This is it for this journal. In the interest of starting afresh, I'm firing up a new journal, icarusremade. Details (and probably a different look) will be there in a couple of days, but the quick summary is that I want to refocus on a more balanced view of life, rather than the predominantly negative one I've cultivated here. I'm intending to ruminate more on the good stuff and on intellectual issues instead of drowning in misery. Can I do that and still be allowed to blog?

:-j

Official Survivor Congratulations! You scored 79%!

Whether through ferocity or quickness, you made it out. You made the right choice most of the time, but you probably screwed up somewhere. Nobody's perfect, at least you're alive.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 46% on survivalpoints

Link: The Zombie Scenario Survivor Test written by ci8db4uok on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Hat tip to kraorh

Probably could have scored in a higher percentile if:

a) I lived further away from other people
b) I knew where to get guns around here other than Wal-Mart
c) I trusted more than 3/4 of my friends to cover me with guns (and that figure is probably being really trusting aleady :)
d) I wouldn't stop to help people if it means not risking much
e) I'd shoot a friend that might be turning right away instead of stashing him/her and coming back later
d)

1) I got the drop, beeyatch! Woo hoo!

2) Sold my Xbox. Sweet, sweet cash money.

3) Applying for jobs. Not hearing back yet, but it's a start. Pegasus Games, the game shop I've been frequenting for over fifteen years, is accepting applications. Might even be hiring. The irony is that I'm less qualified to work there right now than I have been at any other point in my life (except maybe last school year). However, I've come up with some ideas of how to increase their business, esp. by leveraging their website, and can bone up on the games I'm rusty on before the interview. Plus, I'm gonna write a pretty cover letter to get them to like me more. Yeah, yeah--I'm a geek.


That's all for now. Time for more job apps.

http://news.com.com/Broadband+bill+hews+to+laissez-faire+line/2100-1033_3-6001291.html?part=dtx&tag=nhl&tag=nl.e433
From CNET News.com:
As part of a planned update of a 1996 telecommunications law, Congress will consider a new proposal that starts with a simple premise: The government should be minimally intrusive when enacting regulations.

Sounds interesting. Might just have to contact my representatives and ask for their support.

I can't do this.

I've waited too long on something that may just have been literally impossible for me to do in the first place. The process is so slow; every step forward takes a monumental effort, not only in the process, but in beginning it. Even if I hadn't favored distractions over work, I wonder if I could have gotten this done, in time or at all. Every paragraph takes hours of preparation and an hour to write. When I test my typing speed, it exceeds 60 WPM with 93% accuracy. With this, I rarely press a key. I have made progress, gone farther than I did last time, but it needs to be done now--before now, really--and I'm struggling to pick the next word. This is the hill at the 20th mile in my broken-legged marathon.

I know that this is just a class, though possibly the hardest one on campus by all accounts. I know that this is just a paper. I know that I am smart. I know that I just need to get it done, not perfect. But none of this has helped. If anything, it only underscores my failure, my disease.

The worst is what this means. I have to do it again if I'm to get that magical piece of paper. That means more money, more time, a lost summer, perhaps staying in Madison instead of pursuing my goals. It means disappointing her again. It means still wondering if I'll ever finish. It means closing the door on the light at the end of the tunnel.

I hate this. I am only fear and sorrow and so lacking in self-confidence that all I can think of is how pathetic and pretentious this sounds. I can't face her, but I don't have a choice. She has been so supportive, literally saving my life, and all I can do is fail and fail again.

So, the disk on which I have my massive independent project, which is worth nearly 25% of my final grade in my hell class, for which I already missed a paper worth about 10% of my grade--the disk is dead. Worked a few hours ago in one computer lab; doesn't work now in a different one. Yes, I tried it on different machines. I have an old version backed up on a server and emailed my prof and TA to let them know. Oh, did I mention it was due today at 5:30pm and I was going to be lucky to get it in tomorrow morning and only lose a grade on it? Yeah, tomorrow morning's not happening so much.

It's not so much the extra work--I hadn't made that much progress--but just the feeling that this class will never be done. And if I don't get a C in the course (I don't think I've ever used that phrase before...) I'll have to take it again, for the third time. (Or second-and-a-half time, if you want to be technical about it.) If only consequences had some salience to me before they actually occurred, I might not be facing the prospect of spending my entire summer doing stuff I've already done and paying lots of cash to do it. Or maybe I'd just stay one more semester and take only that class--and a theater class or something. But if I'm gonna stick around, I'd rather be making money.

Anyway, enough of the bitching. Here's some funny stuff that resonates with me these days: National Lampoon's Lies Your Guidance Counselor Told You.

Time to drink the alcohol.

I've been hired to do motion capture for two video games at Raven Software!

I start on Monday. $18/hour. I'll check the NDA and see if I can tell y'all the titles.

w00t!

New LJ look--wanted to get my links list up. Looks like one needs replacing.

New LJ profile. Oo! Schools!

New Facebook membership. Probably would have been more useful if I'd joined when I started at the UW. Oh, well.

New credit card. Yay for convenient timing and no interest 'til May.

New roommate. Yay for great gf! Boo for psycho current roomie of gf! More on that later.

New plans for next year. Maybe. Looking more and more seriously at staying in Madison next year. More on that later, too.

Had a first interview at Borders. Went well, going back for another on Tuesday. Unfortunately, they only pay $6.75/hr and I have to keep my fingers crossed that I can get the 24-26 off, never mind the pre-unemployment plans for going up north to my gf's house for a skiing extravaganza. Oh, and I probably won't be able to start until the week before XMas. :P But it'd be work. I'm going to drop off an app. for B&N tomorrow, maybe look for some other places. While I'm down with having defined rules and procedures so's everyone has something to refer to, it makes it harder to get hired when they have to train you. Sigh....at least it sounds like they may be able to take me on part time after the season and I may get 40 hours/week once school's over.

My girlfriend's going to move in with me in January.

Update: Well, maybe. We thought we had a good candidate to sublet the apartment, but that may not work out. Anyone know any women w/o pets who would like to live on the near-East side (121 Gilman)?

Stolen from uncleernie50:

1. Post a list of your 10 favorite fandoms.
2. Have your friends guess your favorite character from each fandom.
3. When guessed bold the line and write a sentence about why you like that character.


1) Firefly/Serenity
2) X-Men
3) Ayn Rand's novels
4) TSR/WotC fantasy novels (Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, etc.)
5) Queer as Folk
6) Invader Zim
7) Vertigo comics
8) Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth novels
9) Family Guy
10) Desperate Housewives

A new t-shirt site, though not quite as funny as T-Shirt Hell, I saw advertised in The Onion. Here's one of my faves:



Gotta get one of those for my car.

Other folks are all happy about the snow, so I'm going to toss out a dissenting opinion: winter blows. Scraping off your car adds 5-10 min to a commute that will take longer because you have to drive slower and during which you'll be surrounded by a bunch of blind, incompetent assholes who still don't know how to drive. Not to mention the pedestrians that still jump out in front of you right when the light's changed in your favor, walk across the road at the wrong time while talking on their cell phones, and generally act like every driver is omniscient and that it won't hurt if a car hits them. It's harder to get out of bed in winter, since it's so much snugglier under those covers. Sure, you can turn up the heat in your domicile or put on PJs, but then it's too hot to sleep. For those of us with SADD, this is the beginning of the downward slide. It's less safe to walk, both because of the ice and because it gets dark earlier. (How's that stroll home after work on the back streets of campus sounding now, ladies?) The hotties on campus cover it all up. It's too goddamn cold and it's just going to get worse.

Sure, I like snow. I love skiing and sledding. But I like it when I want it, the way you get it if you live near mountains, like in southern CA or most places out south/west. Drive an hour and get all the winter you can handle.

I think winter is like poverty: most people have a romantic view of it until they actually have to deal with it.

::smirk::

[Addendum]:Biking's about as much fun as a hot poker in the eye, making it harder to find parking downtown and leading to spending more money on the ramp. (Well, it would be more if'n I'd ridden my bike at all this semester.) Skin gets all dry, lips get chapped. People get inspired to add a universal service fee to your gas bill to help all the cold poor people. (Where's my money, bitches?) Salt and sand from the road gets all up under your car, making the undercarriage rust out faster. (Maybe that's why WI doesn't have emissions laws.) Did I mention that the hotties cover it all up?

Big thanks to m091782 for helping me write a paper last night. I literally couldn't have done it without her support.

As glyf once showed me, it's a heckuva lot easier to get over productive stumbling blocks when you've got someone backing you up.

Thanks, hon! (m091782, not glyf :-j) Mmmmwah!

Should I change my username? I just finished reading an article on c|Net that talks about the repercussions of posting sensitive information online. While I'm certainly not foolish enough to upload pictures of me engaged in illegal activities, I'm a bit concerned that using my real name could be a problem for me, my LJ friends, or people I know in RL. While I wouldn't intentionally mess with someone, you never know who's reading these things and what might turn out to be problematic, as hiddenbook found out a while ago with a nosy manager. I suppose one option is to make this friends-only, but I like the idea of having a wider pool of potential commenters. On the other hand, I suppose this thing doesn't get read by many people who aren't on my Friends list, and it doesn't get commented on by anyone, so it's probably not an issue. (/me smirks sardonically)

So apparently the Kansas Board of Education has okayed teaching Intelligent Design in schools. Now the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teacher's Association are fighting back, using their copyright power to prevent the state from incorporating their educational materials in the classroom.

The second article I linked to is more of an opinion piece, taking "copyright liberals"--people who decry using copyrights to prevent criticism--to task for not having a problem with this. Personally, I'm inclined to disagree with her, but I can't formulate my position well enough in the couple of minutes I have at the moment. Any thoughts?

Ixnay on the Seroquel. I took it an hour before bedtime on Sunday, as instructed, and it knocked me flat. I overslept two hours on Monday, only woke up because of the persistent badgering of my girlfriend, and fought to stay upright throughout my shower. On the drive home, my eyelids were as heavy as if I'd been travelling cross-country for a day on no sleep and I passed out in my car when I got to my parking lot. When I woke up two hours later, I just went inside to sleep more. Even when I was finally able to get up and get around, I still felt like I hadn't slept in over a day and was drunk and/or high. The effects finally wore off around midnight...sort of.

I called a friend who's taking the same drug cocktail I am and she didn't have anywhere near the same reaction. While I still have to call my psychiatrist, yesterday's experience combined with the 17-hour sleep binge the last time I took the medicine has convinced me to steer clear for now. Yeah, I'd love to have some help with my anxiety and depression, but I don't think unconsciousness is really the way to go.

On an unrelated note, I probably won't get unemployment compensation. Being in school and being unwilling to drop classes to work full time takes one out of the running. If I had a roommate or lived in an efficiency this might be doable, but I can't see how I can swing a study-friendly job, take classes, and still eat.

Stolen from deepdowntruth

You scored as Lara Croft. </td> Lara Croft 71% Neo, the "One" 67% Batman, the Dark Knight 58% William Wallace 58% Indiana Jones 58% El Zorro 50% Maximus 46% The Amazing Spider-Man 46% Captain Jack Sparrow 42% The Terminator 38% James Bond, Agent 007 38% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

The sad thing about these Quiz Farm quizzes are that there are always way too many very specific questions. (Gee, I wonder which action hero I'll end up as if I would be interested in checking out a dark tomb....) I think the forms would be much cooler if people got more at the essential differences instead of focusing on silly particulars.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	6
Mind:	5.7
Body:	7.1
Spirit:	4.5
Friends/Family:	2.9
Love:	6.9
Finance:	5.8
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

I kinda wonder about the "Friends/Family" entry. I probably scored low b/c I don't have a close relationship with my family, but most people I know who *are* close have to put up with a lot of stupid crap. More often than not, I see "really close" family relationships looking at least borderline emotionally abusive and/or dysfunctional.

And the "Spirit" part. How much did I lose for saying I was an atheist? Just 'cause someone self-identifies as following a particular religion doesn't mean that person's spiritual in any way.

• Talked with my Experimental Psych prof. this evening about my problems--kinda. Last semester I went through much of the same thing and she said she was willing to give me an incomplete, but I didn't think I could swing it at the time. Well, no such luck now, but she thinks I can get through okay even with a paper being as late as it is. Plus, the one I mentioned in an earlier post was actually a "C"--almost a "B"--and was pretty close to the mode of the distribution of the class. Since it's a curved class, the paper grade's not predictive of my final grade. We also talked a bit about the huge independent project and I may be going back to an idea I had last semester, which I'll post about later.


• Called Unemployment. On track to get about $169/week. Not great, but okay. Have to look for work--ask at least two potential employers a week--to keep benefits, which can go for up to 26 weeks. deepdowntruth suggested going for two part-time jobs, m091782 thought a single job would be better. I'd rather go with the latter, but the big question is whether that and financial aid (read: low-interest loans) would be enough to pay the rent and fill the belly. Not to mention "shoot the film"....


• There is a cell phone that has a built-in breathalyzer. Sweet.


• Went to Club 5 on Saturday night for Halloween. Dressed up in my old fencing gear. Got stared at a lot--apparently, my ass looks fantastic in the pants. Swapped for bellydancing outfit later. A surprising number of straight and bi chicks there. A Xena looked like she wanted to hook up with me and m091782, but couldn't get away from her girlfriend. :( At least my lady got a bit of a hook-up.


• Going to try submitting a resume and headshot to American Player's Theatre, a nearby professional outdoor theater that specializes in Shakespeare and classical repertoire. They say that you have to get it in during October; I'm hoping that Nov. 2nd will be okay, perhaps with a note mentioning how my photographer took a long time getting my shots back to me. (This excuse was her suggestion.) I'll also submit some shots to some agencies and, possibly, work on another round of photos on actual film to get something better (?), assuming my photographer's up for it.


• Got a revised scene for the movie Awake that I'm shooting this weekend. The silly "edginess" is gone, replaced by a longer, better-written scene that gives me a lot more to work with, character-wise and should be much, much cooler. I'm actually excited now. :)


• Absorbed in the first season of Desperate Housewives on DVD. Sinister suburban dramadey. Looks like network TV is learning from HBO and Showtime about having serialized series where things actually change. Lots of good TV out there these days, from what I hear.

Gotta go update that acting resumé.