Geek provocateur

For someone who is always doing stupid things, I manage to be happy an awful lot. Today was mixed in that, as the two were fairly fiercely juxtaposed. Ah, and there was confusion, too, but such things can be pleasant. Funny, how we like to cling to our illusions as they please us. Then again, perhaps the mirage will subside and we will blink as, behind it, an identical island stands — it is for this that we live chasing illusions as though they may be real (at this age, at least). It would be nonsensical to pursue matters too far, however, as that would be tantamount to explicit provocation.

Explicit provocation, it would seem, is something ridiculously embarked upon in other realms of life. No matter. It’s all in good fun, there. What bizarre identities one may shape for oneself! From this, again, we will move on. So full of … ah, something. It’s been taken away pending the results of a drug test, in the words of some wacky Canadians. Presumption steps forth with humility and all the appearances of modesty. Leadership and strength steps forth, likewise, with inert behaviours and all the appearances of meekness. Somewhere the two meet, but perhaps the moment is isolated somewhere one-hundred-and-eighty degrees from where it should be (on a vertical plane). Inversion isn’t a term we approach with caution this century, but perhaps it should be. Well; we approach its connotations of absolutism in such a context with great suspicion, but its usage is generally avoided with the exception of negligible and frivilous instances. Still, accepting some semblance of definable ‘normality’ let us end with joy, that emotion rarely feigned (or accused of such) and scantly maligned: one is rarely ‘too joyous’.

Dictionary.com design overhaul!

I’m so excited. I visit this site daily just because it’s the easiest address to remember (fingers automatically type: dicti^T ^H^H^H^H[keyword] in browser), and it’s far nicer on the eyes now. Minimal web-2.0 shadows, etc., but the top bit looks kinda ripped from the WordPress admin interface ;-) No, typography is the big thing for me. It’s just nice. Little changes like that (for it’s a simple enough site, aesthetically) make web experiences fantastic.

Now, if only they secured a decent non-American dictionary, I’d become a Premium member for that reason alone. Right now there’s no way I’d bother for aural pronounciation aids and seemingly little else! (I have a pop-up blocker built into Opera and near-absolute immunity to banner ads)

Ah, the excuses we make

One day they will run out and all will stop pretending the illusion is anything but that. Tomorrow is a monster-day (8am to ~8pm or later, with few breaks), but the week goes uphill (well… tomorrow isn’t bad, just crazy) after that. Thank goodness for other people being just as erratic as I. One day this will all get better, but not while I am pretending to have control over matters. Really, really I don’t. Need to keep submitting to and being transformed by God’s word, and eventually… can’t wait.

University Student Strategems for Horizontal Cleanliness

1. Wear clothes.
2. Remove clothes periodically. Once every several days should suffice.
3. Having removed clothes, strategically project aforementioned attire upon some unsuspecting, otherwise-clear, patch of floor.
4. Repeat for a moderate period of time (n.b. period of time determined by the interval specified in #2, above)
5. Await absence of clean (or acceptably deodorisable) clothing.
6. Decide it is time to act: in sweeping manoeuver, collect items of apparel from floor and relocate for purposes of washing — or, in extreme cases, incineration.

The advantages of this technique are manifold. However, for the purposes of brevity, I will promulgate but two here:

1. That, in behaving thus, one should remove the need for a permanent carpet. Accordingly, vacuuming disappears entirely from the vocabulary of necessity, as this ‘carpet’ can be not only removed and cleaned at whim — and in parts! — but is, on the whole, already considered to be dirty and, as such, the idea of vacuuming that which was dirty upon ‘installation’ is, self-evidently, absurd.
2. That, in continuation of the floor-covering theme, upon removal at periodic intervals, one may readily enjoy a clean surface that lies beneath, which has been not only protected from the maladies of day-to-day exposure; it has, in accordance with the “sweeping manoeuver” alluded to above, been also immediately dusted and revealed as a vast, undiscovered expanse.

It stands to reason, therefore, that all other manners of habitation are vastly inferior, substituting true efficiency for an illusion of cleanliness — which could, in fact, be no further from the truth — outshone by the innumerable advantages offered by such a ‘slovenly’ (thus spake the accusers) mode of living.

As an addendum, let it be acknowledged that much of the above theory is wholly dependent upon the looseness of deposit: that is, folded clothes are no-where near as efficient in their capturing, covering, and sweeping capabilities, and should accordingly be avoided insofar as is possible for effective application of the above theories.

Friday, today, in a few hours time,

will be a productive day. I will wake up before 8, be dressed + have eaten breakfast + functional by 9, start ingesting video from TACKLES sleepover last Saturday (NOT on a Linux computer, because even Ubuntu doesn’t play nice with Firewire cards, it seems), call a friend I’ve been meaning to call for too long and generally stop procrastinating on that front whilst the video thingy is at work (I bought a Firewire cable so will hopefully never again have to capture from analogue sources where I don’t absolutely need to), and call another friend accordingly, based upon the outcome of the first, prod the Matthias site a little bit (blog goodness for those who are keen on it!), hopefully return a video camera if Adam is home (otherwise leave voicemail and deal with it all later, I suppose), return home, email check (compulsively, as if there were any other way), eat lunch, go to work, work, get home, contemplate dealing with captured video and decide it’s too hard without iMovie/Premiere/something less painful/more powerful than Windows Movie Maker/less gargantuan/buggy/UI-designed-by-primates than Cinelerra, email compulsively some more, chase some lights, put off til weekend (when everywhere will be closed anyway), stay at home for once, sleep (before midnight).

Noticing a downwards Getting-Stuff-Done trend. Meh. Lecture is cancelled tomorrow so I’ve got more time to try and be productive in. Now I’ve just got to not wake up too late… not even the 372 will save me if it’s not a going-to-uni day (haven’t had one of those in a while now, nice!)