Aieeeeeee!

Ok, that this made me squeal is evidence of my geekery:

American Institute of Architects Architecture and The City

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr!

until they make a food pill...

I've lost my appetite. It's a weird thing - I've always had the curse of being able to eat whatever is in front of me. And I love food, so this has over the years contributed to eating way more than I should, putting on more weight than I should carry.

Then about a month ago or so, something happened. I don't want food. It doesn't even interest me most of the time. I've been living on food bars that I force myself to eat, or whatever Snow feels like. The only craving I've had is for pounds of fruit - mostly water and a few sugars - which has passed now that it's cooler.

The food bars, incidentally, are about a billion times nicer than the ones back in the 90s. Lara Bars are incredible all-fruit and nut bars with absolutely nothing else in them - their ginger bar and lemon bar are amazing. The Odwalla bars are also good, but their new trail mix bars are amazing.

I've been losing about 1.5-2 lbs a week since this happened, and dropped a jeans size. I am not even trying to diet, I just don't find myself wanting to eat, nevermind snack.

In addition, I've been walking a lot. Today I walked 3.5 miles, to my doctor's office and back. Snow and I are looking at starting a 5k training program, just to do it. Sometime this week we're going to get new shoes and get to it.

It's weird though. I wonder what switch flipped, if it was physical, psychological, pharmaceutical. I wonder if it will stay this way, or if I will go back to wanting to eat everything I see.

For now I'm not going to worry about it, and just accept that something in my brain or body has changed for the better, and it's helping me change in a way I badly want.

and will the stars collide?

Just to prove that the eternal crushing chaos that will destroy us all is live and well, I refer you to this particularly eventual crossover:

Edward Gorey's "The Trouble with Tribbles"

The end times. They are a'coming.

beer kink

http://heinekendraughtkeg.com/

Seriously. The world has now caught up to my 1998 aesthetic ideals.

haxors

So earlier this week I watched War Games - a movie that manages to touch on pretty much most of the major modern security problems. It held up really well.

Tonight, I'm watching Hackers, a movie I haven't seen in over ten years. It was cringeworthy upon release, but with time, it's mellowed and aged into something watchable as ficiton - the world that never was.

It had a pretty great soundtrack. Aside from that, the sheer insanity of everything about it is just laughable. I mean, I've known my share of actual hackers, and they are freaks of nature, no doubt. Eccentricities, affectations... but not one used a computer that looks like a relic of the 70's. The LCDs that cast reflections on faces, the fly-through Zaxxon version of hacking... all pretty tolerable, in retrospect.

Of course, sitting here in my labcoat, I sort of wish for a pair of welding goggles. And a pair of in-line skates. Or at least some shiny platform boots? No?

At least I still have my German army jacket and my sexy glasses.

That's where the movie lost credibility, come to think of it - a lack of girls with hot glasses.

Hollywood will never learn.

Things I'm actually good at, part 1 of maybe like -3

Penny Arcade Presents: Photoshop Hero

Hee.

It's that time again in Berkeley...

It's that time of year when young men flock to the grocery store, in search of... food. Food they don't know how to prepare. They know their mothers went to the grocery store, something happened, and then there was dinner - it's that intermediate step that they can't quite grasp. It's the "???" of the underpants gnomes, in a culinary sense.

You can see them roaming the aisles, alone or in groups, dazedly grasping a loaf of bread or a six pack of beer, unsure what else they are supposed to get. Sometimes one has a head of lettuce. Sometimes a large jar of mayonnaise and a carton of eggs. Sometimes you see the more clever (and better funded) ones with a cart full of frozen dinners.

Yes, these are the freshmen. New to the outside world, they are like neonates, vulnerable and hungry.

Later they will return to the places they live, and have loud, irritating parties. The rigors of school have not yet truly set in, and for now they are free to be the same pain in the ass they were in high school, only without any parental supervision.

Or a decent meal.

how not to be an idiot like me

If you are buying something at Ikea and it weighs 76 pounds... make sure you can lift 76 pounds.




Der.

what the world needs now

It's hot and I'm tired and grumpy so I'm listening to old 90's music. Anyone remember Cracker? Probably not. I wouldn't mind finding my Ned's Atomic Dustbin cds either.

Last night playing Guitar Hero 80s:

Me: This song (Holy Diver) makes no sense.
Snow: I think it's about heroin.
Me: You mean like all of the Velvet Underground's songs are about heroin?
Snow: I thought some were about S&M.
Me: No, they were about S&M as a metaphor for heroin.

Guitar Hero 80's is really fun. I think they changed or figured out how to make the songs just... more fun to play. It feels more like playing an instrument and less like Super Mario Brothers.

I am starting to become annoyed by AJAX. Mostly because my computer doesn't have enough RAM, and they're always dragging my poor browser through the murky mire. As I type, the window is proably 30 characaters behind my actual typing, on average. Meh.

I had something useful to say but I've forgotten. Typical.

exhausted

I went and had a colonoscopy on Tuesday. Not to give too much detail, but everything was okay, so that's good. But I've felt dead and drained ever since. I'm guessing part of it was not having much nutrition for a couple days, missing my meds once, and not having any more of one of them - rectified today.

This is disappointing because I've been mostly feeling pretty good for the last few weeks, and it's a really scary thing to feel so tired and emotionally ambivalent. Even though I'm pretty sure it's just stress and my body being unhappy, I feel like I have to scramble, to do something to retain my better moods.

What, I'm not sure.

Last night I ate a pound and a quarter of fruit. My body was screaming for it. When I get cravings I have to follow them, I have to assume my backbrain is smart enough to know what I need to fuel my insane body engine. Berries and melon and pineapple later, I felt a bit better. Guitar Hero and a bit of salad and feeling slightly more human, but mostly still emotionally and physically wiped.

Hoping I feel rested sometime in the next few days. This is tiresome.

rest my chemistry

The new Interpol is good. It cannot ever match the particular feeling of wandering Campbell at 2am listening to Turn On the Bright Lights, but hey. You can't have everything.

My memory is bad lately. I forget who I've told what to, and repeat myself, like a sad old woman. Particularly zombie-like, the lack of short term memory.

I read Neil Gaiman's "Vampire Sestina" out loud to Snow last night. I enjoy reading aloud a lot - and I've been told I do it well. It occurred to me it'd be fun for me to find Project Gutenberg stuff and read it for podcasts. Someone surely somewhere wants it.

I'm feeling happy about photo stuff even though no one is buying anything. That's ok.

And now, what I really want is a nap.

Zzz.

Photolography

I want to write a long rambling post about my trip to San Diego, but I haven't been in the right mood. Maybe soonlater.

I did however set up an Etsy shop for my photos.

sevenbridges.etsy.com

If you haven't checked out etsy before, you should. It's like a portal for crafts and creators who sell their work. I've bought lots of cool stuff from there.

new good thing

ergo proxy

is pino pino?
is pino supposed to be pino?

also, paranoid android as credits out music. much good.

getting serious

My whole life, I feel sometimes, has been unfocused. First, literally - my eyesight sucks, and it wasn't identified until I was something like 8 years old. My formative years were spent looking at the world through vaseline glass, never quite knowing what was happening.

Once I could see (my god, trees have individual leaves you can see from afar!) the rest of the unfocus set in. There was never anything I cared much about. Depression and anhedonia probably didn't help.

Now I'm getting serious. I am taking art seriously. I'm setting up to be commercial about it - but that's just a proof of a pudding I am certain I have already tasted.

http://www.sevenbridgesstudio.com

But it's more than that. My body has been making me unhappy for many years. Now I feel like I have a focus for fixing it. I want to be small. Not small like weak, not small like petite, but small and fierce. I want to be sharp, to be crisp. I want to function like a small machine.

In the past I've let failure distract me. I've let life blur my focus and keep me from even seeing what I want. Now, still at times dizzy and confused, still not functioning every day, I have this small amount of burning focus. Fiercely, I will refuse to fail.



Next week I am going to San Diego with my father, to deliver my daughter to her paternal grandparents for a week. My father and I will do some stuff then go home. I hope the weather is beautiful. Berkeley is foggy, and I have summer dresses.

question:

which has a higher ld50
clonopin
or glue stix?

consumption of each seems to be reaching a plateau, so i won't worry.