This Is Instrumentality

Gym is Good

2009-05-15T14:54:00.001-05:00

I love days I go to the gym. My whole day feels better. I feel more productive. I eat healthier foods. I feel alive and full of energy.

I don't know why I don't do it more often.

On that note, I am training myself to have a more productive sleep schedule.

Steve Pavlina always seems to accidentally have my answer for everything. When I went raw vegan he had some great advice I stumbled across via Google. Now, I found this article:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/how-to-get-up-right-away-when-your-alarm-goes-off

Where he talks about the instinct to snooze and go back to sleep as a conditioned response. So, that means we can re-condition ourselves right? I'm hoping so.

He suggests you actually practice waking up. Get undressed, brush your teeth, have your glass of water, and get comfy for about 10 minutes before your alarm clock goes off. Then do exactly what you
want your subconscious mind to do when you wake up. Stretch <> Deep Breath <> Stand Up <> Get Dressed <> Walk To Bathroom <> Etc.

And do it again, and again. Maybe three nights week.

It will be curious to see if it actually works. I didn't practice last night, and it didn't work this morning. Tonight, I practice waking up!

J and J - Jeff and Jamba, Haha.

2009-05-14T16:32:00.001-05:00

Interesting subject title. Not so interesting backstory. I get it, that's all that matters. Haha. Subtle reminders to future Jeff of strange events...

Anyway, I wish I had something interesting to say. I never post. Everytime I post it's to say something along the lines of, "I'm gonna post damnit!"

But I don't.

The big question remains: I haven't really reached a decision yet. At least I have put my choices into a perspective that put me in control of my life, give me options, rather than being subjected to the whims of fate.

Sorry, I am being purposefully vague.

But, regarding The Question. I think I'd like to finish my education. I think that would be a really good use of my time. Must convince Those Who Are In The Know to live in the city so I can attend a decent school.

--

FLASH! EXTREME SUBJECT CHANGE!

--

Anyone play World of Goo? It's a physics game. It's like Lemmings, but with darker subject matter and adventure into the unknown. Reminds me of Lemmings meets Oddworld: Abes Oddysee.

It's messing with my head. As I could almost swear my words have a slight bounce to them. A tremor. I'm convinced i have to put more letters underneath the words to prop them up.

Another game I've been playing is Crayon Physics, which has also sufficiently consumed my thought cycles. I keep imagining ways I can draw around peoples heads and nearby objects in order to get other objects from point A to point B.

I'm sick, I'm sick I tells ya.

Anyway, two great games from two different indie developers. Give them your $20, you won't be disappointed!

I wear eye wear.

2008-11-12T02:17:00.004-06:00

Well, I didn't before but now I do. Well, in 7 days I do.

I've been experiencing odd pressure buildups in my left eye over the past few weeks so I scheduled an appointment with the optometrist. It was my first legit* eye exam in the entire span of my life so I was a bit excited.

Turns out it's probably stress related, or allergy related, or caffeine related, or related to a general lack of relative sleep. No glaucoma and it's not a tumor! I have really healthy eyes, but they're a bit strained at a distance. After running a suite of fancy pants tests on me they've determined I should be wearing glasses when I drive at the very least, or anytime I wanna read that sign down the block.

I'm both scared and excited about my first pair of glasses. Scared to know I don't have the perfect vision I once had. I prided myself on my vision as a child and wanted to grow up to be a pilot because of it. Also scared I'm going to look completely ridiculous. Excited, however, to be able to see with more clarity.

Probably the most interesting thing about the eye exam was when they forced my eyes to dilate. After about 30 minutes I was in full blown simulated farsightedness. I couldn't read anything that was closer than 5 feet or so away. It was pretty cool! I got to experience partial blindness for 5 hours before it wore off. I'm not sure why I enjoyed it so much but I did.

Tonight was the night we celebrated the end of the Google Chicago datacenter. Sad times, but cheesecake and baked ziti made me happy.

Today was also the day I finally found pants my size at the mall. I bought 7 new pairs.

Finally, progress in Fable II is coming along quite nicely. I like taking my time with the Fable games. I'm probably 6 hours in and have only spent about a quarter of that time actually doing anything I was supposed to be doing to progress the story along. But I am a 5-star blacksmith and a loving father.

*legit meaning anything that wasn't done at a DMV on broken machinery

I don't post enough

2008-11-11T00:40:00.002-06:00

This much is true.

It's cause I try to post for you and not for me.

I'm going to change that. I will post what's on my mind.

Today is a strange day because last night I took a standard dosage of Zyrtec and it messed me up. Allergy medicine does something strange to me. I've been drowsy all day and feeling awfully weird inside. It's a hard feeling to describe but it's something like eating bad fish.

Last night I had a dream that I just said, "Aw fuck it." and had me a spicy chicken sandwich. It was so good, but so guilty. Rob cheered me on though. I knew I'd be sick but I didn't have to face those repercussions due to the fact that it was indeed a dream. I love dreaming.

I'm living in a new house. In fact, it's the first time I've ever lived in a house. I lived with Mike in a house but it didn't feel like it was mine. I only rented a room then. Now the house is mine. And my sisters. My sister headed back down here from Minnesota to be near family and so we're living together. It's hard to get used to living with somebody again. There's a certain peace I used to get from coming home to the same house I left. It's hard to explain, but I'm sure this will be a good experience for me. I seem to have forgotten how to be with people.

Four years ago I never stressed out about money. I went to school, crashed on my grandmothers couch, and ate a vegan cookie, a vitamin water, and a vegetarian beef jerky for lunch every day. I never had money to worry about, I took the CTA, and I think I was a happier person for it. Now I make a generous wage for someone of my age, limited work history, and lack of a degree. I live in a house with one roommate. The economy is in a funk. I am stressed out.

Obviously it's going to take time for my sister to get back up on her feet. She moved here with a car of possessions and a cat. I'm very happy I can help out my little sister in the meantime. And she has had luck finding a job. But until she has a steady income ~80% of my salary goes towards rent. Doesn't leave me a whole lot of room to pay credit cards, buy furniture, or save.

And this scares me.

Money has certainly changed the person I am. I long for the simpler days of not having money, and being oblivious to it. The more money I get the more money I need and it bothers me. I surround myself with stuff instead of something more meaningful. I feel trapped and in a way I am. How can I get rid of all this stuff? I need it. I am become stuff. Also there's that lease. Maybe I could bring myself to sell it, save up some money, and in a years time leave my job and travel the world. I certainly haven't done enough living in my 25 years, that's for sure.

By the time I was 25 I was supposed to have done one or all of the following:

- Lived in Japan
- Lived in Ireland
- Invented a flying machine
- Become one of the three ninjas
- Gone to space
- Met a dinosaur
- Become a fighter pilot
- Finish college

Of all my childhood aspirations the only one I've really accomplished was driving a car. And according to my 3rd grade time capsule project my grandmother saved, I wanted to do that by the time I was 16, took me 21 years instead and I only ended up doing it out of necessity. That time capsule project was actually a little scary. Under "What scares you the most?" I wrote "National Debt". Where was I getting this stuff?

Point is, I'm a completely different person from the one I was when I was 4, or 10, or 12, or 18, or two minutes ago. I never felt like I really found any sort of identity. My memories and recollections of events are something like remembering the synopsis of a movie. I feel disassociated from myself. Maybe I'm a clone.

Really, it's a little scary. It's also one of the things I like most about keeping a blog. Sometimes I read back through my LiveJournal postings which date back to 2002. Each entry becomes a gateway to a flood of memories. I remember the days, the emotions, and the thoughts of my past. Without a written record I end up forgetting myself. I don't know if I have a particularly bad memory or if I'm just more honest about how little I know myself than most people are.

Anyway, this is the part where I apologize to the reader about my terrible prose, sentence structure, and random thought writing. But the hell with it. This thing is for me.

Three things

2008-08-23T16:43:00.002-05:00

Joe left three things at my house when he left:

- a third of a handle of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum
- family sized bottle of Pepto Bismol
- 1993 Microsoft Word manual

Collectible Card Games are Evil

2008-08-20T21:58:00.001-05:00

But I have an itch to play one...

Anybody want to play Legend of the Five Rings with me?

http://www.l5r.com

New XBLA Content: Wits and Wagers

2008-05-07T22:43:00.006-05:00

Bringing my current list of games up to:

Aegis Wing
Bomberman Live
Doom
N+
Undertow
Carcassonne
Catan
Lost Cities
Pac-Man Championship Edition
Texas Hold'em
Contra
Metal Slug 3
New Rally-X
Robotron:2084
Root Beer Tapper
Smash TV
Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting
Teenatge Mutant Ninja Turtles
Tron
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Wits and Wagers
Hexic HD
Ikaruga
Rez HD
Worms
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

Buy the same games as me so we can play together! Yay community!

recent tweets

2008-04-12T22:10:00.001-05:00

16:00 i feel rediculous #
16:01 thinking about getting a newer used car. so expensive tho! #

Stargate SG-1 Mini-Marathon underway

2008-03-17T23:51:00.003-05:00

Well, I wasn't feeling too well so after spending most of the day
resting and doing some work from home, I've decided to have a Stargate
SG-1 Mini-Marathon.

So far I've watched the last 4 episodes of Season 10, and now I'm
jumping into the movie, "Stargate SG-1: Ark of Truth".

I am very excited.

purchased rock band songs

2008-03-08T15:17:00.004-06:00

this is just for me to keep track of 'em, and not buy duplicate songs that i've already purchased in packs.

but feel free to use this listing for your own nefarious purposes.

(reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_in_Rock_Band)

[Queens of the Stone Age 01]
Queens of the Stone Age - 3's & 7's
Queens of the Stone Age - Little Sister
Queens of the Stone Age - Sick Sick Sick
[The Police 01]
The Police - Roxanne
The Police - Synchronicity II
The Police - Can't Stand Losing You
[Punk 01]
Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love?
The Ramones - Rockaway Beach
The Clash - I Fought The Law
[Oasis 01]
Oasis - Don't Look Back In Anger
Oasis - Live Forever
Oasis - Wondewall
[(Arguably) Punk 02]
The Clash - Complete Control
The Ramones - Teenage Lobotomy
The Police - Truth Hits Everybody
[Nine Inch Nails 01]
Nine Inch Nails - March of the Pigs
Nine Inch Nails - Collector
Nine Inch Nails - The Perfect Drug
[Singles]
Blink 182 - All The Small Things
Radiohead - My Iron Lung
Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son
Weezer - El Scorcho
Weezer - Buddy Holly
Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song
Coheed and Cambria - Ten Speed
All American Rejects - Dirty Little Secret
Paramore - Crushcrushcrush
Serj Tankian - Beethoven's C***
Black Tide - Shockwave

recent tweets

2008-03-04T22:03:00.000-06:00

19:47 Wow! If I leave work on time there is parking in my neighborhood! #

Is there a "Spenders Anonymous"?

2008-03-03T03:06:00.004-06:00

I don't make a lot of money.

Well, I make more than a lot of my peers. I consider myself pretty fortunate financially, especially for one with no degree.

But I have a serious spending problem.

I knew what I was getting into this month. I purchased a distributed home audio network called Sonos. Still, the credit card bill is much higher than I expected.

I don't think I buy for the products and I don't buy to single-handedly save the economy as my friend Bill jokes; I think I buy just for the sake of buying. Something about the process of shopping is, well, downright addicting.

So enough is enough. For the next month I will buy absolutely nothing. Of course the standard things like groceries and rent are exempt from this rule. However, I will make absolutely ZERO consumerist purchases this month.

Seriously, if any of you see me buying anything this month, punch me in the head.

I must succeed in this personal quest for salvation!

recent tweets

2008-03-02T22:07:00.001-06:00

15:06 i have no plans today, but it's beautiful outside. anybody doing anything fun!? #

recent tweets

2008-03-01T22:06:00.001-06:00

15:37 overslept, my apartment ran out of water mid-shower, and i got a parking ticket last night. wheee! #
17:31 off to a late start today. heading out for food and fiberwood to fix my dresser. #

Payback

2008-02-29T12:08:00.003-06:00

This is how a coworker Nazar paid a 16 dollar debt. Note the change. Also note it's not 16 dollars.

(the change includes three quarters, one dime, and one nickel)

pledge week @ wbez

2008-02-29T11:23:00.002-06:00

Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ) is having a pledge drive this week.

I found myself listening to these people trying to get me to pledge and, oddly, I found myself entertained. I don't think you're supposed to enjoy listening to these things, typically one would refer to them as "an interruption". But not me; I almost look forward to them at this point. I love listening to the reasons they give me for why I *need* to donate and what will happen if I don't.

"If you don't pledge right now *we* could be fired"

Sometimes you can tell they don't even know what to say; stammering away a hundred "Uh"'s a sentence.

And sometimes, just sometimes, they misspeak:

"Come on Chicago, let your voices be hard!", although, it sounded more like haired because she was trying to say "hard" and "heard" at the same time.

I almost feel like if I stop and call in, I won't be able to listen to the pledge drive, and *that* would be an interruption.

Freezepop show @ Subterranean

2008-02-29T00:06:00.001-06:00

One of many poor-quality cameraphone pics snagged at the Freezepop show:

recent tweets

2008-02-28T23:37:00.002-06:00

17:30 Thought I was gonna be a rockstar, but all I'm left with are broken dreams and scratched cd's; tinyurl.com/ywkoss #

The future is now

2008-02-28T20:28:00.006-06:00

Over the past month or so I must have seen a dozen innovative concepts which have just blown my mind. These are exciting times and technology is soaring ahead to a point in which we can finally call this "the future". I'm sure all of this has great medical, political, and socio-economic benefits and what-have-you, but I'm asking the important question:

When does all of this cool stuff get rolled up into the most awesome game ever?

Now I've been into the concept of Alternate Reality Gaming since I first heard about the game 'Killer', popularized and published by SJGames. Killer, Assassin, Banana Brawl... whatever you want to call it, when I first heard about it I realized it had a lot of potential. Set designated "gang hideouts" where members of the same clans can meet, set "parcel pickups" tagged with GPS data, etc. The possibilities are essentially endless, and finally it seems technology is catching up with my imagination.

Electronic tattoo display runs on blood

Jim Mielke's wireless blood-fueled display is a true merging of technology and body art. At the recent Greener Gadgets Design Competition, the engineer demonstrated a subcutaneously implanted touch-screen that operates as a cell phone display, with the potential for 3G video calls that are visible just underneath the skin.

This is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen in my lif- Er, hold up a sec, my freaking arm is ringing.

I cannot wait to play Ascii Quake on my god damned arm.

Not Your Grandfather's False Tooth

Incorporating a 150kHz frequency receiver, piezo electric micro vibration device and an electro magnetic micro generator, the Audio Tooth Implant is able - with the help of a modified mobile phone - to receive calls, messages, news feeds and mp3 players. Promising discreet sound reception at any time, the modified dedicated device also customises what you want to hear and when. Which is good, because I personally don’t think I could handle what is referred to as ‘techno-schizophrenia’ - all channels, all the time.

So now I can take calls on my arm, and listen to them via my tooth. Things are getting out of hand... LIKE A FOX!

Augmented Telepathy? So I don't have to install speakers in my arm for all the pornogr.. phone calls I'm gonna be watchi... listening to?

Hella rad.

Second Life as a Platform for Augmented Reality

Skip ahead to about 1:40 if you get bored. Basically, using a set of special glasses with a camera built into them, we can cast a digital overlay of anything we want on top of anything we want.

So, let's get this straight. We have cell phones with GPS, blood-powered super-tattoo's, augmented telepathy, the ability to cast a digital overlay over everything we see, not to mention all the other insane stuff I could have put in here but got tired of uploading all the images and copying and pasting links!?

This is gonna be awesome.

EDIT: Chris Webber just showed me this page detailing the creation of a bionic contact lens! It keeps getting better!

firsts posts are always tests

2008-02-28T05:09:00.000-06:00

and this post is much the same.

really though, i'm now being hosted by Webfaction and to commemorate the move, i decided that a proper blog was in order; additionally, as a good google employee should, i'm now using blogger for my personal blog.

hopefully this won't be like my other attempts at creating and maintaining a blog, but only time will tell.

for now, sleep!