Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Omega's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, July 6th, 2006
1:13 am	Rough day at work today, I keep being told I'll have 2 or 3 other guys to help me haul stuff, and every time I end up doing the hauling myself. It's not a big problem for the water-catchment rocks or the potted plants, but there's some flagstone that's going to need 3 guys just to roll up the slope. Also, the cinder I was setting the flagstone into went from several inches deep to a bare scattering, so I'm having trouble setting the flagstone in evenly and stably. Ah well, there are definitely worse jobs out there. Current Mood: tired (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 4th, 2006
10:07 pm	I'm back, not that I was ever gone Sorry about not posting lately, guys. I had finals, graduation, college orientation, job searching, and job acclimation tying me up, but I'm now back to updating, though today I don't have much. So...Happy America Has Lots of Explosives Day! Current Mood: drained (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 24th, 2006
11:12 pm	I hate it when you get punched in the face, bite your inner lip, and it swells without bursting. It's like having a painful, bloody-tasting cherry pit in your mouth all day. Stupid things *lances it*. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006
10:41 pm	The first five towel-wielding creatures to comment on this post, may request a doodle on a subject/character (that I know) of their choosing. They shall then wander off and loose this most infectious meme upon their own journal. Please note that since I have no scanner, it shall most likely be an MSpaint sketch. Mmm...stick figures... (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 22nd, 2006
11:24 pm	Catching Myself On Fire (again) I have a long history of setting myself aflame in science courses. In this case it was an experiment for a different class, but since it was a real comparative experiment, I put it under science anyway. We were testing four products said to help in survival situations for starting a fire, two commercial products (a magnesium block and firestarter gel) and two home-remedy ones (vaseline-soaked cotton balls, and a small vial of methyl alcohol) to see if we'd survive or freeze to death with any of them. Being the chem student I was I didn't want to mess with the gel (which I heard is caustic and I'm rather messy) or magnesium (which when it burns makes a wonderful sizzling sound and is hot enough to ignite metals), so I opted for the cotton balls or methanol, and got to take the methanol bottle for fire usage. So we went outside to a sheltered spot, got some damp pine needles and dry wood (since all 4 claim the ability to ignite damp material) and hunkered down to burn things. Now, the magnesium, which I had expected to create a serious fire easily, was pathetic. It took them half an hour to make sufficient shavings to create a decent pile, and when they lit it it just sort of sparked and smoked and didn't light anything at all. They would have died of hypothermia. The gel was certainly better, since it lit easily and stayed alight and helped ignite material, but it was a small flame and kept getting blown out by the wind. It also dissolved the pine needles, which was a bit creepy to watch. Another 'fail' for firestarter gel. The cotton in vaseline worked quite well, actually. It resisted wind, and it was easier to spread than the gel (since you could use your fingers) and so cotton in vaseline gets my vote of confidence. The methyl alcohol was last, my turn. I impregnated the wood with it, closed up the bottle, and struck a match, bringing it close enough to catch the fumes. Then the wood was all on fire. So was my hand. It seems that there had been a leak in the bottle, and the entire time I was holding it in my hand watching the others start their fires, small amounts had been leaking onto my hand and fuming off. When I struck the match the first sudden flare of fire caught the alcohol on my hand and set me on fire too. Fortunately nothing really flammable (like hair or clothing) was lit up, but I lost the hair on my hand. I'm just glad the methanol evaporated so quickly not the full amount leaking on me had stayed. That was probably enough to cause serious damage (as opposed to a mild sunburnish sort of thing). I'd say a bottle of booze gets a passing grade too. Current Mood: hot (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 18th, 2006
10:27 pm	Building a Car (At first this story and its title will not match with eachother. Be patient and it shall be revealed. Anyway...) Well, all seniors are given a day in summer when they're allowed to not have classes and instead sign up to do community service. Having gone stir-crazy in my classes some time in March, I jumped at the chance to have a day off from mindles, hypocritical, educational holding patterns while we wait for the year to end and colleges to open. One of the sign-up options was 'Parks Landscaping' with the caption 'cleaning up and helping improve parks in the city'. Now, I wouldn't call parks landscaping my expertise or anything, but I've done it before, I like it, and I have lots of practice gardening. So, reading that option, I signed up for it. What I didn't know is that the title and caption have no bearing on reality (or sometimes just a very warped one). For example, a group that had signed up for 'Food Bank' to 'feed the needy' were sent to the pound to care for animals. I mean, if I had to volunteer for either I'd certainly see it as a step up, but several of the kids got packed onto a bus and headed for allergy city. Ouch. So, I got packed onto my bus, which contains two populations: 1) Students doing this because they want to give back, make the world a better place, and help others, and: 2) Students who wanted to get away from school, and if lucky, get high wherever they were going (since most did state they were out in the forest). On the way, we're not informed of our destination. This is actually sort of creepy at that point, I'm waiting for some greasy man to show up and drag us away one by one to harvest our organs or something. Finally we get to the 'city park' we're to do 'landscaping' on. It's way outside the city, and it's an illegal dump. So we're picking up trash. Now, once again, the actual volunteer work is fine with me, but since we're picking up (very) recently used toilet paper and then rusty can lids, I did sort of wish I could have brought some, oh, what's the word...oh yeah! GLOVES. I got a couple cuts on my hands and I'm sort of worried that if Mr. Callous here gets cuts, what about softer-handed people? I mean, these aren't even the sorts of cuts that if infected might get reddened and be sore an extra day. These are the kind you get tetanus from, or whatever infections are caused by human feces in a wound. Well, even with that, after a time we started playing some gruesome games. Like 'Guess the Contents', where we opened up cans that had rusted past identifiable status, or, my favorite, 'Building a Car'. In 'Building a Car', we collected in one pile as many car parts (or parts that could be used in a car in a pinch) as we could. We ended up with a very long list, including 6 wheels, an air filter, a hood, a tailgate, 3 broken windshields and one intact one, front and rear bumpers, several pipes and lines, 4 fans, 3 headlights, 3 windshield wipers, enough belts for a dozen engines, 7 seats, 2 steering wheels, several junked bodies (which we dragged to the side of the road for professionals to pick up later), and a transmission. We feel that if we had time and more automotives students, we would have been able to actually build ourselves some transportation out of the place. It was a surreal day. Current Mood: weird (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 17th, 2006
11:10 pm	When company is coming and you need to clean house fast, Metallica tends to make you work faster than Dio, if you were wondering. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 11th, 2006
9:10 pm	1000 Blank White Cards Remember kids, when your opponent plays a card worth one billion points, let him. Next turn, play a card that makes him eat it for absolutely no psychedelic effect. http://www.elsewhere.org/discordian/bwcards.html/ Thanks to fahnix_fox for getting me hooked on this, followed by me getting my entire dojo hooked on this. Here's a freebie card idea. "Awesome Card: This card is awesome." Current Mood: amused (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 10th, 2006
11:07 pm	Back to the Drawing Board (Warning: This post contains 'rant' and the Surgeon General has found that exposure to rant may lead to symptoms of boredom, apathy, the need to shout 'get over it!', and excess nose hair. Peruse at your own risk.) Two weeks of pretty much every day some new scholarship coming through or me needing to be at some awards ceremony or the like had finally started to tilt my parents into thinking I might be acceptable. Fortunately, before I could lull them into trusting me my nefarious ways were shown. My state allows 10 days of absence per semester for students, after that, the amount of absences before action is taken is a bit more fluid, depending upon the views and goals of the district, school, and sometimes even the attendance office secretary. Now, our school is battling chronic unexcused absenteeism by making 10 the maximum number of absences. After that, you must stay afterschool, before school, during lunch, or on weekends for an amount of time equal to what you missed. There's no shame in this, since many honors students with busy sports or performance schedules tend to need to stop in to make up absences. However, my parents didn't take my 9 absences (all excused, 3 from outside work such as regional choir performance and volunteer time) very well at all. Upon opening the letter that merely politely warned me that I have only one more absence before I must make up any further absentee time (or face an 'incomplete' in the course), my mother started hysterically shouting "What is this!? What is this!?" and shoving the paper at me as if it was a signed confession that I killed Kennedy. I got a scathing lecture from both about how incredibly dissapointing this was and how they had foreseen my deliquent ways and the like. Then we went to another awards ceremony. It seems like no matter how hard I work at pleasing them they find it insufficient. Perfect reading score on the SATs? Okay, whatever. I can accept that, since after all I only aced one half of the SAT test, my math was close but not quite so flawless. Advanced placement test Scholar with Distinction? Okay, whatever. I can accept that, I mean, on some tests I didn't get a perfect score. Help teach martial arts classes at school? Okay, whatever. I mean, my dad wanted me to play football, not break boards with my forehead. National Merit Scholar? Well, they were happy about that one. It meant they didn't have to pay for me to go to college, which they wouldn't have done anyway. I mean, honestly, what do I have to do to prove I'm not a terrible person? Become president? "Well, child, you swept the popular vote with 99.99%. But you still could have done better and gained that last .01%." "I know. I wish I knew who didn't vote for me so I could hear why." "Well, we didn't, obviously. We can't trust you as president; you're going to be terrible at it, we're sure." Current Mood: frustrated (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 9th, 2006
10:57 pm	Northern Arizona Poetry Reading and Gala Say it out loud. Fancy, isn't it? I mean, I always want to say "And after that we're going to have canapes at the mansion" or something. Fortunately we're Arizonans, so our definition of 'formal clothing' is 'black jeans and the least-garish bolo tie', and the actual event was a lot more low-key than its name. The Reading was very popular, standing room only, which is very flattering, except the driver of our household's sole vehicle, my dad, didn't seem to understand that we should probably be there *before* the time it started. So it starts at 6:30, and my dad (and thus the truck to get there) show up at 6:28. Assuming no traffic whatsoever and perfect lights, 15 minutes to the place. Luckily, things were close to optimal and we only took 20. So, showing up so late, we disturb everyone showing up after things are in gear. We have to go and brush past everyone and rustle and disturb to get to the corner farthest from the door, of course (Thanks Dad!) and then stand. Then after a time I realize I shouldn't have been so uptight. I think it was between the poet in a sparkly rainbow cape who tra-la-la-ed her way down to the lectern and the goth girl who should have been barred from appearing (hint: words such as 'crimson', 'miasma', and 'brokenhearted soul' are off-limits unless you're Edgar Allen Poe) that I would stand out for my normalcy and boring-ness more than anything else. So as I was being called up I got desperate and started muttering to myself. This was my salvation. As I reached the lectern, I continued muttering and reached in close to the microphone, and said, somewhat softly: "Note to self: do not speak inner monologue when speaking into a microphone." By the time I had gotten to the lectern (I did very well and had only one person beat me) people were tired of the intentional weirdness, and my seemingly 'real' weirdness was actually funny. So I read my poem and did fine, but I somehow suspect people will remember me more for my joke than for my poem. Current Mood: tired (Comment on this)
Monday, May 8th, 2006
9:46 pm	Money Well, my official scholarships came through today. 12,500 per year for National Merit, another 4,500 from a foundation donor, both for four years for a final total of 68,000 for college. Very nice. Now that we're over ourselves, let's do the math: 13 years of school, unpaid work to get this stuff. 68,000 dollars over 4 years of college. I make an average salary of $4000/year being a smartass student. Yay. Current Mood: Rich, Rich I say! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006
9:08 pm	Why do I never update this thing? I mean, it's not for lack of material, or fear of having others read my thoughts (I just placed second in a poetry contest for this area, so I'm certain on those two). And it's certainly not fear of a negative audience (you guys are all great, so again, unlikely). It's not difficulty posting or anything like that. No. It's that I hate my writing. Yes, weird, to say the least. It's not even dislike at the start. I'll post this tonight, and for the next 48 hours I will feel accomplished by it. Then the next 72 will be followed by slowly increasing horror as I find typos, quirks of language, incorrect meanings, and the like. Within a week I will be ashamed to look it it. It's EVIL. I sound whiny, childish, boring...and thus I descend into madness over my work like many authors, the exception being Shakespeare. Who is dead. Welp, I'd best post this before I delete it in disgust. :P (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 9th, 2005
7:05 pm	BESM Campaign sneak peek (Warning, long as a crazed author can make it) Just checking to see if any of my friends in the BESM campaign, many who know my LJ, ever read it. This is a small bit of the campaign that's been set up: "Now that you're all seated, I'll tell you why we need you. As you know, the Human Commonwealth and the Korax Principate were at war over a recently discovered planet, Orieth. This is hardly something new, and for most planets the Federation would not have been involved, whatever the members of the confederation do against each other on the small scale are beneath our notice. However, Orieth seems to be an archaeological gold mine of Grower artifacts. Whoever gains control of it will have enough strength to tip the balance of power. This is not desirable, and originally we had an agent implanted in the Human fleet who would assassinate their leader, Periandros, moments after Humans gained control of the planet. However, the planet itself seemed to help us, all human ground troops disappeared, a force of roughly 1200 and an unknown number of Korax." The screen in the front of the room flickers to life and shows a relatively generic habitable planet: green and brown continents and a bluish ocean, orbited by three amethyst-colored moons. A small square in the middle of a Y-shaped continent flashes and increases in magnification until you can see a thick jungle and several grey dots among them. "While we were glad for the assistance, at the time we assumed the Korax ground strength was sufficient to destroy the Humans, but had scattered when they found out they had lost the space battle. We sent a Fed scout squad to study the pyramids onscreen. The jungle, it seems, is bioelectric and even our best tightbeams were unable to penetrate to communicate except at certain points where for unknown reasons the disrupting effect of the jungle subsided. About 2 hours in, the scout team did not communicate as expected. We assumed nothing major until they failed the second check. Then third. By the fifth, we were certain the team was dead. Since the team was Tech and not Fae, and the jungle bio-electric, we assumed that some exotic jungle beast with EMP capability had attacked them. The next team sent in was mainly Fae, mostly human neo-samurai. They recovered this data string and sent it back to us when the field cleared." The screen switches to a standard Fed scout team: 3 humans, 2 Selarans, and 2 standard light combat mechs. The foot soldiers are armed with guns and the two mechs both have gun ports. They seem to be moving through the twinkling, whispering green easily until up ahead a grey shape looms. They seem unaware of it, and continue closer. The thing itself looks like a spray of three greyish-blue lines, and it's floating. It has a small bump where the three grey lines intersect, but no features you might call a head or face. It begins floating towards the soldiers. One shouts, points, and a lance of plasma blasts away one of its arms. The thing doesn't even flinch but floats forward like some sort of ghost, and the shapes of a half-dozen more appear behind it. The mechs open up a spray of energy from what look like plasma gatlings, and the foremost creatures splatter to oozy, twitching mush. There's a shout as more enter from several sides, and one takes a swipe at one of the soldiers with a 4-clawed hand. There's a spark and the soldier falls to the ground, twitching like Tech hit by EMPs do. The creature that does so is vaporized by another soldier's sidearm, but several more creatures have entered the clearing. A few in back raise their hands over their bumps and a small, sparking ball forms. The mech continue to mow down those in front, but the sheer number makes it difficult to do any real damage. Another soldier goes down as a creature drops from above. One of the sparking globes lands among the mechs and flares outwards, both mechs and 2 more soldiers falling inactive. The final Selaran continues with his rifle for a few moments more before one of the creatures sneaks in behind him. The camera continues rolling as the things begin efficiently slaughtering the soldiers, their claws jammed together to make gruesome hooked spikes that are disturbingly efficient at the job. The data thread ends abruptly. "The second team reported encountering the creatures in several groups. It seems that while their EMP ability is devastatingly effective against those with mechanical components, those who have been biologically enhanced have little to fear from them save a case of static cling. However, at the ruins, this team also disappeared. Our guess is whoever or whatever created the soldiers we now call "angels" has something equally effective against Fae soldiers. This is where you all come in. We believe that a mixed team of mercenaries will be able to go where our single-type teams cannot. There is something guarding Orieth, ladies and gentlemen, and the Federation intends to know what it is." (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 11th, 2005
9:53 pm	SURLI I sometimes wonder if I hang too much of my volunteer work on SURLI. It was a major project, about 2-3 hours per week if you average it, which given my school workload is still a pretty tight squeeze. But still, it's sort of become the cornerstone of my college applications, it's the big thing I can point to and say "See, Sonofabitch? I DID do something important and permanent. I have facts, figures, and witnesses to back me up the whole way." The problem is, the more I point at it, the less there seems to be of it. I'm pretty sure it's big enough, I mean, 40 hours a week during the summer especially, should be enough to have some heft. But so many of those hours were ephemeral, not out building gardens or walls, or pulling out noxious weeds, but instead sitting at a table, plotting away like some eco-crazy president's cabinet. Whispering to eachother plans to do this or that, get funds, call in favors, pull strings...if necessary, call our sponsor. Then, in a sudden raid, we strike, dozens of us showing up and within a day totally altering an area. Given a week we've turned huge swaths of neglected dirt into lush gardens. But I've had to pin that as my Big Thing. Every college asks for the Big Thing that seperates me from the rest of that trash that just does their work and gets good grades. So every time, I've pulled out SURLI and shown it off, and every time it seems a bit more minor, the effects less striking, the effort less heartfelt. Ah well, fuck 'em. The SURLI gig got me job offers from within the power structure that supports it. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005
11:43 pm	Rawr New avatar thanks to rohein, a bit more up-to-date. The extra fur on the muzzle is like a goatee on humans-it signifies edgy evilness without the effort of having to do something to earn that reputation. I like it, and now I have to go work on building the reputation that extra face fur and musculature brings. Be back after I pillage a town or something. Rawr. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 1st, 2005
11:56 pm	Tell me, omnipotent little lordling, squatting in your musty cave Can you weave the net? Can you cast the skeins of starlight, tug those squealing little silken threads? You sit in shadows, their light touch your only contact and yet they cut into your palm, the blood oozing along them like a message all its own Well, blind harpist of the mind, what now? Cast off your senses or scratch them raw? Make the cave your world, or the world your cave? Draw them in or pull yourself out? I've seen the shadow, raw clay doll, the violence you crave in self-horror Scabs of hate over an unhealed wound, craving unfair justice, does revenge taste that good? Well, buck? What do you have to say for yourself? You called the wolf, and your armor became you. Your guard became your mask, and in time mask and self joined. Why do you tremble now when it returns to protect you? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 30th, 2005
7:13 pm	My silence Anyone who's friended me for more than, oh, say, a week, should notice how quiet I am. I really am sorry for this, LJ should be a much higher part of my priorities than it is, but I often will go by for weeks without logging on. Why, you ask? I'm not fully sure myself. Is it me? My life (or should I say lifetsyle)? Maybe just how I interact with people? Well, I know some possibilities. I'm terrible at interpersonal interaction. Clumsy, slow, boring. Anyone who's had to endure more than a few minutes of my conversation and kept their patience needs to beatified. I really don't know what to talk about and my silence illustrates that. That's also why I so rarely post here, sheer lack of worthwhile material. Also, somewhere along the line I gained a terrible aversion to talking about myself. Blah, blah, blah. It always sounds like I'm just trying to get sympathy or something. Maybe I am, hell, I wouldn't be the first. The difference is, I find it shameful, and so, no talking about myself, first rule of conversation to me. Don't ask me why I'm breaking that rule, it's not like I'm a coherent person. Another problem is holding on to a relationship. As some of you know, I'll show up, say hello, get a conversation going (though you've never heard of me) and get to know you. Then, in the coming weeks, or perhaps longer, I just sort of fade out of existence until we never talk again. I may try a halfhearted attempt to start up conversation again, but it never lasts. We just drift apart, and my only contact with you is the fact that I'll never delete you from either LJ friends or my AIM friends list, on some half-assed hope that someday I'll be interesting enough to come back and maybe stay this time. I guess that's the real reason I typed this, as a sort of bizzare, minor memorial to all the people I've chatted up and then disappeared on, a chance to say honestly it wasn't you, it was me, and I am sorry for it. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 3rd, 2005
11:57 pm	Impact! It's official, guys, we have impacted and our now analyzing the comet Tempel 1. It has a surprisingly high amount of organic compounds, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. A chunk of copper the size and shape of a coffee table struck and is now on the comet. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main/index.html (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 14th, 2005
9:22 pm	Happy birthday, Defenestrate Me! By the way, the kilt rocks. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 7th, 2005
9:18 pm	Who will speak for the accused? When I was teaching school kids for FACTS today one of the kids got behind me and yanked my ponytail backwards. Before I could think, I was reacting, and since somewhere back in my mind I realized the assailant wasn't a true threat (My sister grabs my ponytail a lot so I'm somewhat used to it), I got him on two pressure points on the back of the neck. They sting but wouldn't do serious damage, but I think I got him very accurately because he snapped his hand away and ran to the bathroom. I followed a bit after to the boy's bathroom and heard him crying. I froze, caught in my own little net of uncertainty. I didn't know what would cause more damage; barging in and seeing him in a moment of weakness (which would be the worst case if I was the one crying) or leaving him in there to feel like no one cared about his hurts. Both he and I were rescued by my teaching partner, Paul, who stepped in and said "I'll handle it." and let me go back and teach class. Paul came back after about fifteen minutes and told me they needed me to file an incident report so they could cover themselves and protect me, should it come to that. So I went down, filed the report, and checked in on him (didn't show myself though, worried about forcing the issue with him, I guess) before going back and finishing class. That's the end of the known part of this, anyway. I think he's abused at home. I shouldn't make accusations like that, but he's very quiet, sullen, has low self-esteem and is confrontational if you don't keep group discipline strict, and those all, plus a gut feeling, make me wonder about how home life is. I'm worried he'll get in trouble for letting a "girly-looking" guy with long hair "beat him" if he ever talks about it. Another thing that bothers me is how everyone just sort of assumes instead of reacting poorly (which is what i think I did, I should have reacted better to the situation), he was just lucky I was able to sheath my lethal instincts and hurt him instead of crack open his skull and drink his blood or something. "His hands are deadly weapons, he's not at fault if a kid jumps him and he hurts the kid" is the wrong idea, I think. I should have more control, be able to safely react to that situation specifically because I have training to handle it. Also, no one seems to care about the kid at all, they just write him off as "a prick" and side with me, without even hearing the facts. I could sleep much more soundly if I knew they looked at the situation, thought, and then declared that he was in the wrong. But everyone just assumes I was right upon hearing my name, and his. "Oh, it's John and X, obviously X was at fault because that's who he is." On the more selfish side of things, I didn't like how I just reacted like that. I got into martial arts so I would be more able to think past the killing rage I can find myself in. But my retaliation was worse, I wasn't even angry, I just...knew to break the grip. Theoretically I could have killed him with just my automatic reactions. I don't like that at all, I find it terrifying that all my work to gain self-control just made my dangerous side more volatile. I'm going to talk about it to my sensei tomorrow, I hope he has some nice, encapsulated bit of wisdom on the subject or something, everyone else seems to have written the incident off and aren't sure why I'm so worked up over this. "Relax," they say, assuming I'm focused on myself, "you're not going to get in trouble for it." You're right, I'm not going to. I am. Current Mood: tired (1 Comment |Comment on this)