Category: general

Check it out.

Predictably,

The party ended shortly after the beer ran out.

But that’s not why it’s a cool party!

Kevin got his boxset today. Mine is somewhere between Knoxville and Atlanta. Apparently there are some problems with the sound in ANH. We’ll have to wait and see.

[14:38:21] <r3ap3r> god

[14:38:30] <r3ap3r> why does greedo have to fire first, george?

[14:38:31] <r3ap3r> why

[14:38:51] <COSLeia> because he couldn’t easily change the blasters into commlinks

Via Mari, the Ron Weasley is Albus Dumbledore theory.

I like it! (Even if the essay is rather poorly written, the theory seems sound.)

So don’t panic, non-connoisseurs of medical science. ;P I wrote the previous post the way I did because that was how I was feeling at the time. It was cathartic. I was entertaining all kinds of wild theories, like: “What if my ‘period’ in May was actually my disintegrated ovaries falling out?” But this is an emotional time for me. I’m going through all sorts of weird tests, trying to find out if I can do what I’ve hoped to do all my life. On top of that, I’m trying to find a new job, which is as self-defining as anything you can do in life. (And it’s not helpful to one’s self-esteem to sit around waiting and waiting for emails!) Money issues are also floating around in the back of my head, and I’m still worried about the old standbys: losing weight, and organizing myself to keep my household running smoothly.

As you can see, I have a lot going on! It’s only natural that I will feel emotional, and that I will think crazy things. I’m well aware of that. So don’t call Charter Ridge ;>

When I told my mother-in-law that I had an ultrasound today, she asked if it was going to be the one where they went inside. I said I didn’t know. She wished it wouldn’t be, for my sake; she said, “It doesn’t hurt, but it’s…uncomfortable.” I told Mari a few days later, “I hope it isn’t the invasive one.”

When I went to the screening room today, the first thing the technician said was, “Have you ever had a vaginal ultrasound before?” So much for that.

I stripped waist down, lay flat on my back with my ass dangling and my feet up in stirrups, and cringed as a long white probe (wearing a wet condom) was shoved up inside me. Later, I would reflect that this must be what heterosexual sex for lesbians is like. At the time, all I was thinking about was ignoring the fact that it was unpleasant.

I expected it to last a few minutes, like a regular GYN exam, and then the discomfort would be over. So when the exam went on and on, with the technician pressing against my lower belly and forcing the proboscis around in ways that brought tears to my eyes, I was not particularly happy. I had no idea when it was going to end, and it felt like she was doing the same things over and over.

It turns out that she was.

Eventually she called “Dr. Judy” over. I started to feel a little worried. “I’m just going to have her look,” the technician said when I asked if something was wrong. After a few minutes of watching the screen while the technician moved the probe around, Dr. Judy had me press down on my own stomach while she did the exam herself. From their murmured conversation which I could barely hear, I figured out what was going on.

“Can’t see my ovary?”

The technician pulled the probe out. “Sure can’t,” she said. “Sometimes that happens.”

After a pause, I responded, “But the other one was okay?”

“Actually, we can’t see either one of them.” She didn’t sound particularly bothered by this. “There’s a lot of stuff in there that gets in the way,” she explained. “I’m going to look from the outside.” She removed the stirrups, raised the foot of the bed, had me straighten my legs, and lubed up the normal ultrasound device, the one that feels like a steamroller.

“After my exploratory lap, the surgeon apparently told my mother that my ovaries were fine,” I said.

“Oh? When was that?”

“…1998.”

She began rolling the thing over my pelvis. It was far less uncomfortable than the vaginal probe, but now I was edgy. She shoved it across the middle, then either side, and then finally pulled it away. Something about her manner clued me in.

“My ovaries are still there, right? They haven’t, like, spontaneously combusted…” I said.

“Should be,” the technician said. “We just can’t see them. If they need to, they’ll do a CT scan to get a look at them.” She gave me a towel and told me to clean up and get dressed. When I did, she showed me where to dispose of the towel and hospital gown, told me she’d fax the results to my endocrinologist, and said, “Goodbye.”

I almost started crying on my way out to the waiting room. In the parking garage, I accidentally walked up one flight of stairs too many, and when I got back to the correct level, I almost walked right past my car without seeing it.

She told me earlier that I can’t know why everything is the way it is, and that sometimes I just have to accept that someone wins because it’s their turn to win.

Horror!

Seriously, that kind of goes against my entire life philosophy of rewards based on merit. (Although maybe being very, very patient and waiting for one’s turn to win is meritorious? Hmm…)

It may seem that I was missing the point of Brooke’s message when I said “If I go into the AMRN planning on not winning, then I shouldn’t be a ship captain, right?” The point was, of course, that I should go into it without planning either way, or at least, if I’m planning on winning, to be fine with it if I don’t.

The thing is, when I “lose” on the AMRN, I often have a hard time understanding why.

I was thinking about it more on my way home from work this morning. The AMRN has a rules set, but it is incomplete. GM resolutions are typically based on the GM’s opinion of how things work, both in physics and in Macross. Most of our GMs haven’t seen all of Macross. None of them has a degree in physics.

This is not to say that they must automatically be wrong; far from it. I trust a lot of them farther than I’d trust myself in regards to physics and RPG stats. But since there isn’t a consistent way to resolve combat, the same actions with the same abilities can yield different results, depending on who’s GMing.

Because of that, I’ve never felt like I’ve learned enough to be comfortable with the rules. With minor actions you just have to shrug and go on with life. Major actions, however, often involve huge OOC debates over who’s right. There is no standard.

That’s why, when even more stuff is introduced–fanfic ships, fanfic mecha, new bad guys with all new technology–I get even more frustrated. We don’t even have consistent rules for the technology we already have. Adding more serves no purpose when the existing system is incomplete.

(Actually, the purpose it serves is to hold the interest of the people who are tired of the “boring” stuff, who are looking for something new. And in that it succeeds…but how long can the new stuff be “interesting” before people realize they have no idea how to win?)

There’s no true foundation for any of it except the dogfights in the Macross series, which have not been translated into the AMRN rules set. I don’t even know if that would help.

So, I think what it is is that I get frustrated with things that are imperfect, that could and should be better, and yet are not on the road to being fixed. Getting to play with my friends will not alleviate that feeling.

Therefore, quitting was good, and I don’t regret it.

Had lots of weird dreams last night, an obvious sign that I went to bed restless. It took forever for me to fall asleep after I quit the AMRN, logged off IRC due to feeling out of place, talked over some of my problems with my bosom friend and another friend from the AMRN, and finally gave up and shut down the computer. I felt horribly depressed and alone, like no one would understand my motivations, and like I will never find what I’m really looking for, because I don’t know what it is.

I was explaining part of how I was feeling to Brooke: that I play to win, and that on the AMRN that means I have to be on top of mecha and ship stats, and my eyes just glaze over whenever I see either of those, so it isn’t particularly fun to try to win…it feels like work. She said something interesting to me then.

I think you need to play something, and not win at it no matter how hard you try, and realize that it can still be fun, no matter who wins….:-)

Does Zuma count? ;P

Seriously, I don’t know. If I go into the AMRN planning on not winning, then I shouldn’t be a ship captain, right? Because a ship captain should try her damnedest to do her job well. But I could be a reluctant second lieutenant, like Mick Allen. I had a lot of fun with him without worrying too much about game mechanics. He followed a simple rule: stay with your wingman/team. That was pretty much it.

But I don’t really want to play Mick, I don’t think. :P Right now, I feel tired of all of my characters.

Vertigo suggested that I just make a brand new second lieutenant character, but I’m not sure if I would go for that either. I guess it’s just anathema to me to try to play a character who isn’t good at his/her job. Unless I’m actively trying to be the worst–in which case I would need to know how to be the best, for contrast!

I’m a perfectionist and a control freak. When I make my characters do something, I want to know what their chances of winning are, how good they are at the thing, what the possible variables are, etc. I don’t know those things when I play on the AMRN. I feel like I’m shooting in the dark. I’ve had characters succeed when I thought they should fail, and fail when I thought they should succeed. It makes me feel like I’m just groping around, like there’s no certainty to anything I do.

Sam’s posts are always so rich with detail, explaining the science behind why his actions work. I could never be that detailed, not even if I studied mecha like a madwoman. It’s like when I was trying to be an aerospace engineer. The stuff’s neat to look at, but I do not want to study it!

Why don’t I want to study it? Is it really because I don’t like it? Do I avoid it because it’s hard? This is the big question for me, but if it’s the latter it must be far more subtle than that. There must be something ingrained in my personality that dislikes anything I perceive to be difficult. Is that what it is?

I’ve risen to challenges before, haven’t I? When I really wanted to do something? Like learn how to build a website?

I just feel like there’s something wrong with me. Everyone else is having so much fun. I want to join in and have fun with them. I was there, I was trying. But I wasn’t having fun. The future stretched out bleak and tiresome before me.

So I turned around, and left all my AMRN friends behind me. And now that I’m irrelevant again, I don’t even know if I can stand to hang out in the IRC channel.

That’s what really hurts the most.

Bleh.

It occurred to me today that archivists might not read all my blogs and chat logs in order to find out about me…they might be interested in someone else entirely, someone I know!

What if I’m not the famous one? What if they’re only interested in what I have to say as far as it regards someone else?

>_<!!!

Once I knew that was what it was called, it wasn’t difficult to find a copy. Pretty interesting stuff.

Firearms and Swords Control Law

Notably,

Persons with criminal records, and drug addicts, etc. are disqualified and cannot be issued licenses.

That “etc.” gives them a lot of leeway! “Sorry, sir, I can’t let you have a weapons license. You fall under ‘etc.’!”

Licenses for possession of swords are issued for individual swords for specific applications such as hunting, eradication of noxious birds and animals, slaughter of animals, fishing or construction, cases where possession is unavoidable due to Japanese customs and practice, cases where possession is unavoidable for plays or other artistic performances, and cases where such items are used for display in museums.

Okay, I’ve got to get down to a Japanese construction site and see exactly what they’re doing with the swords.

The special edition, that’s the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it’s on VHS, if anybody wants it. … I’m not going to spend the, we’re talking millions of dollars here, the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I’m sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be. I’m the one who has to take responsibility for it. I’m the one who has to have everybody throw rocks at me all the time, so at least if they’re going to throw rocks at me, they’re going to throw rocks at me for something I love rather than something I think is not very good, or at least something I think is not finished.

–George Lucas

So, sorry, guys. You all have horrible taste. This, on the other hand, is a completed movie. Suck it up and get over it.

Science is amazing! I just read an article about how we can cause corneas to regrow…and now we’re using chloroplasts from spinach to power cell phones.

Well, neither can I. It’s hilarious! Can you imagine a LAN party, full of people bobbing their heads all over the place and blinking furiously? It would look like a mass seizure…