remain skeptical.

   This skepticism has been inspired lately by Ben Paine's general refusal to do anything DVD-related with this new DVD. He seems totally opposed to any ideas we have whatsoever regarding this DVD. I hate having to go to this much trouble for such little things. I was driven to get the GCBC DVD done because I thought it was a really funny movie. As much as I enjoyed The Raven/The Strange Case, I don't have the same sort of motivation to get it done. I hate having to feel like I have to keep pushing to get this done. If Ted's brothers and Ben just don't care that much about the DVD coming to light I don't really see why I should bother.

 

Fuck TV

   As the evening came I tried to watch TV as a change of pace. Once again I found very little on TV. For some reason I turned it to G4TV. I don't know why I even tune into the channel. Every time I do I see complete shit on there that pissed me off at such wasted potential. I guess the lure of hot chicks that are all over their shows & video gaming, which I love so dearly, is enough to me make the little effort stop on the channel.

   The latest example of this shit is "Filter" I've seen it twice now. It's some show where they have a top 10 list of some topic. As a foreword, I think top 10 lists are the bottom of the barrel for news/entertainment. I don't have a problem with idea, it's just that top 10 lists usually seem arbitrary in rank and many of them never really state any criteria for their rankings. If they called it just "10 games of (category) we really liked and thought noteworthy" it would be more accurate, but I guess since Letterman has made the idea of "Top 10" lists being so great that it would be out of the question to do that.

   Anyway, the topic was video game soundtracks. This is a topic I have quite a interest in since I'm a big fan of video game music. I jumped into the show late so they were on #4. It was the Halo soundtrack. Overlooking all the hype about the game, the game's soundtrack is pretty good. Most noteworthy is the game's opening theme song. But #4? I could easily think of 4 soundtracks better than Halo's.

   The next entry, #3, pretty much annihilated any creditability the show could have hoped to have. When I heard "Final Fantasy X-2" I thought it was a joke. After wasting some time talking about the stupid story premise of X2, the only thing I heard mentioned on the soundtrack was that it was more pop star sounding. Of all the near recent FF games they could have chose, they chose the worse of ones for best soundtrack. FF7, 8, 9, and it's prequel FFX all have better soundtracks than this piece of shit. Even FF4, FF5, and FF6 in all it's SNES sound chip sounding glory are more enjoyable than FF X-2.

   Then came the last 2 entries. But before that they had to do a recap. I don't remember it completely; I think I was still floored from #3. It went something like this:

   10: Chrono Trigger

   9: SSX3

   8: Some other skate board game I think.

   7: Sonic the Hedgehog

   6: The latest Tony Hawk Game (Underground I think)

   5: Super Mario Brothers

   4: Halo

   3: FF X-2

   I couldn't believe that SSX3, Tony Hawk, and whatever it was ranked higher Chrono Trigger. Looking aside how much different types of music Chrono Trigger has, and my own persona taste, Those games don't even have video game music. They're licensed songs from regular music artists. They might be good songs, but if the music wasn't composed specifically for a game it's not video game music!

   That said, the results of the last 2 entries shouldn't have surpised me. For last 2 entries the show doesn't just show the 2nd place then the 1st place. That's too boring. For the more on-edge, extreme, gamer audience, the show has a "face off" between the two entries where they talk about both of them. Then after that they show the top entry and talk about it some more.

   The top two soundtracks was Ocarina of Time and GTA: San Andreas. If you were keeping score, the fight was over before it started. Of course, they chose San Andreas over the excellent Ocarina of Time soundtrack. Not to knock San Andreas, it has great music, but it's not video game music, it's licensed 90's popular music.

   That said I've come with a top 10 list my own for G4TV. With out further ado, I present the

Top 10 Worse G4TV shows:

10-2: Everything except Filter

1: Filter

-1: The hot chicks on their shows (because their hot and the shows are not)

   Thank you, fuck TV, and I'm out of here before I get pissed off. Peace bitches.


Sunday April 17th, 2005:

    An Itinerary:

   Friday: Party at the hooks and maybe Mag Bar

   Saturday: Thunder at the Riverhouse and maybe post-Ted house party

   Sunday: Perhaps a box wine party at my house to celebrate the upcoming Boxwine Monday and my Birthday

   Monday: My birthday and Boxwine Monday


Saturday April 16th, 2005:

    One Late Night and the Mumblings of Failure Contained Within

   If there's some vague idea of an audience out there that I'm writing to then they must be wondering what has become of me. If I was going to express my life in this past month in a sentence (which I am), I would say a descent into mediocrity. If I was more distraught than what I feel right now, I would say a hopeless spiraling into nothing. If I was more optimistic, I would say I was biding my time until my opportunity came. Between those sentences lies my life.

   I could describe my life in terms of events. Most these events are various chats I've had, big periods of sitting around with people that I call "hanging out", some parties attended, and absorbing myself in a number of videogames(most significant of those being Tekken 5 and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater). I've also managed to pick up something to read: Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil" The way I write about all these things in my life in the past month is pretty indicative how I feel about them; Sometimes they're mild amusing diversions and other times they're just background noise. Save for one thing I actually care to mention, something I read today.

In short, systems of morals are only a sign-language of the emotions.

   That sentence needs to be in context to appreciate the conclusion ever so more. But it states something that has been running through my mind for a few months now; Systems of morality that we create are done so as a result of emotions and not of pure rationality. My gamut of feelings has been bouncing between both ends of the spectrum, happiness and sorrow, in this past year. So has my view of the world. While I didn't have it completely settled in mind, I knew my general outlook of the world was based on what I was feeling. Reading that sentence today made me settle it up my mind that our moral framework is bent and changed at the whim of experiences, and more importantly, our emotions from them.


Saturday April 9th, 2005:

    What I care about right now...

   


Thursday April 7th, 2005:

    I imagine...

    If there was a Failures of Class of '04 in the Purdue Alumni magazine I would probably be one of the notable people listed on there. In the past 2/3 of a year of I've managed to do jack shit with my degree: Bloomington goes with out saying; What I'm doing now is just as bad.

    I got an email today from what those career sites I posted my resume on. It was a "here's some job opening suggestions" email from the site to remind I still applied there or something. It was pretty depressing. All the jobs in the area around here were places that want 2-3 years experience in some programming language or skill. I've already learned not to bother even applying for those jobs because there's no chance in getting them. I need an entry level position. Too bad it's tough finding a job like that with my degree around here.

    I'm not too bothered with finding a real job here. I already knew my prospects here weren't that great. It's just bothering me now because today has been a bad day. To sum it up, I had deal with searching through job listings I know that I wouldn't be hired for, a tire getting flat on me, and a feeling pointlessness in my life.

    The rest of the day would leave me at Victoria's for a charity poker tournament. It didn't really help much. I didn't feel like playing because I didn't want to spend much money. I got $150 from my birthday but it already has been spent on debt. I did spend a little money on alcohol. It was to help me feel better about the day. It didn't really help. I didn't really expect it would so I got what I paid for.

    So on arrival back home I wanted to get to a couple of things I needed to do. Mainly it was just finish the last details of my sister's salon website and get it uploaded. But I just don't have the motivation to do it so I'll get it done tomorrow. So instead I think I'm going to do nothing because I just don't feel motivated to do anything.

    It might be because I'm tired or it might be because I just want something to write, but I just don't care about anything anymore. I'm struggling to find anything to good out of the events since I've graduated. I've hit some point where I just don't care what the next day brings. I've got no point in my life now. I've got no job I care about, I've got no cause to care about, I've got nothing I really love. My existence seems inconsequential.

    I've been very Nihilistic these past few months. I don't believe there's any sort of greater cause for living. I think it's just a trick that we conjure up to make us feel important by ourselves. I say this not wanting to be negative, but I think it's the truth. I think that the fear that comes from the belief that there's no point to our existence makes us find something better. We want to want to be important, we want to have purpose. Writing all this makes me want to quit just because of the fact that it makes me feel all the effort is pointless. But this is what I feel so I'm documenting it in a way.

    So what am I going to do about it? Probably nothing. That's the thing about not caring about anything; It's easier to do nothing than something because nothing matters. I'm tired of existence. My life doesn't feel like it's really living. There's nothing I care about. There's nothing I have to do. There's nothing that drives me to live. I only live because it's convenient. At times it just angers me because I should do something about all this but I don't. At some point though I think I'm just going to reach a breaking point to where I'll have to do something about it.


Friday April 1st, 2005:

    I apologize

    I imagine my absence here has been quite notable to those readers interested of this page. I've been gone mostly because of my reluctance to stay online with dial up. There's also the issue that my time has been consumed playing Snake Eater, the latest Metal Gear game. And when I haven't been doing that I've been doing this little project to help my sister out with things for her salon. I only thought of doing a post here right now because I was busy working on her webpage.

    Honestly, I don't feel like I have much to say. The last few times that I have posted here I felt like I was just writing down boring conversational topics that I would rather been talking about than writing about. I still don't feel any better about my current situation in life. I feel like I'm being dragged down when I could be doing much more. I think maybe it's a problem with finding inspiration. I'm not sure. I think when you're in a state like this anything could be a potential answer.

    My only escapes from my mundane life have been video games and focusing on little projects. They keep me thinking that my life isn't worthless lately. Reworded, it could be stated that they make me forget about the thought of my life being worthless. Tomorrow I hope to wake up early, get some stuff done, and find some inspiration. But for now I'm going to play Tekken and induce sleep.


Wednesday March 23rd, 2005:

    Begin Narrative

    I began this day feeling less than functional. Sunday I woke up with a sore throat. Since I smoked the night before I figured that was the cause of the problems. However, I woke Monday with the same problem only worse. By the end of Monday I knew I was sick. I cursed my most likely source of the infectant, Victoria, since she was the last person most sick person near me. It didn't do much but I felt better. It's a good thing I have a strong immune system.

    I didn't feel horrible but I could be doing better. It's fine, I have a strong immune system like I said. Being drained of energy, I decided to play Tekken for the most of the day. I knew there's going to be some performances over at the Louisville Coffee House so I worked my strength up to head over the there. I was a bit late but I got there for plenty of people and good performances.

    There was an after party at my good friends Nate & Byron's place (two house away) so I headed over there after the events at the coffee shop. I wasn't really in the mood for a party. I drank and smoked a little but my mind was still preoccupied. Being at a party with alcohol and pot wasn't the best of environments while I was sick but I needed escape. I wasn't very social. My head was in other places than conversation. My mind wondered a lot that night while I listened to Mr. Bungle and other music through the party.

    I was floating through my own thoughts. Unconcerned with the events around me, I thought about various things while I listened to the music. Occasionally I would stop and notice the people chatting up it around me, the hot lesbians massaging themselves, or the horrible taste combination of Falls City Beer, pot, and cough drops. For the most part though I was concerned with zoning out with the state I was it. I enjoyed it.

    My big thought for the night is one that has been troubling me lately. I'll preface it with something I asked my ex-boss, Kate, once: the meaning of life. I don't remember the all the conversation but I remember she told me she once believed that the point of life is to procreate. The lasting thought in my mind was that she was right. We only live to reproduce again and again. We can think of higher goals of existence, a greater good, and all great stuff but the inevitable reason why I, and you, are here is because of reproduction.

    Moving past that question, I go to the next question: what is the point of existence? Is there a reason for us and all the universe around us? My mind has been consumed as of late with the idea that there is no point; In other words, Nihilism has been my thinking. I could go into a huge discussion about conversations I've had with my good friend Alex and other thoughts but I'll sum it up like this.

    I'll use the issue of abortion as an example. I hate the issue of abortion. I hate because it's pointless. It's pointless because both sides are a fucking stalemate that is going to last for as long as a people are still around. One side makes note of how abortion means killing a human life, and the other makes note how it is important that a person has control of their own body. Both these things are true; abortion is killing and it is also some making a person decision own their own body. I could take either side of this issue and run with it until eternity.

    My point of bringing this up is that I think pretty much everything in life can morally be summed up this way; It's all about how you look about the situation and how far you can run with that working model in your head. I think inevitably that the working model in people's heads for morality is just what's given to them and how far that decide to run with what's given to them. I don't think there's an ultimate truth. There's only a probabilistic window of things that people tend to think are right since we, as people, are given a certain set of common experiences that reinforce the same things(i.e. murder is wrong because we can't bring back the dead to life).

    I don't like all this thinking because it leads me down a road I don't want to follow. If there's no point to existence, there's no point to anything. If that's the case anything is fine; Killing, hurting, cheating other people is fine because there's no point to anything. I don't believe that's right. Still I'm troubled by the what I see around the world and the logic of the situation.

    It hurts me that a lot of bad shit still goes on this world. I said once I think I would have a harder time killing an animal than a person. Why? Some how animals are born with an innocence that comes with only being controlled by their desires. People however have logic to surpass these things. Yet, they still do them anyway This paragraph further makes its point when I think about the contradiction I've set up; I've eaten many animals willing but I've done nothing to stop it.

    The concluding events of the party, not appropriate for a dumb post such as this, only made me further believe the words I've just recited. It might just be rambling at this point, but I think there's something bad going on here. It's some sort of contempt for life, existence rather, that's built up in my head. The more I think about it the more I want to annihilate it all. What's worse? Me, for thinking all this, or the world ,for being like all this. I feel like once of these should be annihilated regardless of the answer. Care to take bets on what happens first?

    Luckily these are very troubling words that will be soon silenced by sleep....


Sunday March 20th, 2005:

    Two Weeks Later...

    There's a lot to be said about two weeks worth of events. Only a few of them are worth mentioning however. What I choose to tell you is just the arbitrary events that are coming to my mind.

It's good to be back home...

    Within a week or so I've come across a subleaser for my old apartment. The legal work will be done in a week or so. Once finished, that will completely absolve my financial responsibilities for that place with the exception of a couple of personal debts. A certain happiness, maybe just relief, has come to me now that I can almost look ahead to positive things rather than being funk about how to live in Bloomington.

    So there's a question to what to do here next. Enjoying time with video games and time with friends can only take you so far. There's the issue of needing money to live. This concern has troubled me lately. There's been a few things that I've done regarding it: I've been helping my sister out with a website, flyers, and brochures for her Salon that she will be opening soon; I've also been helping out my aunt who has had computer issues this past week or so; Lastly, I've went back to talk to Kate at Sportstime about getting my old job back. She said she'd give me a call sometime in recent week but I'm not holding my breath. I'd really like to work back there but if I'm not needed, I'm not needed.

    Starting this week I'm going to try to get my sister's stuff finished and start looking for higher caliber jobs. You could say that I'm looking for something professional, something that makes use of the degree that I've spent all my time on. We'll seen what happens with that. I'm not expecting too much for around here. That's about all I can say with financial and living issue right now.

Onto Other Issues...

    My production company, Proffessor Productions, has a couple of projects that have each hit their own hiatus. The SBB Ultimate Collection is about ready to be finished but I don't have the money to finish it. Hopefully a job will solve this so I'm not too worried about this right now.

    The other project is the The Raven/Strange Case DVD. It's hiatus: motivation. Unlike the GCBC DVD, I do not have a huge desire to get it finished. Looking back at the making of the GCBC DVD I see that a huge part of getting it done was my own personal involvement. The project got done because I wanted it to get done.

    I figured that since these movies are so much more loved by the rest of the Gohmann Brothers that they would put some effort into the project. A few months later after starting the project, Ted has yet to even record commentary for the movies. Not that it's his fault. He's tried to get them together to do. But somehow spending an hour or 2, at most, is just too much for their extremely demanding schedules.

    I've come to the conclusion that the Gohmann Brothers are all talk and no show. It's not my intention to libel my friends but this is the truth. Most of them now a days are so content with their significant others and whatever else they do not care about their movies. Even Ted who has very little to do during the day has shown me that he's not really motivated about this project. This is fine if they don't care. I'm only going to be as motivated as they are. I just wanted to say if this project dies it won't be because of me.

 

Before I'm done here I have some other promoting:

First, huge party at Steve's (parent's) place on the 26th starting around 11 p.m. I think it's going to be a lot of fun and you should come.

Second, I wanted to mention that SBB will be returning this year during Thunder Over Louisville at the Riverhouse. I'm going to update the website sometime this week to get the word out. Given that everyone should be free for Thunder I'm sure attendance will be much much bigger.


Sunday March 6th, 2005:

    Dear Bloomington, IN

    I came to your region a good number of months ago. There were a few of reasons for this: The first is Sam asked me if I wanted to live with him here. Perhaps it was a spur of the moment decision but I really do like your area. The second was that I didn't really have anything going on with my life. Moving here was my next big project in life. Lastly, I moved here because I had fond memories of your places and people. You're a great town. You're very scenic and I like your liberally minded people here. Not that I consider myself a liberal in the same way but I find open minded people more compatible with my beliefs.

    Today I woke up around 8:00 a.m. The digital alarm clock burned through my eyes. Even after I shut my eyes, in that darkness, the read out still could be seen in all it's 7-segment glory. Work was coming up in the next hour. I thought about what it was I hoped to achieve here and how that goal has since faded into obscurity. I came here with high hopes of finding a job I could be happy with, living in a college town with all the benefits that came with that, and having a place to live that made me happy.

    I can say at least I found one of those. The place I live at is great. The rent is cheap, especially for it's location. It has free wireless Internet. And almost everything I could want is within walking distance. The problem is finding a place here isn't the problem. The problem is finding those other 2 things in my trinity of hopes.

    Finding a job in your area is something less than to be desired. Anyone could come to that conclusion by reading my past chronicles about this struggle. The matter is ability. I didn't have a long enough experience in most of the jobs I was aiming for with college degree. I tried and tried. I was as flexible as I could be but it seemed no one cared to hire me. As my resources dwindled I had to set my goals lower. When it came to the end of the day I had to pay my bills to live in your area.

    If you lower your expectations low enough you might get more than you imagine. Then again, you might get next to nothing. That's closer to what I got with jobs here. As I've found out, the only places where I've had luck getting hired would have hired me regardless of who I am. My last two jobs at DialAmerica and Buffalo Wild Wings hired me because they needed cheap commodity labor to run their machines. Being a town filled with young people who are between a high school diploma and a college degree people, people that need cheap labor call the shots in your area. They're dealing with people that need any money, not just money to live.

    I didn't care for a high paying job. If I found a job that made me happy, or made others happy, I could be happy with shit pay as long as I could live here. But it seems the role of cheap commodity labor doesn't have the luxury of being satisfying on that sort of level. Playing the role of a cog means you do your function and you do well enough so not to be replaced. Not that I can argue with these laws of economics. Supply and demand dictates that the abundance of supply means I have no leverage when comes to my job. Coming to terms with this realization has made me all the more aware that the demand for me here is near 0.

    Thus, I come to my last point of the benefits of living in a college town. There are numerous benefits: many attractive girls, many random parties, a place to live where almost everything is in walking distance, many great places to hang out, many great events, and the list goes on...But for me, as of late, all I've felt are the drawbacks to living in such a place: Hard to find jobs, the abundance of dumb shit college students that are here to waste their parents' money, expensive prices at stores, and such. Being in the stuck in the situation of working shit jobs just to afford living under this condition isn't what I wanted here.

    And it's now in these last paragraphs that I must say I am leaving you. My decision to do this is a combination of the aforementioned problems above, a general feeling of worthlessness at work, empty feeling in my life, and the need to move on. My desire is to prevent the foul taste of disdain from arising in mind about you. Just because things didn't work out for us doesn't mean I should hate. I want to keep my memories of you the way they've always been, filled with rosy colored nostalgia.

    Even know I know you care less, the logistical problems of this decision will still hang with me for a bit longer into the future. I came to you on a whim and I'm leaving just the same. The best part about that is I'll soon forget all these problems as I head into the future. There will be repercussions, of course, but you'll be happy knowing that I will still have fond memories of you no matter how things turn out. With that I bid you farewell and I wish you luck into the future.

                                                            Sincerely,

                                                            Mr. Man With the Name that Rhymes


Tuesday February 28th, 2005:

    Sick

    For future reference, I'll remember never to brag about not being sick for a couple of years. Every time time I do I end up getting sick very soon after. This was the case this week as I told that to Sarah. I'm working it off but it's hard to be sick and try to work at the same time. If this post seem a little disorganized blame it on my illness. My head is a bit fuzzy right now.

    So what's happening in my life? I take it you're asking me implicitly by visiting this site. The answer is work and Tekken 5. Work is well work. I have a rant for it but so does everyone else about their job. So to save you the trouble of hearing boring work story, I'll omit it. If you're really that interested you can just ask me in person.

    More interestingly, Tekken 5 is very arguably the best Tekken to date. If you're familiar with Tekken 2 or 3 you should feel more at home with 5 than with 4. I know a lot of people didn't like the slower feel of Tekken 4. And aside from that the music sucked, there were a lot of issues with hit detection, and the line up seemed lacking from previous Tekkens.

    This is no longer the case. The speed and feel of Tekken 5 is much quicker. They've also added a few areas that have an infinite plane like old school Tekken. The game feels more balanced. Jin and Heihachi, while still very strong, do not dominate like they did in 4. The music is fantastic. Unlike Tekken 4, the music sounds like music for a fighting game. Namco has also added a ton of cool game extras. The most impressive extra is the addition of the old school arcade versions of Tekken, Tekken 2, and Tekken 3. In short, I love Tekken 5.

    Now if you excuse me I'm off to play it.


Tuesday February 8th, 2005:

    Some Numbers and Words

    This isn't directed at any sort of person but I thought it should be address since there are those who think I made this DVD in some sort of quest of monetary gain. So let me state a couple of numbers for you:

  Glossy Covers and DVD-Rs: $107.41
                   Printer: $194.03
 DVD Cases and Extra Paper: $56.50
      Black Ink Cartridges: $58.70

                            $414.44

    This is not including the fact that all my color cartridges are burnt through so if you want to throw in the cost of $58.70 to get new ones it's:

$473.14

    Also, I didn't ask for postage when mailing off DVDs to people who live far away. One person I asked, and another offered it anyway. There were 5 others where I just paid the postage(4 x $.37 = $1.48) since it didn't really matter to me. Thus lets just add on $6.86 for the sake of being even

$480

    Now with these materials I can make 50 DVD's. 2 of these DVD's went to Ted and I, 2 of them were only sold for half because with out Aaron and Sarah's help I couldn't have finished it, and 5 of them were given to Ted because I figured around we'd have around $120 gross and since it is Ted's movie he deserved half of what I made so with that said.

    Ok, with that it leaves 5+2 = 7 50-7 = 43 copies for me to sell.

41 x $12 + 2 x $6 = $504

    After costs,

$504 - $480 = $24

    Yup $24 and a printer that's my part of the gross for this DVD. And I should mention a couple things to this.

1: I haven't sold all 43 copies yet.

2: To get all the initial capital I needed($330) for the project I borrowed through my sister. How'd I pay her back? What I got for Christmas this year was pretty much all money. $200 from my parents, $200 from my grandparents, plus $50 gift certificates. I sold those gift certificates. I took that $450 and paid back my sister as well as my credit card.

    So after spending all the money I got for Christmas, around 100 something hours of my time, the trips back and forth to the Gohmann compound to get the material, and all the technical headaches we've encountered, I did this for $24 and a $194 printer(which I'll hardly use with the exception to make more DVD's n' stuff). You might as well just call me Megabucks Conn. When I sleep at night my neck usually gets stiff. I usually find sleeping on all the $100 bills I made make me sleep better.

 

    No. The real reason I made this DVD is because everyone sees that sees the Gohmann's movies says "Ted you should make a DVD/ put it on the Internet/etc." People say this shit all the time. I'll tell you something. It's really fucking easy to say something. It's much tougher to actually do it.

    I did this because GCBC is my favorite Gohmann movie. Even if it's not professionally done, I still love it. I did because I know a lot of people like this movie(and other Gohmann movies) and I wanted to see their work get immortalized. The other Gohmann brothers wouldn't of done it. Ted wouldn't of done by himself. No one else was making an effort to do anything about it, so I did.

    In the end the GCBC DVD is kind of it's own joke. I mean, it's funny to see how much professionalism went into a DVD for a movie that has no professionalism in its production. Ted and I spent a lot more effort than probably was meant for a movie like GCBC. But I had a lot of fun in making it and I wanted to get it out to people that really loved it too. And if you still think I did all this for money, I believe there's and old saying that fits here.


Sunday February 6th, 2005:

    Hello random people

    Every so often I decide to check the webtracker that I have attached to this website. I noticed today that there have been 3 or 4 times as many visitor that usually get in the past few days. When I made up the new "Who Is..." website I made an attempt to get rid the random traffic of various Google users. I didn't care for random people looking for random topic x coming across here. It didn't serve their purposes or mine.

    It worked when I made the new site. For awhile the only traffic I got was those people who would hear of my website from me. I guess Google's caught up with me. Either that or some other website is referring all this influx of people. I don't because the tracker can pick that up from the way the website is written. Whatever the reason you got to this page, I hope you're enjoying reading my drab thoughts.

 

    So what the hell have I been up to lately? Writing and a lot of it. First, writing a few reviews of games and other things. Second, I've been writing a few wikipedia articles. I didn't think about it today but it's kind of funny; the stuff I'm doing with my free time is the same stuff I used to loathe doing for school: researching, writing, and rereading. With simple change a topic, a chore becomes entertainment. I've also been writing out stuff for this novel idea. I'm still not really writing in any sort of cohesive fashion. I've just been taking various thoughts, ideas, actions, and writing them down. I guess my belief is that eventually I'll have enough stuff written down that I can use that as a solid base for the plot of my characters.

    Random people, random thoughts.

    I'm going to have to take a break from this writing though. It's making me all twitchy. The problem is writing on the computer. It's like a video game. Maybe that's not exactly it but the resulting feelings are the same. The feeling of having to be in a certain position for a while, the feeling like you have to keep pushing the buttons to get the thoughts out, and the background hum of computers gets to you though. Once you get into the flow of things you don't think about it. But when you're physically uncomfortable, it keeps popping into your head.

    What wouldn't I give right now for some pot and a few certain women to smoke with? I phrased that as a question because I didn't know if it was complete as a sentence or not. Somehow, putting a question mark on it makes it rhetorical and thus I don't have to worry about it making a complete statement or not.

    This moment right now is my downtime from writing. By that I mean it's my last bit of writing before I quit for a while. I'm trying to focus on calming myself down because right now I'm feeling like I'm a bit on edge. Are you still reading this at this point? Paragraphs like the last two paragraphs I wrote(including this one) are usually the type of paragraphs that made people want to stop reading.

    They are the type that have no path. They are just a collection of sentences that don't lead anywhere. Thus, when someone reads it they feel like they are just wandering around doing nothing; there isn't a set goal; thus there's no reason to follow the paragraph to the end.

 

    If that's the way you feel, feel free to close your web browser at this point. I didn't care if you wanted to read this anyway. The point of this collection of words on this section of my webpage isn't necessarily to get any message across. Sometimes it's convenient when it is, but the reason this website exists is to reflect my mental state on medium that's just a tad more physical that activity in my head.

    I'll close with one concern that's been troubling me lately.

    The whole world is busy. Busier than me it seems. Everyone has some point to existing in their immediate lives. They are in transit to their own ends, point B I shall call it. And because everyone is so busy they have no time to see what's around them. Every activity and event in their lives seems like it's getting consumed by the anticipation of the next event. Many people justify this a lot times with the thinking, "well it's only until I get the end of <insert cause here>." I've done it myself.

But there is no end to this way of thinking. It's self perpetuating cycle of thought. Once you get to that point B you'll have burrowed into your mind that there is something that you must immediately do next. When you run your life like a map moving from point A to point B and to point C...and so on...you make it just a series of bland dots connected with equally boring lines. There will be an end eventually to this little series of dots and lines too. It's called death. And no matter what we do we all reach it the same. The important part is how you fill in the details between.


Thursday February 3rd, 2005:

    Some the Best News this Year...

    Dellamorte, Dellamore (aka Cemetary Man) is going to be coming to DVD this year. I've been in a slump for a while but this news has cheered me up.

    On top of that, I've been getting some done here and there.

    I've done some preliminary work for the The Raven/Strange Case... DVD.

    I've gotten most the work needed SBB: The Ultimate Collection DVD-ROM. All I need to do is design a disc cover and a jewel case insert. I'll probably hold that off until I get the money to buy the materials.

    I've started writing this novel. Right now it's nothing even remotely complete. I have on a bare frame work of a plot, and 3 characters.

Yesterday I wrote this little piece on the Wikipedia about the old Next Generation magazine.

Oh, and there's a review of Silent Hill 3 which I recently played(see below). Whew...I'm done for now.

     Silent Hill 3: A Review

     When Silent Hill 3 was first released, even though I was a huge fan of the first two games, I didn’t buy it. I was concerned that Konami was turning Silent Hill into what Resident Evil had become. Perhaps I should to clarify what I mean.

     Back in 1996 CAPCOM released Resident Evil. Self dubbed as a “survival horror” game, it could be called an interactive horror movie. The game played out in static 3rd person perspectives that gave it a cinematic feel to it. The actual gameplay was a bit clunky thanks to awkward camera angles and presumably intentional sluggish character controls but it added to the element of fear. You ever had a nightmare where you’re trying to run away from something frightful but you moved slow as hell? That’s the same feeling the game gave you when you tried to run away from enemies. It was that heart pounding feeling combined with other elements taken from horror movies that made Resident Evil a great game.

     If you’re at all familiar with CAPCOM’s track record, you’ll know that any of their very popular titles immediately gets followed up with a deluge of sequels. As such, the world got more RE titles than you can shake a zombie at. While normally game sequels are just as good, if not better than their predecessors, Resident Evil didn’t fare as well. The problem is with each successive game the horror effect progressively became less. The last Resident Evil game I played was Resident Evil 0. It was terrible. With the horror effect pretty much gone, the only horror I survived was the sluggish and boring gameplay.

     Let’s move back to 1999, about the time when Resident Evil started to feel a bit stale to me. Konami released a survival horror game that pushed the genre further, Silent Hill. Resident Evil used as its movie template zombie/virus/b-horror movies. When done right zombies still can be scary; the problem is that at some point they become so cliché that they lose every thing made them scary. Silent Hill on the other hand used a more diverse selection of movies for its template.

     The result was a survival horror game that was more of a psychological horror than Resident Evil knew: Resident Evil used the prototypical haunted mansion; Silent Hill used an eerily peaceful city that had dark nightmarish other side to it; Resident Evil used zombies and number of large animals as its enemies; Silent Hill used horrific creatures which were impossible to compare with anything in the real world. In short, if Resident Evil was a movie like “Dawn of the Dead” then Silent Hill would be something like “The Ring.” To sum it up, Silent Hill took all the good elements Resident Evil but added a much darker and terrifying world.

     So to come back to the original concern I first proposed, I’ll answer the question: Has Silent Hill lost its effect after being watered down with sequels? The answer isn’t clear cut as I would like. The next few paragraphs will sum up my collective thoughts and perhaps they’ll point more to one answer than another.

     A big part of the first two games of Silent Hill was the opening story of their respective protagonists, Harry Mason and James Sunderland. They both had a simplicity to them that made the characters instantly identifiable; not many people can relate to a being part of an elite military squad, but almost everyone can relate to a person that’s looking for a lost loved one. Identifying with the game’s hero makes his quest your quest.

     I didn’t find that in the beginning of Silent Hill 3. At the beginning we’re thrown immediately Silent Hill’s dark other world. We start control of our female protagonist without a clue why we’re here, what we’re doing, or why she’s armed to the teeth. Soon afterwards we find out its all a dream. We eventually do find out her name is Heather Mason, daughter to the aforementioned Harry Mason, but this starting point is more like a stumble point.

     An interesting story, plot, and characters to develop through the course of the game but I don’t the game recovers from the opening. The most jarring element is Heather’s demeanor. There are times she acts like we expect some one to act in such an odd situation. There are even a few moments we can sympathize with her too. But at other times she acts as if the odd things happening are suppose to happen. It’s almost like she knows she’s in a video game, especially at some points she cracks jokes. If I saw or heard half of the things in this game in reality I can say for sure that joking would be the farthest thing from my mind.

     That gets me to Silent Hill 3’s strongest point, the visuals and audio. The jump from the PS to the PS2 added much to the details of the creatures, characters, and the world in Silent Hill 2. Silent Hill 3 still has the great lighting and grainy film effect of SH2 but it goes further. The characters have a great fluid lifelike motion to them. The creatures in this world are some of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. Describing them isn’t good enough, you have to see them. If some of the things in Silent Hill 1 and 2 frightened you these creatures will terrify you.

     Those familiar with the audio from the Silent Hill series know that it provides just as much as atmosphere as the visuals. Once again Akira Yamaoka has done the sound effects and music. On the music side, there isn’t too much to say. The music is more like ambient noises that create atmosphere with the occasional song played out in cut scenes. The sounds however are by far some the best work done in the series. The moans, breathing, and other noises you’ll hear will make your hair stand on the back of your neck. Like the visuals, it’s something you have to experience to get the full effect.

     The game play, for all purposes, gets the job done. As I mentioned above, the appeal with survival horror isn’t the game play. If you’ve played a Silent Hill game before you should be pretty comfortable with the controls. It should be mentioned that the Silent Hill 3 team did add improvements to the formula. The biggest improvement is you can now equip an item so you don’t have to go back to the inventory menu as much for commonly used items. Also another feature I noticed was that anytime you use the movement stick while reading a description of an item it will cancel the rest of the text. Thus when you accidentally look at an object while looking for useful items you’re not stuck reading a description you’ve already read.

     Looking at the game as a whole, there’s only one other glaring problem: the length of the game. I finished it in 5 hours and that’s with occasional puzzles that can take 20 minutes to figure out. That’s short, even for a Silent Hill game. The reason for this can be explained by layout of the world. In the previous two games you were put into the vast city streets of Silent Hill which you could explore. In Silent Hill 3 however, the only time you’re on the streets of Silent Hill is to traverse between 2 buildings. This gives Silent Hill 3 a claustrophobic feel that the others didn’t have. It might add to the terror at times, but it made me feel like I was stuck running through a linear gauntlet of horror levels. I think most fans of the series will be disappointed at this.

     So has Silent Hill lost its effect on me? As horror show I can say it hasn’t; it’s still as horrifying as the original was to me, if not more. But as a game and a story, it has lost its effect in a few ways. If you can look past some of the disappointing game play aspects and a story that doesn’t seem as full as the last two, you’ll be stuck with quite the meaty chunk of horror. It will be short lived, but if you like the game play you can go back through the game again to acquire bonus weapons, costumes, and goodies that the series is known for. It’s not worth the initial cost $50, but for $20 it’s fun while it lasts.

 


Tuesday February 1st, 2005:

    Some Things

    So here I am back from home once again. The weekend was somewhat enjoyable. It could have went better I suppose. I felt out of the loop from everyone. Maybe it's just me but it seems like no one has any time any more. I may have too much free time now, but when I was working at Sportstime, taking classes at IUS, and working on the DVD I still had plenty of time to hang out with people. I hoping this is just a temporary thing right now but I'm concerned about it.

    If you've noticed the top of the page, you'll see that I put a Paypal link up there. When I finished the DVD Aaron said I should set up a Paypal account for the DVD. At the time I didn't feel like setting one up so I didn't want to think about it. Then it occurred to me a few weeks ago that I still probably had one from a while back when I sold some stuff on Ebay. Sure enough, I did. So anyone interested in one of the 10 copies remaining can click the link above to buy one. Just make sure you send me your address if you want me to mail it to you.

    I was reading this week's Leo yesterday. Among an interesting editorial about the social security problem, there was the main feature. It was coverage of the inauguration and Louisvillian protesters. You can find it under the 2 articles under the "feature" section on the website. Not to get off track here, but am I the only one that thinks an inauguration for an incumbent presidential election winner is pointless? The guy's already in office, what's the reason to have a ceremony especially when we're probably paying for.

    But back to my main reason to why I'm telling you this. As I going through it there was an article about a group called the protest warriors in Louisville. What were they protesting? They were protesting the protesting of the inauguration of Bush. Sound stupid? Yes. Evidence? This photo of the protesters. "We gave peace a chance. We got 9/11." With signs like that, I almost want to think this is a joke. I can't believe anyone is this ignorant about the situation. Will suggested a much more witty sign: "We gave inbreeding a chance: We got these guys."

    To save myself on ranting any further about the worthlessness of the invasion of Iraq, I'll limit myself to just one more paragraph on this topic. The point I want to get a across is this. I don't understand how someone feel so passionately for war. If you feel this invasion was justify fine, but don't tell me I'm un-American because I just don't support every cause in the name of "fighting terrorism." Blah. Enough...

 

    In other stuff on the Internet, I came across this site over the weekend. It's a fan site for Goldeneye and Perfect Dark that has time attack movies on them. If you ever played the games, they're quite impressive. And unlike all those emulated console time attack movies, these are done without the assistance of any tools, just a whole lot of skill and little bit of luck.

And lastly FilePlanet sucks. It's the Soviet Union of downloading...


Saturday January 29th, 2005:

    Melancholy

    adj : characterized by or causing or expressing sadness; "growing
    more melancholy every hour"; "her melancholic smile"; "we acquainted him with the melancholy     truth" [syn: melancholic]
    n 1: a feeling of thoughtful sadness
    2: a constitutional tendency to be gloomy and depressed

    I thought melancholy was more like an emotion but it's more similar to an illness than an emotional state. The original word that melancholy resulted from was one of an illness that the Greeks believed. I think people nowadays call it depression. I mention it right now because it's what I'm feeling at this moment. It's not comforting being in it. But I feel like I've been though this enough times it doesn't really matter. Nothing really matters.

    I don't intend to be down or negative in this post if that's the intention that people gather. I mention, and feel, this because I think I've realized that there's no chance for me in Bloomington. I checked my bank account today. It's not looking too happy. I'm trying...I'll keep telling myself that. I tell myself the reasons why I came here but right now their inspirating thoughts sound distant. Moreover, I just don't feel like I'm going to be around in the future. That's kind of scary but that's what I'm seeing and feeling right now...


Thursday January 27th, 2005:

    On Friday January 28th...

     ...Shawn Conn returns to his home in pursuit paying rent.


Tuesday January 25th, 2005:

    Reminding Myself the World Still Exists

     There's a funny thing about living up in college towns. It's like the area of time and space gets distorted when I'm there. I perception of time seems to flow much different. It's like everything is going much faster than it should. This month has almost came and gone, but I hasn't felt like a month. Perhaps it's because I don't have a job yet, but even when I was working at Sportstime things didn't seem to move this fast. I can't prove but I'll still lay behind my claim.

Yet still even though things have been going by fast it seems that everyone is more busy that I am. I hardly get in touch with people it seems. Every time I get someone a call it seems I get voicemail. I hate voicemail. Maybe it's just because school's in session. Oh well...

Small Reviews

     Over the past few weeks I've been doing some reading and playing some video games. Here's some various thoughts about them.

Don Quixote

     I mentioned a while back that I wanted to read it because of the reference that both Kim and Brian made in another reference to my Camel Cash Pool Table fund. So I read it. I enjoyed it a lot. Whether I recommend it, I dunno. I don't read books too much so I can't recommend it in the same way I recommend games. But, I imagine if you like tragic heroes, epic "adventures" (there's a reason for the "'s), and long-winded Shakespearean dialogue you'll like the book.

     The book is a complete parody of romanticized epic knight stories. It follows a man, Alonso Quijano or Quesada(as the author is not completely sure which one it was), who goes nuts and starts thinking he's a knight. Labeling himself Don Quixote of La Mancha(a region of Spain), he starts going around to pursue adventures under the code of chivalry. For the most parts he doesn't do anything near what people would equate with knights(being that such things don't exist anymore), but it's funny to see his attempts. Even though he acts crazy, all his words(which are quite a lot) in the novel suggest otherwise. The story kept me wondering at time whether he really knew what he was doing or not.

     The story is quite long. It's broken into 2 sections. The second was written by the author, Miguel Cervantes, a few number years later as a response to a fake sequel that was being circulated. What's funny about is that he makes reference to it in the world of Don Quixote. Quixote even meets up with the said author and much funny words are said.

Moving along to the games I've played...

     I probably should feel bad about pirating instead of buying the games, but seeing how my income is going completely to living expenses I'm not going to loose much sleep over it. So anyhow...

Shogo: MAD

     I heard about this game awhile back. I heard a few good things about so I decided to try it out. It was a nice diversion, but as far as FPS's go it was pretty dull. It's one of those Anime inspired games, kinda like Oni but mediocre. This one was more inspired by the "giant fighting robot mech" sub genre of Anime. It sounds pretty cool in theory but in practice it's just pretty much the same FPS stuff divided up between stages where you're in and out of the giant robot. I thought it's mediocrity was due to it's age. When I looked it up however, it said it came out in 1998 which would make games like Quake II and Half-Life its contemporaries. So I guess its mediocrity had more to do with its budget than anything else.

Legacy of Kain: Defiance

     If you've played Soul Reaver I & II, you'll probably want to play this. The game's story is the finishing of the story arc set up by the 2 aforementioned games. If you liked the convoluted, head-spinning, time traveling plot of the first 2 games you'll like this. The voice acting, like the rest of the LOK franchise, is once again top notch. I wouldn't doubt to say that the series would be in the top 5 games as far as the voice acting is concerned.

     The game is fun but every since the first Soul Reaver the game has gotten progressively more linear. For the most part the game is set on rails and there really isn't much to adventure. The worst part is when the environment looks like there's more to explore only for you to find out that the area has an invisible wall that prevents you from going further. The game has all kinds of instances of this.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

     I heard a lot about this game and it sounded great. The game's a 3D remake of the old Prince of Persia game. If you haven't play that it's a lot like other 2D rotoscoped animation games that game out (Out this World, Flashback, etc.) except in 3D now. Another gimmick(a rather fun gimmick though) in the game is the ability to go backwards in time. If you've every played an emulator you've probably seen this feature. In fact, a while back I thought of it myself while playing a couple emulators that let you "rewind back" time so that you could go to a previous state of the game.

     It's a lot of fun but it does make the game short. With out the feature, a lot of the game would be trial and error death traps(much like the original game). With it, it's pretty easy to breeze through the game. The only real complaint I have about the game is that it try's too hard to be cinematic sometimes. Cinematic can make a game's story good but if you over use it you run the risk of pissing of the person that wants to play a game(and not watch a movie).

Finally...

     I would like to announce the start of my very own production company. Yes, that's right. The same people(that is to say me) that brought you the GCBC DVD will in 2005 bring you such great things as...

SBB: The Ultimate Collection DVD-ROM & hopefully

The Raven/The Strange Case of Dr. Jeykl & Mr. Hyde dual DVD set.

And the production company will be called...

     

 


Wednesday January 19th, 2005:

    12730

     I'll leave it up to you guys to figure out what the number signifies.

     In other news, there's been some preliminary work done for the next Gohmann DVD. It's not going to be as big as GCBC, but it is going to be a two feature set for The Raven and The Strange Case of Dr. Jeykl and Mr. Hyde. I'd rather call it SCDJMH for short however. I don't know how much work I'll be doing right on it. Right now it depends on how much Ted and his brothers want to work for this goal. I'll have later news on some of the features that it will have.


Wednesday January 19th, 2005:

    What's New

     So I've been through a number of more interviews this week trying to get a job up here in Bloomington. I don't ever know if I'm good at these interview things. The biggest thing for me is not to feel nervous because I know subconsciously the interview is judging me. I don't think I do well under that sort of meeting. I try to be as conversational as possible because some questions are tough to answer. Like answering, "what do you think you would bring to this organization?" Maybe I'm not "goal-oriented" , but I don't think about those sorts of things until I have a job. I guess you're suppose to answer with all kinds of positive great things about yourself, but I don't sell myself with words I do it with actions.

     When I have a job, I know what's needed of me, and I know the bounds I'm working within that's when I shine at what I do. Once I know these things, I can take what I know about myself and what I know about my job then merge the two together. I know that it's really hard to convey in an interview. Maybe I should work on it. I don't know.

     I guess the best thing I can do is be who I am and make the best of that. Anyway I'm worn out. I need rest.


Thursday January 13th, 2005:

    What Is

     Today is one of those times that I've thought to chronicle my life, thoughts, and activities of the day. I haven't been really doing that much as of late so I thought I jump back on that. For those people that are so intrigued that what a college graduate can not do with his post-college life. Any how continuing on...

     I think I've said it, but in case I haven't, the written me is much different from the spoken me. Thoughts carry better to words on paper than words in the mouth. Perhaps it's because I'm time to think it out, I'm distracted a lot, it's less spontaneous, or just because I'm not good with words. I saw that because I feel that my words here I deceptive of who I am in real life. Maybe I'm wrong though.

     That's the funny thing; I can never know what my words sound like, written or spoken. I mean I can in some way but the way I think and hear them out will never have the same effect or feel as they do to me. But I'm content to ramble here if indeed that is what it is. I'm sure this entertains someone or something. My point or readers unknown, I'll close this forward here to move on to other topic.

 

     The first is what have I been doing since I made my journey back to Bloomington. The top matter once again is finding a job. I have little money and I have yet to recoup all the money I've spent on the GCBC DVD. I've paid back my benefactors but that was with money that I've got for Christmas so that can be looked upon two different ways. Regardless of the interpretation, it doesn't pay the bills. So I've been on the net, in the papers, and around the town looking for jobs. I had an interview yesterday and I think it went well so here's hoping to the good luck that I have yet to receive.

     Second, I've taken to a couple of things while I'm here, more personal things so to say. I'm still trying to define what it is that I want to do. I know where I want to be...but not do. I've picked up another book to read after 1984; This one is Don Quixote. I mentioned that I wanted to read it a while back, but I didn't pick up until last week. I'm enjoying it so far. It's a bit wordy in dialogue but it works for the characters. That reminds much of that of which I mention earlier about me having more words on paper than in mouth. I say that because I seem to be much more wordy here than I do in speaking. But that's my nature I suppose.

     I think what it is the nature of conversation. Conversations is one part acting, one part thinking, and one part listening. Trying to balance all of those can sometimes be a chore. Depending on the person you converse, you might not have much to work with. I guess that's the best I explain it.

 

More Random Topics

     I found out what the word of day is: teledildonics. I'm sure by not clicking the Wikipedia link you can imagine what it means but I still implore you to read upon it anyway. If anything for a good laugh. At least it makes me laugh thinking of this area as a serious field of research.

     Another thing you should know, if you didn't already, is that Bit Torrent is awesome. It's a great P2P program that has a pretty clever approach to getting files. It's been around for a year or so about now and it's approach isn't anything really new. The best part about is that the client works by downloading tiny files called "torrents." These files, after downloaded and opened with your Bit Torrent client(if you don't have a client I recommendABC), point to the location of the file and the program handles the rest.

     The only reason I mention all of this is because the torrents are small enough to store on the web in mass. While a lot of the big sites(suprnova.org being one) have shut down with all the concerns about piracy, you can use search engines to do it for you. Like for example, go to Google and type in the search "Tekken filetype:torrent" You'll see all kinds of Tekken related goodies for downloading.

Well that's about it for me. Til next time...


Saturday January 8th, 2005:

    Another day no different

     There hasn't been much going on in my life lately that really worth mentioning. Sam's up here now so it's not completely void of people but the weather outside is preventing me from and further adventure. At some point I stopped caring that much for cold weather. I used to really like but now I just kind of like with some annoyances getting to me. It is probably the result of being snowed in a lot this December.

     While I've been stuck up in my humble home, I've taken the time to read 1984. I enjoyed it immensely. I think the most intriguing parts to me were the whole of Newspeak. Especially since it kind of relates to what people do in politics today; Rewording phrases to make their literally meaning distort what they really mean(i.e. "American Instrests" meaning United States military/industrial corporate interests).

     Another relevant issue was that of creating a perpetual war to keep people distracted from the oppression that the state put upon. In the book it talks about how the state intentionally avoided the production of an abundance of consumer goods(since it all went to the war effort) so that the masses would be more concerned with the scarcity of food/clothing/etc. in their lives than anything else. Creating this situation distracted people and combined with the perceived crisis of war the government was able to control the people.

     The funny thing is that it seems that the same distraction is going on here, but I think that it's from an overabundance of consumerism here. Most people in this country don't have to worry about starving or freezing to death or anything like that. No, most people are concerned with their daily jobs, making ends meet, and buying more new shiny stuff than bombs blowing up their families. Cable news channels in this country are one step away from entertainment programs. The real crisis of war is so separated from our lives that it makes no real difference. Except for our president and government telling us that there is a threat of terrorism, a threat that should only be a concern to people living in some of the major American cities(if that much).

     As a result, the vast majority of people in this country seem to be okay with a president who took over an occupied a country under a pretense that didn't exist(i.e. "weapons of mass destruction"). How soon people forget though when they are content life and our president tells us that he's going to protect us from the bogeyman of terrorism. They are even okay with reelecting him even though the spending that this "war" is costing us running our budget into ground. But who the fuck cares?! Gases prices are cheap and it was a very merry Christmas this year....blah blah blah...it doesn't matter.

     Apathy I think is what's going to tear this country apart, even to me. In a few moments of writing these words I'm going to forget about all of this and go back to the concerns of my own life. So it goes I guess....


Wednesday January 5th, 2005:

    Good to be Back...

     Gloomy weather not withstanding, it's great to be back in Bloomington. With the stress of the GCBC DVD off my back and having a great day yesterday with Victoria and the gang, I'm ready to take on the challenge up here again; That is finding a job. As one last salute I plan on chronicling the last moments of the completion of the GCBC DVD.

    But first...

     The release party didn't have as many attendees as I thought. This being the result of not much of a forward notice and it being on New Year's Day. As a result, I still had a lot of copies. I've been trying to offload them to get back the money I spent. So far 17 copies are sold and 33 are remaining. If you're interesting in getting one I suggest you get it as quick as possible. I don't think there's much of a demand to justify another batch of 50 being made.

So if you want a copy here are a few things you can do:

1. Visit me in Bloomington: I have about 19 copies with me as I'm still burning a few more discs. A lot of the Bloomington kids might want to do this if they're not too eager.

2. Go to my parents' house: I left 14 copies at my parents. I left my mom with instructions to give them to whomever comes there pays the $12 and says the secret password. The password is Rogue Cop Sandwiches.

3. Talk to Ted: I left instructions with my mom to give 5 copies to Ted as his part of the profits. So he might have those copies on him.

4. Mail a check: Finally those people who aren't in Bloomington or Jeffersonville can write a check with your address to me at

Shawn Conn P.O. Box 801 Jeffersonville, IN 47131

I will mail it off as soon as I cash the check.

    Back to the Story

     The last week of the year I started to feel the crunch. By Sunday I had finished up with the 50 2nd disc of the 3 disc set. Sunday I spent the day fixing "Sell Drugs?" so it was somewhat watchable. I couldn't fix it completely but when it came down to it is a shitty movie so I though it didn't matter to much that 20 seconds of it is fucked up. The next few days was spent burning 50 bonus discs.

     What was left was the Latin translation, audio and music video. Sarah had been "almost done" for a while so I was concerned. Ted as well was "almost done" with the music video but I had seen what was done so I knew that it wouldn't take long to finish. I talked to Sarah on Sunday. I asked for an ETA she gave me midnight.

     Monday I checked my email box: nothing. I was concerned. A little later that day I was out helping Ted fix a tire. We called her and she said she got distracted last night, but she would be done soon. This concerned me more...if I was going to do a release on the 30th I would have to be burning disc to the last moment.

Also, Coire, who just got back in town, was a bit skeptical on getting this done before he left for California on the 3rd. I assured him it would, but that I needed the translation soon. Wednesday came around and I was to meet Coire at Ear-X-tacy. As I was looking for him I talked to Sarah. The good news came. She just had emailed it to me.

     Later that night we'd all meet up at the hooks. Ted brought his camera and I was able to transfer the music video and check my email to get the translation. Later that night I would be done with Latin subtitles and the music video. There was only one step left for completion.

     Thursday I called Coire, Will, and Peter. I told them that we need to record the audio tonight if I was going to make a now January 1st release since Ted had talked to his parents. Before that we had made plans to go to Newt's Dad's mime/magic show, then to Richo's,and then back to my house where we'd record the stuff.

     Earlier in the day I recorded stuff with Will and Peter, but it wasn't until 11ish that we got to my house. Peter and Ted didn't show up until much later(as they had other obligations prior) but they did. Coire, with his excellent Pig Latin abilities, was able to burn through Newt's line. And Peter with his voice talent for accents and Latin was able to burn through most of everyone else's line.

     The big surprise that night was getting Melissa Gorham to do the lines for the Good Cop. Ted said how he wanted to have someone with a high pitched voice to do Ben. When he mentioned calling her to invite her over we were all skeptical. It was 2 in the morning at this point. But the big surprise was she said yes.

     So after it was all said and done I had all the audio files on my computer about at 4 a.m. The big trick would be getting it done the next day. I knew this was going to take a long time to do. I had a 49 minute audio track,and about an hour of recordings to cut through and splice clips in. I figured it would take 8 hours. It was more like 24-36 hours.

     I woke up Friday around 3 or 4 p.m. as soon as I got dressed, and got breakfast I went to it. The easy part was knowing where to dub in the lines; I had already got through the audio track and marked the dialogue parts. The tough part was pulling out what I needed from my recordings, dubbing in ambient noise to make it sound more authentic, and the mix operations. It wasn't tough work, but it was very tedious.

     Also it didn't help that the program was giving me BSODs (i.e. crashing the computer) throughout this editing. I don't know what it was causing it but it was very fucking annoying. I had to save my work often which took up 3 minutes until I broke the 49 minute audio track into segments. Also there times when I lost some of my work. By the time I was ready to go to sleep it was already 9 or 10 a.m. I had only gotten about 25% I think done.

     It was hard to say because I was doing it by character since that was the way it was recorded. When I woke up on Saturday I made the decision that I could get done today, but it would cost my New Year's Eve party. I figured it was a worthwhile sacrifice. I said I wanted the DVD done by the end of the year and I was going to get it done.

     Thus, I burned the day away. I worked as fast and accurate as possible. I made pretty good time and by 10:20 I was done. After I pieced the segments together, dropped into Encore, encoded the track, and watched it, I knew it was worth it. I browse the preview of the DVD and saw that all seemed to work well. I told it to burn a master copy.

     By 11:40 I had a master copy in my hand. 20 minutes before the end of the year I had finished the project that was started about a year ago. I set my PC up to start making copies and I started calling people to wish them a happy new year and tell them the good news. The only problem that concerned me was having enough copies for the party.

     Luckily, only about half the people I invited showed up. While it was a disappointment there was a lot of relief to see the product done and see the people laugh at what we had accomplished. This was something I could look back and be proud of. A 3 disc set with commentary, subtitles, bonus movies and more. I didn't know all the shit I was in for when I started this but it was worth it in the end.

 

     So what's next?

     The first thing is to relax and have fun. Even though I'm broke as shit my mind is clear of troubles. This year I promised myself that I need to be honest with myself and think more about what I say to others. I also have to find a job up here, but I'm not too worried about that right now.

     Project-wise I have a couple of things in mind. First, is the making one last version of the SBB DVD-ROM. There was one SBB event last year and I like to put that footage on there. Since I don't think there's going to be any more boxing events I think one last version is in order. Also with the printer I have I can make a cover and a case for it. But since I need to get that footage from Ted I won't worry about that until sometime in the summer or spring.

     I might also like to do another video DVD project. Most likely a redo of The Raven(since the first one I made was crappy) or Strange Case. I did GCBC primarily since it was my favorite Gohmann movie. I have had some requests though of the more professional Gohmann movies...If I do do it though it's going to be with Ted's brothers. As much as I had fun working with Ted and Sarah, I could have been done with the GCBC DVD much earlier if they weren't so slow.

     Aside from that, I've been thinking about writing a story. A novel perhaps. I've had some ideas in my mind about some characters. I don't really have a plot in mind, but I think I like to try to create a novel. We'll see what happens in the next few months. But for now I must go. I am tired and I've got other things to do. Farewell people.


Saturday January 1st, 2005:

    Vigiles Bonum, Vigiles Malus, et Latrocinium.

     January 1st 2005: The beginning of a new year. This is the date of the release of the Good Cop, Bad Cop, and a Rogue DVD. No more stories about production, no more worries, no more bullshit technical details. This is it. FINIS.

     The release party will be held tonight at the Gohmann compound at around 10 or 11. If you're interested and need directions just give me a call. If you want a copy bring $12.