So, I figured if I am going to make a website, I should learn how to do all of it. Here you go, my first forum. Still needs customizing, but that’s more for tomorrow.
Edit:
I must apologize for all of the exclaimation marks. I’m just excited to be learning new stuff today. 
Update:
Now the forums should match the main site as far as colors go.
Okay, look here and here for new pictures that I finally figured out how to get off of my camera. Yay!
Oh, and if you are wondering what the little angst girl on the right side of my web page is doing there among all of this conformity, she’s Tina the Troubled Teen and she is hot. She will say another dark and dreary thing each day just so we can keep on trudging through the doldrums of life anew each morning. Hey, I was an angst little kid too. Yeah, I still am. Many thanks go out to L. Fitzgerald Sjöberg and David Nielsen for their wonderful contributions to the world of comedy, including Tina.
So this is the new site format, still some polishing to do like converting the linked pages. Thanks to Wil Wheaton for the inspiration to get off my ass and use the Blogger. Speaking of Wil Wheaton, he is cool, he is geeky, he wrote a book, I ordered the book and I’ll give you a review as soon as I read it. Maybe when Worlds of Warcraft comes out we can get him to play on our server 
.
In other news, I’m currently listening to “Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix” on audio CD and it’s just great to experiance J.K Rowling’s writing. She really is something else, not to mention the voice talent of Jim Dale. So as I churn through the 27 (#?) CDs I have a routine of bringing the CD case into the house and falling asleep to the CD I was on while driving in the car. Produces great dreams!
Not much happening this week. I feel relieved to have made it through the grueling hot weekend at Faire. Something about standing in 104-degree weather for 8+ hours a day just tuckers me out. Taking this weekend off then for a little R&R before the last 2 weekends, sorry Mike, I know you are understaffed.
In other news, got my digital camera, pictures will ensue. Finished the living room up (I was short some cloth last time around). I’m also getting in touch with my feminine side and feeling a strong urge to learn how to sew. Sooo… I need to get a sewing machine and figure out how to work the dang thing. I figure if I can learn every home economics skill then I’ll have a good chance of having a legitimate exclusive right to the TV remote control.
Things Aaron can do:
- Woodcraft (hand carving, sanding, cutting, lathe, joining, painting, lettering, etc…)
- Metal craft (welding, forging, cutting, shaping, bending, tempering, etc…)
- Drafting (pen & paper, isometric, 3D, CAD, 3D CAD, etc…)
- Autos (Engine rebuild, carburetors, etc…)
- Leatherworking (cutting, shaping, stamping, splitting, tying, gluing, dying)
- Cooking (don’t know what’s so hard about cooking anyway…)
- Programming (C, C++, ADA, Pascal, Delphi, HTML, PLSQL, + more)
- Electronics (simple circuits, ICs and wires)
- Networks (Ethernet, token ring, servers, hubs, switches, routers, etc…)
- Building computers (picture of the masterpiece to come)
- Interior design (again, picture to come)
- Martial Arts (Yay!)
- Homebrewing (mead, cider, beer)
- Guns (rifles, automatics, pistols, grenades)
- Leadership (military, EQ guild)
- Game (all sorts of games. I’m usually not the best, but overall pretty good at all games)
- DJ (see The Box, My friend Yarry and I started this club about 4 years ago and it’s still going strong)
Things Aaron would like to learn to do:
- Sew
- Make music (keyboard, computer MIDI, sing)
- Draw (Comics, computer graphics)
- Usa a Katana (Just in case the world goes to hell, swords don’t take ammo)
- Fly a plane
- Design and build complex machinery
- Design and build complex electronics
- Game design (Graphics, design specs, etc…)
Things Aaron will never be able to do:
- Remember important dates
- Get from point A to point B without taking wrong turns
- Concentrate on two things at once
- Drive faster than the speed limit
- Understand women
- Lie
Music pick of the week: stromkern “Night Rider” (EP)
So good to hear a unique sound. Very punchy and catchy.
Movie pick of the week: “The Animatrix”
About 30 minutes of ‘it’s worth seeing’.
Game pick of the week: Star Wars Galaxies
Still playing it.
Web link of the week: Pillow Fort Warfare
I do believe I have found a new vice.
Ankle better today. Going back to Taekwon Do again for the first time in a couple weeks and hoping not to kill myself. Got a copy of Star Wars Galaxies and tried it out. I was truly amazed by some things I saw in the game. First… the scenery is beautiful. I only looked at a fraction of a single planet, but there were patches of wildflowers and I really felt like I was there getting stickers in my fur (I am a wookie). You can scope out a far away creature and get down in the prone position hidden by the field grass, fire at it and it’ll take it a while looking around to figure out where the shots are coming from and chase you down, unless you are standing. Even then you can kneel for a bit more stability in your shooting. You can shoot in different styles which seem to be more appropriate, like at point blank you can fire “point blank” shots which take less time since you don’t need to aim. At long range you can fire “charged shots” for more powerful blasts. This is just a fraction of all there is to know about a single skill. You can be an artisan, engineer, medic and even… an entertainer? Yes that’s right, my wookie marksman/medic/entertainer spent a good bit of the night with some fellow low-lives in a cantina jamming! This really works too! I danced the night away, threw in some solo bits on my space obo and gained exp for it all. At one point I had a grin on my face so big, I told the jamming group, “I don’t know what’s so goddang fun about this but it IS!” Okay, so maybe this game’s worth a try.
In other news, another weekend of faire coming up, my dad is supposed to show up there with his family. Should be pretty fun, and hopefully not involving me flying over hay bails. Tomorrow, seeing “Pirates of the Caribbean” which I have heard great things about.
Music pick of the week: Rob Dougan “Furious Angels” Still hooked on it and waiting for new CDs in the mail.
Movie pick of the week: “Spirited Away”Wasn’t as action packed as “Princess Mononoke” but I really enjoyed watching it.
Game pick of the week: Star Wars GalaxiesSee above.
Web link of the week: UtilikiltsExpect to see me wearing these in the future. If you ask me if I’m wearing anything under it, I’ll reply in kind, “No, I assure you everything is in proper working order.”
-Aaron
More today
Okay, I just got a phone call from my old buddy Stalker Girl. She just called, and didn’t say a word while I asked, “Hello? … Hello?” But then I looked on the caller ID and saw that it was her. I used to sort of laugh inside when people said they had a stalker, but not anymore. It’s scary as crap and in no way resembling fun. So, I thought I’d talk about it here on my site because that’s what it’s here for.
Yeah, so the stalking story. I met this girl online and she seemed nice, talk to her on the phone, she had a nice voice. She eluded to the fact that she was “a little overweight” which was okay, I was prepared to work with that. I didn’t get a picture. Flew her from Oregon to visit for a weekend. Picked her up at the airport and she was just completely unattractive to me, not just for her weight (though she definitely was in a very unhealthy state). She was totally over-affectionate, smothering, wanting me to kiss her every 5 minutes and I am feeling claustrophobic and uncomfortable. She started on the car trip to my house to be very clingy, and right away asking me what I thought. Yeah… the white lies. I told her I thought she was fine, because I was stuck with her all weekend. I regret it now; I should have said right away that I didn’t find her attractive. We have a few beers, within an hour of being in my apartment she is forcing her hand down my pants and… poor little guy, he doesn’t have eyes so he stands at attention and we end up getting a little nasty. I come up on third base but I just can’t go through with it. I tell her that I’m done for the night, she snores loudly and I sleep in the other room on a couch. She bugs me about that, I go jogging at 5am to avoid her. After I get back I tell her I’m not interested, she falls apart. Several thousand mood swings later and a whole other day/night of her she goes home on the plane. Online she tells me she loves me, blah, blah, I tell her that I’m still not interested and it’s not changing. She calls on the phone at work and home and I ask her not to. She keeps calling, finally I start hanging up on her. She calls back 13 times and leaves 13 messages of her whimpering and begging me to “take her back”. Jeeze, it was ONE blind date! This continues every night for weeks. I get caller ID to block her calls, Online I put her on ignore and she resorts to sending all of my friends endless messages asking them about how to “get me back” and to send me messages… and I’m talking in the order of 50 different people asking me why I am being mean to her… which I am not. I have been as nice as I possibly can be. I started by being polite and asking her to let it drop. Then asking her to leave me alone, then telling her flat that I didn’t like her, then telling her that she was scaring me, then telling her I hated her… because it seemed that no approach I tried would get her to leave me alone, and I just tried every approach I could think of. I gave her chances, when she seemed like she’d regained her senses, but she’d end up freaking out and spewing emotional crap at me a day or so later. Ignoring her completely and asking my friends to ignore her asking about me seemed to be the only real solution. She even tried blackmailing me into talking to her again by telling me she would harass every person I knew until I stopped ignoring her. She moved from Oregon to Sacramento where a large number of my friends live and only 2 hours away from my house. Coincidence? There was a party she was going to crash because she knew I would be there and it took the hosts to tell her they would call the police for her to back off on that idea. Three months later and it is all starting to fade away thankfully (except for today’s phone call).
Because of this though I have a personal rule about not going on blind dates anymore (meaning I need a picture or you need to be recommended to me by a friend I trust). I think exchanging pictures is a good idea because an uncomfortable blind date where one, the other or both of you are not attracted physically is uncomfortable for both people and it can be avoided. I don’t think I am particularly attractive. I have put on weight and because of that I don’t try to hide it, convolute it or try to lower other people’s standards. Instead I just faced it and now I work out, diet and pay attention to what other people would find attractive. I’m 5′9″, 220 lb. 2 months ago I was 250 though so I’m doing well. Martial arts, gym, Atkin’s diet. In effect I think it’s wrong to try to lower other people’s standards, instead just work on myself and leave the standards work the way they should. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it was a revelation to me that physical attractiveness is a factor in a relationship no matter what people say and that’s something that I needed to solve on my own. Like… I can’t get a hot date unless I’m hot myself.
That’s the stalker story. I am sure she will end up reading this somehow and come to my house and throw bricks at my car or something because for all of her flaws she is somehow able to find every crevice of information about me and what I do. Because of that she truly does scare me and I don’t joke about people having stalkers anymore. I guess that means that all-in-all she taught me some valuable life lessons despite how much I loathe the experience and will forever be afraid of seeing her in person again on a chance meeting.
-Aaron
And even more…
What is goth… always a tough question.
Why do goths dress differently? There seems to be no logical relationship between the black clothing and the goth mind set, and really not all goth clothing is black. Lately I have been fancying the color red. Some wear the clothing as an identifying marker but others find the scene after wearing black clothing for years and not even knowing why. At clubs though, it’s all about costuming. Dress up because there is hardly any other public opportunity to wear leather corsets, boy dresses and white make-up or what have you without being called a freak. It’s a thrill to be dolled up in an evil costume and be praised for it.
The music? There is gothic music, but a song can be gothic without being from a goth genre music group. The album linked as Music Pick of the Week for instance has two songs that I could play at a goth club and they would be hits, people would dance, the songs would then be
gothic songs. DJs control what sounds are goth and which are not in any particular area. If you wear black and listen to country western and polka though… that’s a tad odd. I guess being goth is feeling a certain way inside, like a mood and maintaining that mood is being gothic.
What’s that mood? Well, most goths are pretty bright, most are pegan or athiest, most despise pop culture, most like sex, most have a mind open to anything, any idea. No hard and fast rules here but it’s a scene where you are allowed to be yourself hands down and nobody will put you down for it. So people say goth is about death, vampires and blashphemy. I’d say it more has to do with looking at life in a non-traditional way, openly role-playing and not being what society tells you to be respectively.
Back from Ren Faire today. The boots. Oooooh. The boots. I still need to break those puppies in it seems, but you know what they say, what doesn’t kill you usually involves prolonged, excruciating pain so I’ll be looking forward to that in the coming week. At Ren Faire I learned a few things:
1) A 12 pack of beer causes Mike D to get “allergies”. Poor guy. If I wasn’t laughing so hard I’d honestly feel sorry for him.
2) Mead is strong.
3) The foreword momentum of an inebriated peasant hurtling a hammer at a chicken can in fact send said peasant flying over a hay bail.
Now on to other details. Sign worked great, weather was good enough, little hot, got sunburned, don’t like Mike’s sun block so I’ll bring my own next time, Dad is coming next weekend, Mike won’t be there to supervise so we plan on really irritating the neighboring nobles and slandering his name about with much gusto. Also, Brian hawks the booth better than I, but his boots also do not feel like bear traps, further testing may find a correlation.
Today I prepare to go to Ren Faire. Mike D and Brian will both be there as well and I’m just peachy excited about it! Also, due to the new web site I ordered myself some new computer equipment and a digital camera, and the new Harry Potter audio novel. Jim Dale rocks as the voice for these. So I got my shopping fix out of the way and I’m off to faire.
Another day, another dollar. Spent last night drinking beer. Mmmm… beeer… whoo hoo! Yes, oh yes woo hoo! Logged onto EQ and explored a dungeon called Veksar which was fun, then spent an hour ranting about things to my friend Eden which was pretty fun. Also still playing Animal Crossing on GameCube which is pretty fun, though the shopkeeper NEVER seems to have a bug net in his shop. Also finished the Night Elf campaigns in WC3: Frozen Throne. So basically, was a perfect night; video games and beer.
The Rennesaunce Faire is coming up which is exciting. I will be working there the first, second, fourth and fifth weekends at a booth called The Mighty Might which is run sort of by a few people but it’s Mike D’s lovechild. My father and I made a new sign for the booth which I am really proud of and hopefully I will have a picture on the site here of it. I need a digital camera for sure now, and a scanner. Need to wait till my replacement credit card arrives first though…
Which also brings me to a little story. Don’t you love stories of people who do really stupid stuf when they drink? So at Jayson Williams’ wedding everything was fine.. including the champagne. So yummy was the champagne and it was just sitting there.. neglected and alone and i had to do something. After showing off my karaoke talent in front of a large crowd singing “Mack the Knife” and “The Copa Cobana” and making the karaoke lady mad by swinging the microphone around on it’s cord. Hey, I saw it in a movie, I thought it would be okay. Then me, Colin and Amity decide we’ll hit up the nearest boobie bar. I forget if we walked or got a cab there but when we got there I know I stuck my ATM card into the machine, entered the pin (I thought I entered it right) but it said I was wrong and it ATE my card. I think somewhere in here is where the alcohol really started to go to work on me because during the course of the next couple of hours I got stopped by the police for “howling” through the streets, then after being led back to the apartments I wandered off again, somehow lost my credit card, sprained my ankle got lost and had to beg a taxi with no cash on me to take me to the hotel where he was paid and I was greeted by many worried friends. Ugh, that was probably the worst thing I have done drunk in a long time.
Welcome to my new page. I’m basically planning on ranting and spewing random thoughts here and linking any pictures I come across, writing, things I like, etc… you know, the same ol weblog type thing you’ve seen a hundred times before, only with me instead of them.
Here is the Image of the day:
This is from a game called EverQuest that I’ve been playing for the last 4 years. 4 years?!? Yeah, any game that can hold your attention for that long deserves some respect. Lately I haven’t had much time for it and there are other games coming up on the horizon that may give EQ a run for it’s money. Looking at Star Wars Galaxies and Worlds of Warcraft.
Music pick of the week: Rob Dougan “Furious Angels”Just amazing really. You will recognize his song “Clubbed to Death” from The Matrix.
Movie pick of the week: “Equilibrium”Got horrible critic reviews but excellent viewer reviews. In general I think critics are 90% rating on peer/career pressure and job boredom and I generally only read reviews to get a gist of a movie’s genre and plot. If you want an honest critic, check out The Self Made Critic.
Game pick of the week: Warcraft III: Frozen ThroneLost a lot of sleep last night playing this. I think if Blizzard just made 1 player strategy scenarios at a solid rate of 1 per day I would pay them $20 a month for it.
Web link of the week: Life of RileyGood web comic. I suggest reading through the archives if you like anime style stuff. Mostly I read it for Jone who is absolutely hot. Okay, yeah, yeah, I’m wierd, I am sexually attracted to a cartoon character. Well guess what folks, she’s a whole lot less hassle than real girls. This comic is made by the guys at Clan BOB which is a gaming group based in Florida. I think the whole thing is great really, gives me ideas.
