Penny Hero (dot) Net

Anno Hideaki has a new movie. And I wish that I could understand more of what it is about. It looks like a real-life type of exploration of the same kinds of psychological um… stuff that he tried to explore in Evangelion… but I could be wrong. It could have just been that clip of the people sitting on stage alone, and the sound of the train-crossings that brought back such strong Eva memories.

clicky.

I need a native japanese speaking, hard-core Hideaki fan to explain this to me… *whines*

I went for a walk this morning. I’ve decided that I like sunshine a lot. And I like walking, hiking, breathing here. Every time I come back, I realize how much I want to live here again. It is very much alive to me here, and although I’d like to share, I think I’ll spare you the romantic magical experiences I had this morning. In Oregon, I never felt things like I feel them here. This morning I felt myself slipping back into the sage I once thought I was. *sigh* The things you simply cannot do in Oregon…

I miss it. I took the ocean for granted when I lived here. The sun too. And the lava rocks (which still look/feel like the backside of some dragon to me).

I remember camping near Shipman Beach with Steve and Alastair, and knowing things that… simply don’t exist in the mainland. Is it a symptom of delusion? Or is this place simply younger, more dream-like, and more expressive? Places like London are haunted because of their long histories. But Hawaii is still very much alive, in ways that the larger continents themselves can’t even close their eyes and dream of.

Epiphany of the Day: It isn’t the coming-to-a-decision part that is so difficult. Finding a solution to a problem is sometimes very simple. It’s just the growing-of-the-necessary-balls to face the consequences of that decision that often proves impossible.

Cool Quote from EarthGame:

“Why, you might ask, didn’t nature put the brain in some hard-to-reach well-protected place deep inside, and put the senses out on little stalks? Reason: the time lost in neural transmission between the brain and the senses would slow perception. Hence the head. In case you ever wondered.”

Bit O’ English-geek joy: EarthGame is one of the few books I’ve read that pulls off the 2nd person point of view quite well.

4.5 (ish) hours is much too long to have nothing to do at an airport. I played Bejeweled until my laptop started beeping at me (“need…more…power…”) and then I read for seven years. At one point I wandered around looking for the cheesiest post-card I could find… but failing that, I bought orange juice and a harvest bar instead.

Anyway… just before my 90th birthday, my flight finally boarded, and I ended up sitting next to this guy Casey, who used to sit behind me in Chemistry during my junior year. (Yay Mr. Kloetzel’s class! Yay pringles-can rockets!) So we’re re-living various explosive chemistry memories, making other passengers around us wonder if we are dangerous, laughing our asses off for most of the 51 minute flight. The Big Island comes into view, and along the Hamakua coast, there are half a dozen waterfalls visible. Casey points at two big-ish streams side by side…

Casey: hey, I wonder which ones those are. Don’t recognize them.
Me: I dunno. Maybe they are new. *laughs*
Casey: Yeah. New. Like, there was an earthquake since I was here last September and…
*five minutes of hysterical one-up-rediculousness about these “new” waterfalls as plane nears the island*
Casey: *pause* Hey… *points to the waterfalls again* Those are buildings.

Anyway… Kitties! They don’t remember me yet, but they are still cute and fun and stuff. Vince almost fell off the deck’s railing when he saw me coming up the stairs. He would have been turned into a pancake kittie if it weren’t for his god-like (naturally cat-like?) ability to recover his ballance. Give them a few days, mom says.

In Other News: I’m sick. It sucks. But that’s ok. I’ve got orange juice and NO STRESS until … I dunno… until I have to pack again.

Ok… my head is tired… brain hurts. Time to go sleep.

Oh oh oh! Before I forget! The SKY! Tonight, the clouds are silver, ocean is like mercury, stars are like glittering sand.

I think I missed that the most.

Quote of the Day:

Hiro @ Japan says: everything is Japanese… it’s kindda wierd.

Hiroki-san just went home for the break. I wonder what it is really like to live-day-to-day-life using one language, and then “go home” and use a different one.

Damnit. I wish I were foreign. I could have been born a language-geek instead of working my ass off to be bilingual.

In Other News: I arrive in Hilo on Monday evening… and I leave again on the 29th… NOT the 27th which I may have mistakenly announced. So yeah… looking forward to seeing da crew++. (and seeing my kitties!!)

What do you think this kind of dream symbol means?

I walk over to our dorm-window and glance outside. I glance at the rose that Brandi’s ex boyfriend had given her the day before, and notice that the blossom is missing. I raise my eyebrow at it in slight confusion, and then the dream fades away.

This morning, I sat down at my computer and glanced at the window, and the rose was still intact, and for a second it confused me.

Now… what do you think that might mean? The simplicity and vividness of the symbol make me feel like it was significant.

Other Dreams: I had this cool one about my cats! I walked into my mom’s house, my arms full of luggage, and Vince does his “spooked-horse” impression and bolts down the hall… then slowly slinks back and when he finally recognizes me, he starts running around the house like a happy puppy (this is, btw, very normal Vince-behavior).

Then, I saw Sherri walk slowly over to me, so I kneeled down and reached out a hand to her. She curled up into this little ball just out of reach and kind of smiled at me (if cats can smile). Then she closed her eyes, and in my mind, I believed she was remembering how she used to love sleeping with me last summer.

I can’t wait until Monday! I get to see the kitties!

Passing on the geeky-coolness that is this mp3.

“first I want a copy of her trig homework, and then I want to make mad passionate love to her for hours and hours until she reluctantly asks if we can stop because she doesn’t want to miss Battlestar Galactica.”

“I’m talking about the girls who used to fuck up the grading curve.”

“In my porno movies, the girls wouldn’t even have to get naked, they’d just take the guys down to the rec-room and beat them repeatedly at chess.”

Four more geek-related comedy tracks available here.

I just had a neat sensation. I was drinking my yummy peppermint mocha, when I thought for a second that I could taste its heat. Not just as a temperature difference, but as a flavor.

And I thought that seeing words/letters/numbers as colors was wierd enough. ^^;

Take Care of My Cat looks like it is an interesting movie. Modern Korean drama… with distinctly western social issues. Plus a cute clip of a girl in a business suit playing DDR… And of course… a cute kitty. :)

Excerpt from Interview with the Director:

Q: Why a cat?

A: First of all, I personally like cats. Also, it is because cats are neglected over dogs. I believe that Korea is a dog-oriented society. (laughs) I think that cats are a bit taboo. In that way, I thought it would be good to connect cats to 20-year-old girls. I had hoped for the girls to be like cats - flexible, independent, complex, to have the tendency to leave if they are not happy with their owner. However, I do not like humanizing certain aspects of animals as it is often the case in nature documentaries. I dislike stories and tales about dogs such as the dog who finds his way home after being sold to a new owner.

In Other News: While searching my temporary internet folders for the Take Care of My Cat trailer… I found a trailer for Warcraft III that I stole from someone back in 2001. Now, what it was doing in my TEMP folder is beyond me. I’ve cleaned all that out like, 57 times since 2001. Odd.

Hm. The trailer kicks ass though. :)

I was walking into the lounge to pull my EasyMac out of the microwave when I had a very geeky epiphany: I found myself thinking about how a person can have a certain “surface” personality that is apparent to anyone, but how this may or may not come close to reflecting a person’s real self underneath. This idea is usually expressed by saying that people wear masks or they show different sides of themselves to different people. But most of these ideas agree that there is a “real” identity hidden inside that invents and then displays the mask.

As I dumped the orange cheesy powder into my microwaved pasta, I suddenly realized that people are like websites. (don’t laugh, I’m serious!) There is the output, the html file the user’s browser sees, and the viewable source a right-click away. But all the code that acted to generate the html remains hidden. A user can’t know if the designer hard-coded all of the content, or if some kind of content management system was implemented. Parsed code remains hidden in the deep dark bowels of the webserver, and can only be reached if you have the right credentials. :)

With people and web-pages: if you do find yourself able to see inside, whatever created the “output” is sometimes beautifully complex and intricate. And friendships can deepen and strengthen if you allow your more intimate self to be seen.

(Ha ha. On the other hand, while some people’s innards might be spiffy and creative, there are some people out there who seemed to have been written in Microsoft Frontpage or something… and they’ve been abusing the “marquee” tag and cap-locks key to boot! *snickers*)

So yeah. I don’t care if you think I’m a dork. I almost spilled my orange powder everywhere when this hit me. :) This is just what happens when I spend the afternoon learning php.