Tempus fugit… time flies… 

Not much to report. Just some articles of interest I’ve found and shared on Google Reader. Maybe someone out there finds some entertainment in them.

Anyhow… back to work for me.

I like my patterns… my set routines. Some would call it a rut, others may accuse me of being inflexible. But truth be told, I am just lazy. I like my comfort zones. And I do resist change. Hell, ask Rozz… she knows better than most, having tried to get me to change some of my ways over the last 8 years she’s known me.

Like some great tree, I tend to set down roots and would rather weather the storms where I am currently than uproot and have to resettle elsewhere. That metaphor continues on beyond my residence at the time… it seems to be a common theme in my life, in my career, friendships, relationships, habits, tastes and more.

Well, lately, I’m becoming less tolerant of storms. Maybe age is finally bestowing some wisdom and experience upon me.

I had to move home recently… those that have followed my story over the last year and a half, may have heard some of the descriptions of the antics of my housemates in that time. I’ve met some truly wonderful people. And I’ve met some that I would prefer not to relate to ever again. Perhaps due to my own anachronistic intolerances or maybe I just got tired of being used and abused.

The move, for me, just like all the other moves, has had it’s fair share of pain and trauma. Uprooting everything. Packing up more than just physical belongings and having to shift from one secure space to a foreign and uncertain space. Not knowing if I can create the same sense of security and serenity that I try to create in ‘my’ space.

And yes, I am delving into the esoteric here… exploring a concept based on what I heard recently on a podcast presented by the late Alan Watts.

We are more than just the physical extremes of our bodies. We are the space we live in. Work in. Move through. We are the people we interact with. We are our actions. We are our thoughts and feelings. We are more than ‘centres of awareness, locked up in a bag of skin’. And we are not separate from the world and the people in it.

Without an environment, everything else becomes meaningless. Without a description of my environment, there is no reference for my actions on that environment. Ergo, without people, my interactions, my words and my feelings have no meaning. And so on and so forth.

We are in fact, our ‘organism-environment‘. I’ll let the biologist boffins tell you more about that term.

Getting back to ‘my’ space… the ‘organism-environment’ that I try to create for myself, is one in which I try to build a sense of security. Of isolation, when I need it, yet with enough openness that I don’t remove all chance of interaction with others. I surround myself with books and music, pictures and movies. These are my friends when I need them, when the real world becomes too much for me to deal with. And they are mechanisms whereby I interact with others… a book lent between bibliophiles, a shared passion for the music lovers, a movie to watch with friends, etc.

My home is my den. I keep in it the things I need to feel comfortable. So that when I retreat from the world, I can go to a place where I feel safe. Where the chaos of the world around me is left at the door.

And so, every time that I move, I have to dig up all of that hard work and try find that ‘space’ again. Or work to create it.

This recent move… we’ll see how it works out. So far so good, but I still have some reservations. But who knows… I’ve only been in here a week and I’m still adjusting to the new environment. It would be unfair of me not to give it a chance.

Anyway… enough serious thinking for tonight. I’ve just gotten back from going to go see the new Indiana Jones movie at Brightwater Commons and in all honesty, it was a fun little romp. A well needed break from reality.

Tomorrow night I am celebrating my birthday with Rozz and Nick and our respective friends and colleagues, as we all have our birthdays one after the other and have decided to do a joint celebration.

Good times, good company. May that feeling last the whole weekend… I need it after the week I’ve had.

I was also housesitting for friends of mine while they went away to celebrate a birthday. Which gave me plenty of time to reads my RSS feeds and catch up on some podcasts. One of those was a Dave’s Lounge Podcast I hadn’t gotten around to listening to yet… Dave’s podcast has become something of a regular feature in my music library these days.

In episode 107, he introduced me to a new music project called Sleepthief, featuring some of the vocalists and themes from another music project I enjoy, namely Delerium. The track he played was off “The Dawnseeker” album, called ‘Sublunar’:

Well, the lights are on and I don’t feel safe
By this tainted window
So if you’re looking in, you might see the pain
But I don’t want you to know, so…
Just go on pretending that you don’t know
All I am is empty, an empty world in my heart, In my heart, in my heart, in my heart
Sweet angel sweet angel sweet angel
All my pretty things make you stop and think
I must be a sweet angel
But when the glitter smears and the wires appear
You’ll see I’m horribly mangled, but
Hush hush hush la da da da
Hush hush hush hush hush
Hush hush hush hush hush hush la da da da da, da da

I don’t quite know how to put into words the ethereal quality of Kristy Thirsk’s voice. Reviews online describe the track as “melancholy but heavenly” and “Kristy Thirsk’s crystalline vocals are truly angelic and stunning within the celestial textures of Sublunar.”

Now Dave generally promotes a lot of smaller label artists so I wasn’t too hopeful about finding this on anything other than CDBaby or iTunes but I see Amazon has it as does Take2 so I think I may get this for myself sometime. Once my move, etc is done and I’m settled again.

The other highlight of the weekend was seeing “Iron Man” with some work colleagues. I’m not going to spoil it for those that have not seen it, nor am I going to repeat what several hundred other blogs are bound to say, except that this was a good movie. Specifically, a good comic-related action hero movie. And I think we all know how rare those are these days. It has all the elements of success in it. And as one blog put it, if you could leave your preconceived ideas at the door and sit back and watch it as a technology-fest, the geek in you would love it.

Reading some of the RSS feeds this morning on the topic, the folks at Marvel must be smiling, as Iron Man has taken the box office by storm.

Another page I stumbled upon recently lists all the upcoming movies for the next 3 years with links to their IMDB records. Some awesome titles on the cards, it seems, and some questionable ones too:

Filtered from titles slated for 2009

• A-Team, The (2009)
• Area 51 (2009)
• Astro Boy (2009)
• Barbarella (2009)
• Captain America (2009)
• Castlevania (2009)
• CHiPs (2009)
• Conan the Barbarian (2009)
• Crank 2: High Voltage (2009) – [Didn't he die?]
  
• Dark Avengers (2009)
• Elfstones of Shannara, The (2009)
• Fraggle Rock: The Movie (2009)
• G.I. Joe (2009)
• Ghost Rider 2 (2009)
• Godzilla 3-D (2009)
• Green Hornet, The (2009)
• Halo (2009)
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)
• Jetsons, The (2009)
• Jurassic Park IV (2009) – [Why?]
  
• Justice League: Mortal (2009)
• Kong: King of Skull Island (2009)
• Magnum P.I. (2009)
• Masters of the Universe (2009)
• Metal Gear Solid (2009)
• Neuromancer (2009)
• Night at the Museum 2: Escape from the Smithsonian (2009)
• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2009)
• Rambo V (2009) – [What, is Rambo going to go postal on us in the retirement home?]
  
• Sherlock Holmes and the Curse of the Banshee (2009)
• Shinobi (2009)
• Sims: The Movie, The (2009)
• Sin City 3 (2009)
• Smurfs, The (2009)
• Spider-Man 4 (2009)
• Spy Hunter (2009)
• Star Trek (2009)
• Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)
• Superman: Man of Steel (2009)
• Swiss Family Robinson (2009)
• Teen Titans (2009)
• Tekken (2009)
• Terminator 4 (2009) – [What time paradox excuse will they use this time?]
  
• Thor (2009)
• Three Stooges, The (2009)
• Tintin (2009)
• Transformers 2 (2009)
• Transporter 3 (2009)
• Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
• Warcraft (2009)
• Wolf Man, The (2009)
• X-Men Origins: Magneto (2009)
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Filtered from titles slated for 2010

• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (2010)
• Alice in Wonderland (2010)
• Ant-Man (2010)
• Bond 23 (2010)
• Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The (2010)
• Clash of the Titans (2010)
• Cyclops (2010)
• Devil May Cry (2010)
• Dune (2010)
• EverQuest (2010)
• Fahrenheit 451 (2010)
• Fantastic Voyage (2010)
• Fantasy Island (2010)
• Green Lantern (2010)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I (2010)
• Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
• Heavy Metal (2010)
• Hercules (2010)
• Hobbit, The (2010)
• I Am Legend 2 (2010)
• I, Robot 2 (2010)
• Incredible Shrinking Man, The (2010)
• Invisible Woman, The (2010)
• Jason and the Argonauts: The Kingdom of Hades (2010)
• Jonny Quest (2010)
• Jungle Book (2010)
• Knight Rider (2010)
• Lone Ranger, The (2010)
• Mighty Mouse (2010)
• Mortal Kombat (2010)
• National Treasure 3 (2010)
• Navy Seals (2010)
• Nick Fury (2010)
• Puss in Boots (2010)
• Q (2010)
• Rainbow Six (2010)
• Resident Evil 4 (2010)
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2010)
• Robotech (2010)
• Sherlock Holmes (2010)
• Short Circuit (2010)
• Shrek Goes Fourth (2010)
• Sin City 2 (2010)
• Spawn 2 (2010)
• Splinter Cell (2010)
• Sub-Mariner (2010)
• Sword of Shannara, The (2010)
• Tarzan (2010)
• Thundercats (2010)
• Toy Story 3 (2010)
• TRON (2010)
• Voltron (2010)

Filtered from titles slated for 2011

• Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair, The (2011)
• Ghost in the Shell (2011)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (2011)
• Hobbit 2, The (2011)
• Jumper 2 (2011)
• Untitled Third Tintin Film (2011)

I can only hope that they don’t screw them up too badly. Specifically the ones in bold… (please do not let Uwe Boll near any of these movies!). As for the ones in italics… well, one has to wonder…

In our quest for finding some uniqueness, to what lengths to do we go to stand out in a crowd, to add character as such?

Grow your hair, colour your hair, shave your head, grow a beard, shave your beard and hair into odd patterns, get piercings, maybe even tattoos?

Let’s see… I’ve done the whole long hair thing. It was interesting but a lot of maintenance. My hair changes colour of it’s own accord due to the seasons. I shave my head in Summer. I have a beard and it’s shaved to outline just my jaw-line until it joins the traditional goatee; funky designs are too much hassle to maintain. And piercings just don’t do it for me.

Something I have toyed with for some time now (upwards of 7 years) is the idea of a tattoo, but to be honest, I’ve never seen any in the usual catalogues that don’t… well… look overdone and boring. Yes, everyone seems to go for the whole tribal tattoo trend… or the opposite extreme with full (body) sleeves… All I ever wanted was something that defines me, the duality of me and something that I’m not afraid to show people. In other words, something tasteful and inconspicuous.

So, if I look at myself, the first thing most people pick up on, other than physical characteristics, is that I am one of those mixed up individuals that fall under the Gemini star-sign. The second, is my love for a certain animal… the wolf.  The third is my love of myth and legend.

When I was in Cape Town recently, Rob and I sat looking through deviantART at different designs and I think I’ve found the one for me, should I ever be brave enough to want to permanently stain my flesh:

To me, at least, it’s neat and simple and rather symbolic for me. The wolf is a constant in my life, being my favourite animal and the one I aspire to be like in certain aspects of my life. For instance, the wolf is a very family orientated animal. They mate for life, are fiercely protective of their family… The following sums up quite a bit for me about certain aspects of myself:

The wolf is charged with a vast range of symbolic values which are always felt to be powerful and consequently important.

The wolf is perhaps purely “the beast”, which appears from nowhere, wreaks devastation, and vanishes without trace, leaving carnage in its wake. In mythology, its role is sometimes benevolent, sometimes evil. The wolf sees in the dark, so is symbolic of light and the sun. The wolf can be the solitary hero who defies the hunters. It is a symbol of intelligence and courage.

In dreams, the wolf acquires the importance that we attribute to it. It is often a part of the self, positive or negative. It can represent solitude and self-absorption, and retreat from relations with others, but it can symbolize instinct too; the instinct that certain people can only keep locked inside. The wolf can also represent a “devouring” character that we carry within us, a father or mother for instance. It often represents a social character of this nature, for a man may be “a wolf towards other men or women, but a wolf seldom behaves badly towards other wolves”. Wolves are fiercely loyal to their mates, and have a strong sense of family while maintaining individualism. In the stars, Wolf is represented by the Dog, Sirius, thought by many aboriginal tribes to be the home of the “Ancients.” It seems to be through this connection that Wolf has come to be associated with ancient teachings. The wolf is held in very high esteem, as they are used as totems and representative of clans.

Wolves are probably the most misunderstood of the wild animals. Tales of cold bloodedness abound, in spite of the their friendly, social and intelligent traits. They are truly free spirits even though their packs are highly organized. They seem to go out of their way to avoid a fight. One is rarely necessary when a shift in posture, a growl, or a glance gets the point across quite readily. Traditionally, someone with Wolf Medicine has a strong sense of self, and communicates well through subtle changes in voice inflection and body movements.They often find new solutions to problems while providing stability and support that one normally associates with a family structure.

There are also other meanings attributed such as the ones listed at these sites:

• http://www.wolfsongalaska.org/wolf_folklore.html
• http://users.ap.net/~chenae/sacred2.html

Wolf and Raven, to the North Americans are seen as teachers or pathfinders. I’ve been a teacher, both while studying and professionally, and to some I am a pathfinder of sorts, even if only as a ‘conscience check’ now and again.

Visually, no differentiation is made between the symbols of a raven, a rook or a crow. The symbol of the crow signifies that the bearer is someone who is watchful and vigilant for friends. It has also been associated with being crafty and strategic, to the disadvantage of one’s enemies.

To be honest, it also just strikes me as a symbol of enigma and mystery. Some more of the symbolism behind Raven can be found here: http://www.askyewolfe.com/symbolism-raven.html

Raven has other meanings for me too. It reminds me of many of the books I’ve read that have affected me over the years. From Edgar Allen Poe’s works (“The Raven” being one of the most poignant) to the likes of Charles de Lint’s “Someplace To Be Flying“, to the various stories from Arthurian, Celtic and Norse myth and legend.

The chosen image, interestingly enough, also makes for an nice and fresh alternative to the old traditional Yin-Yang imagery.

We’ll see… I don’t know if I’m quite ready to mark myself permanently yet, but if I do, I’d like to think that in doing so, I am doing so with a mark that correctly defines who I am or who I wish to be. And I think this is indeed the correct one for the job.

Gaia Online (Main Site)

Gaia Online Wikipedia Entry

How to best describe Gaia Online?

I think I can sum it up as an anime-themed forum turned web-based MMO.

Why an MMO?

• You have a fairly customizable avatar (even from starting) and can continually kit this paper doll out as you play. You can initially customize the following:
  • Hair style and color
  • Eye style and color
  • Mouth style and size
  • Skin tone
  • Gender
• You accept quests and receive rewards for completing them.
• It has a virtual economy and marketplace.
• It has events “in-game” and it’s own timeline.

Over and above that, it has, what has been called the web’s largest forum, with over a million posts made daily, over a billion posts in total and 2.5 million unique users per month (stats from Wikipedia).

It’s annoyingly cute at times but fun for those times when you just cannot be bothered to log into World of Warcraft or browse your usual websites (whatever those may be…)