Rook wrote:

(seriously... Aanimal?  Hast thou found thyself under the gleam of the full moon only to discover the feral beast you are inside?)

Blame the people in N'awlins. They made me spend heaps of energy each day tourguiding them through the crowded streets of the city and counter-attacking "ooh, shiny!" distractions, and then were amazed at me needing to eat a lot to regain this energy. *shakes head* Silly people.

As for SpaceShipOne. Indeed. And as I'll be only 75 in 50 years, I fully expect to be floating circles around you over there in outer space. (I haven't really allowed myself to feel terribly excited on most of the X Prize news, but every so often, and especially after that last flight of SpaceShipOne, I can't really fight the excitement anymore. The dream still lives!)

li n wrote:

And, erm, haven't you noticed the hamster sceletons' progeny's startup? --> a...ballet.

Oh my. :D

Words utterly fail me.

Aan allein wrote:

The way I read it, she's going to give both Rook and me to this Eva girl...
*fears*

*snatches back his cheesecake* Mine! Go and find a dessert goddess of your own to get gifts from! :P

Rook wrote:

Really?

The way I read it, we were being inducted into NERV's elite Evangelion program, to wich both Aan and I would be defending Tokyo-2 from Second Impact.

Yes.  I am anime nerd.

Yes.

*grins at Rook's rant*  Ahh... fun times.

It's odd, but I'd never noticed it until you pointed it out - engineers do have a "uniform" of sorts.  Well, those not working at startups, and even they have uniforms, if a rather more relaxed variety.

*looks at his own khakis and muted blue shirt*  Cheater!  You must've been reading my mind.

@red:  I could try to put together a very large slingshot, if your son's amenable...

@Aan: Now you have *two* cameras?!  Not fair!  Especially since you were so damn sneaky and picture-stealing with only one of them.  With two, I shudder to think of the horror you're inflicting on those poor kiwis.

Ender

wiggin wrote:

@red:  I could try to put together a very large slingshot, if your son's amenable...

No, no, no. Everyone knows that the correct way of sending people to the moon is using a very large cannon!

Really, a slingshot? *wanders off shaking his head* :P

The Monday Night Rant #54
by Aan`allein

Sometimes, when I close my eyes and travel down the streams of milk and honey that I have previously alluded to (but will not explain for fear of giving away the plot to subjugate you all to this ancient evil), all the way to the source of inspiration, I encounter upon my path the remnants of fellow travelers who did not have the wherewithal to survive. At the time, I never pay them any attention, but this does not mean that they will leave me alone. Is this fair, I ask you? No, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, this is not fair. And so, in the secret parts of the night, when the moon is a melon, and melonballer wielding hamsters are ranging far and wide (the threat of the undead ferrets might seems to have been vanquished, but those of us who have lived more than a few centuries know better than to grow complacent, and so our hamsters remain ever vigilant), I direct my gaze toward the memories of these oversensitive souls.
The one thing they always have in common is large almond-shaped eyes. If english was my native tongue and I actually knew what almonds were, this knowledge might be comforting to those of you who know deep in the core of their being that they are destined to become hyper sensitive poets who will change the way in which at least two dozen people will see the world, but unfortunately, it isn't, and so any comfort taken from those words is as illusory as this moonbeam-painting I have been constructing all around you.
Ah, I see you looking up in wonderment. Yes, you may touch. Crumbling is the destiny of all that which will not endure, and everyone knows that crumbs are the very bestest thing about freshly baked cookies. (But why, I ask you, does no one ever bake biscuits? Hmm? Yes, that's what I thought...)
But I am wandering off track here. Survival, that's the key. Unfortunately, as in any multi-dimensional sketch, it's far from obvious which way to turn it. Is surviving all? Can you honestly call it survival when you're only surviving? I ask you, when was the last time you fell asleep on the branches of only a single tree? "More, more, more" - that's all we seem to care about these days. Entire forests fall before us so we can slumber without fear of the wolf, but without fear, who are we? Wasn't it fear which set us to building towers? And aren't towers the penultimate pinnacle of civilization? No poets, hypersensitive or otherwise, ever write long lyric stanzas about the endlessly stretching suburbs of Christchurch. Therefore, I call upon you, oh subjugated masses of the Rooklandian Atol and associated Trustee Territories, shake off the shackles of complacency, and once more embrace fear! Run like the wind, the reaper at your heals, glorifying in every stab of pain running through your side, drinking in the biting cold with your lungs. Survival is for the weak. Reaching the end of the road never was the goal of the journey in the first place. Sources of inspiration are as dull as churches in sleepy villages in Spain, and those who reach them unaware of this fact will forever be shackled to their expectations. Will you wander the endless desolate wastelands of someone else's imagination? If so, then take heed, and engage upon this task that lies before you joyfully, in full knowledge that you will be able to jump off the very first cliff to cross your path.
Let us, if we can, step back from the shadows of safety and get back to what we do best, building towers to the further honor and glory of mankind itself. We might not yet soar daily, and hardly anyone is willing to acknowledge that standing on the moon is basically a matter of human rights, but the future is never more than a single footstep away.

¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤

This latter thought is something I'm reminded off more and more often. As I see all the hapless marketing victims with their white earbuds stroll past me, and smile knowingly, thinking of my black echo with batteries lasting twice as long, playing formats which will last much further into the future, I can't help but to acknowledge that despite the inherent inferiority of that white race, the underlying philosophy of both black, white and grey is the same. Colossal cosmic memories, inside a tiny box. We walk around captured in our own private universes - junkies straight out of cyberpunk; wired, yet not connected. Individualism reigns supreme in this age of similitude, and age old sounds of tribal dances take on new meanings even for technophobes. Weeks go by without a single sequence repeating itself. Has time stretched? Is metal fluid? The questions are as meaningless as the answers, and meanwhile the waitress at a local diner pushes a button on her tricorder to send my order buzzing through the void.
Some engineers might be busy keeping the prices of our flying vehicles artificially high, but not even that secret and most venerated order will be able to stop progress. Soon, they will have to run from the wolves like any other, and once more experience and knowledge will count out the steps to the caves of our ancestors.

¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤

Yesterday I took out my new compatriot for a test run. Instant on brings a smile to my lips, its battery life makes me genuinely happy, and never before have I experienced the bliss of even this most moderate of wide angles. I think we're going to be great friends. :) Meanwhile I get to place checkmarks on my todo list at a frighteningly fast pace. Two more days till I start traveling, but time keeps elongating. Throw in a few hours tomorrow for I, Robot? Sure, shouldn't be any problem. Having for such a long time managed to compress so much of my essence into a bare two days and five very short nights a week now gives me back the feeling of everlasting endless stretches of eternity, all waiting there to assimilate me.

What then, does all this tell you? Back when I was young and cool, I might have considered telling you. Yet time moves on, and I don't see nearly enough towers rising up. We need more crooked politicians spending campaign expenses, and so I charge you: go out, don't blow your cool, and keep wondering what the hell I was talking about. A few days from now when you see the full moon, recall my words, and run into glory, for life is ever and only there to be truly lived.

Sleep well and wake, ye subjugated masses, and dream of the little people!

Wow.  This rant makes my head swim.  Groovy.

Also, the reason we don't bake buscuits is the frightening off chance that we may be assaulted by the maniacal Pillsbury Doughboy, who's been poked in the belly one too many times.

I'm skipping the rant this week.

(Yeah, weird that.  Skip five/six months, come back twice a week, skip again...)

I am just spent today.  What craziness.  I've been angry, elated, frustrated, confused all at the same time.  I mean, moreso.  And it wasn't just one thing, it was many things poking their dire heads into my business.

I have many things to complain about, many things to lash out, but there is ONE thing which positively, absolutely made my day:

I've been admitted into the U of Washington Masters of Business Administration program!!!!!!

Whoop whoop whoop!!!

Now my devious plan of becoming an evil CEO in the flesh world has taken it's first brutal step.  Muhuhahahahahah!!!

Hear me.

Fear me.

Oh, and YAY YOU!

:)

It's an evening program.  So I'll still have to work, yet at evenings I will drive to to Seattle to go to school.  Fortunately, it's only on Mondays and Thursdays, so at least I'll get some rest in between. :)

Four years, I think.  Unless I take the day classes, which is two years, but I won't be doing that if I want to go for free.  (My company will pay for me as long as a go to work for at least 20 hrs a week.  And besides, I do loves me my money.)

It'll be weird going back to school.  I haven't been in a college class since, oh, six years ago.  But I'm glad I got in because I promised myself that if I didn't get in this year, I'd give up on going back to college cold turkey.

I just realized that I suck at putting together scale model airplanes.  I'm trying to develop a WWII motif around my desk area, so I have it populated with US and Luftwaffe fighter planes.

Unfortunately, none of them are really Boeing products, since Boeing built bombers at the time.  This would require me to put together one of those plastic kits, which I haven't done since I was in elementary school.  I just realized I have not improved.  I put together a tiny P-51 as a test run, and the silver pain is peeling off because I didn't apply a fixative, and there are smudge marks everywhere.

A pity.  I desperately wanted to put together this nifty 1/72 scale Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the plane that Boeing never wants to talk about (due to its controversial nature ;) ).