Below are the 19 most recent journal entries recorded in randomlinenoise's LiveJournal:

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
10:26 am	Complaining about my job again. When did "as soon as possible" become a non-acceptable time frame for completing something? I'm beginning to wonder if I'm any good at my job at all. Right now the job is so diffuse and covers so much that it's very hard to get better at any one part of it without neglecting other bits. I've been threatening to leave for a while, but I need to get better (or get certified) in order to find a half-decent job elsewhere, so I feel like I'm caught in a catch here. I'm feeling trapped and to be honest, scared of going through life without doing anything worthwhile. I don't know if this is a mid-life crisis, or just a bit of angst. For years I've been on the fringes of things, creativity-wise, but never in them. I've had friends become local celebrities, or otherwise make a name for themselves, and I wonder "why not me?" Hell, I'm smart. I can write pretty decent music. I'm personable. I'm... what the hell am I doing sitting in an office? Is it because I really have nowhere else to go? That can't be right. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
7:26 am	Music Music Music The chorus I sing in has an annual competition, in which local composers submit pieces, we select one of them, and sing it at our spring concert. It's a nifty way to get new choral music out there along with the inevitable requiems and such. This year's composer came to our rehearsal, and talked to us. Turns out she's not only a composer, but also a painter--has had shows and everything. While I'm not going to embrace whole-heartedly the starving artist lifestyle (it's the whole "starving" thing that I'm not down for), I considered this, and said to myself "She's composing *and* painting, and I'm just sitting here in an office job that I don't particularly like. I know I can write music. I've done it before. Why the hell shouldn't I do it in my spare time?" So I'm doing it. I dusted off my old copy of Finale (a music score writing program) and have started up again. I've done some before, and it's turned out well. So I took a piece that's been hanging around in my brain and started writing it down and refining it. It started out as a torch song sung by a llama; a lot of my songs start out with similarly dumb premises. One day, perhaps I'll re-write the lyrics so that people wouldn't be embarrassed to sing them. I have a lot of fun with this. It's a nice creative outlet. I've got two or three other pieces I'm working on including a waltz for a chamber ensemble (this one started out as being about powered armor) that I need to learn more about orchestration before completing. If I can figure out how to get the midi playback to swing properly, I may post these here when I'm done. Current Music: of my own creation (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 9th, 2008
9:20 am	After-action report Last week, after the death of Gary Gygax, Dungeons and Dragons co-creator, author, and promoter, someone on-line suggested that Saturday become a "World-Wide Gary-Con". I already had a game scheduled, but I was glad to make it part of a world-wide event. The game: D&D (3.5 edition). The adventure: White Plume Mountain For those of you unfamiliar with this classic, it represents old-school dungeon design at its silliest. It was originally a 1st edition AD&D tournament module, in which the dungeon is more-or-less linear, the assorted monsters live without any visible means of support, and their lairs are interspersed with traps that even the monsters can't get past. The backstory is that the whole place was put together by an evil wizard, and all of the intelligent monsters are there because they lost bets with him. You think word would get around after a while. This was the third session of this adventure. It's going to go at least one more. The session, as it turned out, was very old-school D&D. The previous time we'd had six players in addition to the dungeon master (me). This time we had three. One studying, one gardening, and one coming down with something. We debated a while on whether to run the thing at all, and eventually said "go for it". After all, this isn't part of a campaign. If the characters die, it's no big deal. It was a good decision. There were a few fights, a nifty maneuver to avoid fighting, a point where the players managed to bluff their way past some manticores, only to have to fight them on the way back. A good time (as they say) was had by all. We grilled some fresh sausage, which was yummy, had less than our usual quantity of snacks, which leaves me with some left over, and, being mature adults, some folks drank beer. In short, it was a good day. I still want a weekly game, but these saturday games are pretty fun. So here's to you, Gary Gygax, wherever you are. This hobby you've created is still going strong, and still a damned good time. (Comment on this)
Friday, February 8th, 2008
3:43 pm	Year of the Rat The year of the Rat has begun. I'm taking the day off because of this. There is a chain of logic whereby this makes sense. Today I finished up my gaming project, and am now casting around for another gaming project to do (in lieu, as I may have mentioned) of actual gaming. So far this is my big accomplishment of the year. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
8:11 pm	Voted! I've done my civic duty as a member of society. It's been extremely good this year. I only got one or two phone calls imploring me to vote one way or another, and even the junk mail has been fairly light. In other news, the gaming project is almost finished. I've been having fun with this. It's game/adventure design as a substitute for actual gaming. Not quite the same thing, but still worthwhile. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 28th, 2008
9:57 am	Feeling muuuuuch better now After a weekend of agressively doing nothing, I'm feeling quite a bit better. I pulled a game book (Iron Heroes) more-or-less at random off of the shelf and started making up characters and a one-shot adventure, which I'm hoping to inflict on friends at some point. My recent sessions running White Plume Mountain have taught me the value of one-shots. Creating them and running them is a way to get in more gaming without having to have as regular a group as I'd like. If this goes well, I'm bound to try doing more of them in the future, although hopefully ones without quite as much prep work as D20/D&D. This one I'm planning for only three PCs, so I can run it as a thing with my umfriend and one other couple, which seems to be the default non-large group social gathering for people my age. I'm currently enthusiastic about this. Hopefully the mood will keep up. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, January 25th, 2008
5:04 pm	Another crummy day Well, another crummy day at work. Hopefully next week will be better. Growl. Also, I do not know where my cell phone is. Hopefully it's sitting at home, so I won't have to drive back down to work tomorrow. On the plus side, nobody will be there if I do. And I'd get to go by the Fry's electronics and get more of the gumball machine ninjas. (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 24th, 2008
9:33 am	Losing it I'm really fed up with work. I'm spending a lot of time at work sitting doing nothing.  Informing myself via Wikipedia and otherwise on things like the lives of the prime ministers of ethiopia or the different breeds of goat. I'm not really enjoying this, but I've lost all interest in what I'm ostensibly supposed to be doing at work.  In fact, I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to be doing, since my big projects are stalled. I need to find another job...possibly another career, since this one's not doing much for me. The commute, no confidence in bosses, and general fed-upness is making me tense.  I don't get enough sleep.  I'm tired all the time. I'm not in as good health as I should be, and I'm afraid I'm going to get worse if something doesn't change. I'm also not doing enough gaming.  The 6:00 wake-up time has cut into some of the weeknight games I could otherwise join. I don't mean to use this thing just as a way to complain about work, but that's where my thoughts are at the moment, and I need to get them out. Bleah. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 21st, 2007
11:24 am	The people who read my journal may respond (both of them) IF YOU COMMENT ON THIS POST.... 1. I'll respond with something random about you. 2. I'll challenge you to try something. 3. I'll pick a color that I associate with you. 4. I'll tell you something I like about you. 5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory about you. 6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of. 7. I'll ask you something I've always wanted to ask you (to which you must respond). 8. You must post this on your journal. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 30th, 2007
11:23 am	Stupid I'm installing a server at work.  It's a Microsoft server, with all sorts of arcane Microsoft functions on it that don't use the same name, or aren't set up the same way as similar functions on other servers.  There's one thing, that they do, which we need to set up the server for.  I find myself installing programs which I do not know what they do, but which are necessary in order for me to install programs that I do know what they do. I feel like the whole thing is designed to make me feel stupid. I don't like feeling stupid.  Now, I know that nobody likes feeling stupid, but when I feel stupid I get depressed.  Being smart is the main thing I've got on the world, and even on most of my colleagues here at work.   There's no fall-back.  I can't say "I feel stupid, but at least I can bench-press 200 pounds." Okay, it's silly.  I've got lots of advantages, when you look at it objectively.  I've got good freinds, a lovely girlfriend, a decent well-paying (if often frustrating) job, and a life that would be considered unimaginable luxury in many parts of the world.  Still, I've always put a lot of stock in being smart, and feeling not-smart annoys me. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 20th, 2007
9:17 pm	Somehow a suggestion has gotten out there that I should run a game of Paranoia for my D&D group.  I think it would work well, provided I can get them all to show up at the same place at the same time and be interested in playing. I've played Parnaoia maybe three times in my life and never run it, but what I've played has stuck with me.  It's that sort of game. I spent far too much of the weekend hatching nefarious plans to inflict on hapless players.   One involves pens and forms for them to fill out.  this is going to be fun!  (for me it will be fun and hard work.  for them, if done right, it should be fun and cringing, maddening, misery) (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 18th, 2007
6:50 pm	After years of pooh-poohing such activities, I have become a video game addict.  I'm spending far too much time playing various iterations of Final Fantasy.  I'm about halfway through FF IX, and have just recently started my adventures in the 8-bit world of the original. Help! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, August 13th, 2007
6:46 pm	And here I'd thought about posting regularly A few days sick in bed, a few days stuck at work, a lovely time with a lovely person, but no time, or at least no inclination to make time, to blog. that's been the last two months for me. In that time I've discovered quite a number of things, such as that there are almost no female lego figures out there that aren't someone in particular, by which I mean, you can find Princess Leia or Hermione Grainger, but no female medieval types, urban types, or undersea explorer types (at least not that I've seen).  hope is not lost, though, since you can order individual bricks (including people) from the lego web site. I figured this out when I was buying a birthday present for my niece.  At least the problem.  I didn't figure out the solution until later.  At christmas, or perhaps before, she's going to get some custom lego people. (Comment on this)
Monday, June 4th, 2007
7:15 am	One day wasted, one not Saturday was a waste of time.  After a mere five hours in bed (D&D session went late, but was fun), I got up and came into work at 8:00.  Of course to come into work at eight, I have to get up at seven and then drive for half an hour.   We were doing some network transitioning.  I brought a few gaming books in case I had a time when the network was down and I was waiting for something to happen.  I figured I'd be there at most five hours, more likely only two or three. Oh how wrong I was. The network was technically up, but we had no domain name service.  To those of you unfamiliar with DNS, it's the little program that changes the addresses you type in to numbers, so that if you enter www.yahoo.com into your little browser window, it translates it to 209.131.36.158 and your packets can find their way throught the dark  forest of the internet.  Without this, no matter how fast a connection you have to the net, you can't really get anywhere that you don't know the address of already.   Since I don't know the addresses of any servers outside my immediate local office (and it's rare that anyone does), I had effectively no access to the world. For an hour, this would be okay.   For twelve, it was a bit maddening.  I had a few things to do around the office, but I needed to be available in case the folks on the other end of the conference call wanted me to do anything.   So I sat at my desk.  Played Freecell.  Played Klondike Solitaire.  Played Spider Solitaire.  Played Minesweeper.  Read the gaming books I had.   Went slowly mad. At about 8:30 p.m. with not everything done, they let me go home.  Not quite straight to bed after that, but close. Sunday was much better.  The previous wednesday I went out and got myself a used PlayStation 2.   It did not work.  Sunday I traded it in and paid the difference to get a new one.  It worked, and therefore we were able to spend sunday afternoon and evening working out agressions by beating things up virtually. Spent one day at work.  Spent one day playing video games.   Just from those two sentences, you'd think that the first was the productive day.   Now you know better. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 26th, 2007
2:59 pm	In the interest of having more to do at home when I am utterly exhausted and don't feel like going out, I'm thinking of getting a game console.  The main reason I haven't gotten one until now is I'm not that interested in playing most of the games.  I haven't had a console since my Atari 2600, and that was (good lord) twenty years ago. What I'd really like to get are some fun co-operative two-person games that my girlfriend and I can play together, or at least ones where one of us can play and the other make amusing comments.  We went by a game store last night to see what was available.   Since neither of us really knew of any titles, we just browsed around.  We did find something entitled Magna Carta: Tears of Blood, which featured busty anime-type babes on the cover (something I don't usually associate with 12th century England).  At over fifty dollars, it seemed a bit steep to get just because the title is amusingly goofy. Still, I would like to get a console of some sort.  I guess I need to ask friends who play these games. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 21st, 2007
3:15 pm	Feeling somewhat refreshed after a trip to see some friends (and their cute babies), Our Hero returns to work only to discover that someone who was coming down to meet him during the day will now be arriving after his usual time for departing.  Therefore, he sits, waiting, not knowing if this contact will come at all. The final package has arrived earlier that morning, and the wiring completed, he is ready for the next step in the delicate operation.  However, at what he thought was the end of the wiring, the technician informed him that some parts have not yet arrived, and his operation will have to be delayed.   Curses! Okay, maybe writing it as a bad adventure novel isn't the way to make my work more exciting. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 15th, 2007
12:39 pm	A picture of what, though? I really need to upload some kind of picture to this. I also need to play around with settings to get a better aesthetic look. In addition, it would help if I actually had something to say. I'm at work now, and I don't like posting from work.  It somehow seems wrong.  On the other hand, I'm generally too tired to do it at home, which is why I have never kept one of these on-line things as a going concern for very long.   Even in the days when I had no more than two hours of work to do a day, it just didn't seem like something I should do.  I never had a problem with reading blogs, forums, an such for several hours, but posting just didn't seem right. I need to break this.  Either I should bite the bullet and start posting, or give up reading these things.  I think the former is more likely, as evidenced by what I'm doing now. Just hope the bosses don't catch me. (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 12th, 2007
4:06 pm	Te Le Vi Si On I like to relax and sit around on weekends.   I have, in the past, mostly used this time to read.   Recently, though, I got a set of rabbit ears for my television.  Prior to this, the TV had been just an adjunct to the DVD & VHS players.  Now, I can watch TV with something approaching decent reception and about eight channels (although one is in Spanish).   For some reason I've decided I like to watch auto racing on TV, which on the broadcast channels comes on at rather unpredictable times.  Today I watched qualification for the Indy 500.  Why on earth would anyone, much less me, want to watch this?  I don't know.  I still watched four hours of it. (Comment on this)
Friday, May 11th, 2007
12:44 pm	Writing I have discovered that I've now gotten to the point where I can't write a single complete sentence of fiction without severely doubting what I'm saying.  Since the best way to improve something is by practice, I've resolved to start updating this Livejournal periodically in order to practice writing.  With no theme or focus, I can write about whatever I feel like. While I probably won't inflict my pathetic attempts at fiction on readers of this, hopefully it will get me going. (Comment on this)