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I miss everyone in that photo... One because they're not on this planet anymore. One because time has moved on and things we like end. And one because they've chased a dream and gone too far away to see.
I probably shouldn't go through my old pictures with such abandon right when I'm feeling as aimless as I do now. I know I'm just tired from a long work-crunch ending and worried about being broke, but this photo hit me hard.
Was originally looking for that elephant photo for Miktar's post a pic meme. I know I have that somewhere. Then I hit lots of images of Anti's place and I remembered how good then felt :)
I reckon I can smile knowing that I'll see at least one of those people again, that those memories aren't all just inside my own head. | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment   |
| If there was ever a day that I felt like I just wanted to let everything go and give up for a while, this was it... Sometimes the way I see the world pays off, this was not one of them.
At least I resisted contacting Illona - some cockeyed idea that she'd "get" how I felt - but it was close for a while.
Was so out of it in Menlyn today. Played a game of DDR doubles, failed on the last step of Make A Jam. I guess that's my way of closing those doors for a bit. Nearly asked a random girl at the bookstore for her number, but I chickened out. Not good at cold introducing myself like that.
I didn't say the goodbye that I wrote. I think that was pretty much just for me... | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Oh, hello there LJ.
I'm resurfacing from an utterly hectic few months working on QCF's first game for a client. MathsterMind: Nautical Numerals is going out on 10 specially prepared cellphones (along with other mathematical/learning content) to Rustenburg as I write this. I'm still very much in work mode, tons of energy bubbling up to apply to the problems I would be solving if I was still working towards the deadline ;)
The game itself came out good. Had a few issues towards the end, normal drive-you-crazy type stuff. Things like my contract artist dropping off the face of the intertron until a week before final deadline, etc. I'm waiting on the final verdict to see how the game is received... I'm totally taking this coming week off and recharging myself, doing a lot of the things I've been neglecting: Sort out my car a little, clean the house completely, turn the newly-spare bedroom into an office to work in, skate every day, etc.
Random jumble of life news:
-QCF bought a laptop, it's paid for itself during load shedding already.
-Single again, Mel and I - while being great together in some situations - deal with things a little too differently to have stayed stable. Story of my lovelife, heh. Still good friends though, so apparently I CAN be friends with an ex! Who knew?
-Got a neat LCD for my birthday, still enjoying the desk space ;)
-Went down to CT with Mel and Marc pretty recently. Still miss everyone down there... Chantal's wedding was cool. Rented a car and took the cableway up Table Mountain, both for the first time in my life.
-Ed's moving to the US very soon. I'm really going to miss him :(
-Game.Dev isn't going to be in NAG anymore. The forum won't go away though, just the monthly articles. Much crazyness over at NAG, actually...
-Training Marc now. It's good to have someone else to practice with again. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| I just let go of something, something so big it felt like pulling a great big tooth, or pulling that lost shoe out of the mud...
I used to hope that I'd chosen the right path for my heart after the breakup. I was happy being myself again, being who and how I felt I should be, not second-guessing myself all the time like I'd learned to do. But I still wasn't sure about relationships, about how I'd ever get love again... It didn't feel like it would be something I could have anymore, after all, I'd already had one love that felt big enough to fill me up twice over.
I'd hoped that I'd meet someone that would pull me up out of that, that would show me what I'd forgotten how to feel.
I have. It's glorious. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I should be sleeping... I'm trying to get my workday under control, working from home shouldn't mean all-the-time, so I'm starting at 9 and ending at 4. Anything after that is me time.
But the main reason I'm writing this comes down to a dating site and a bit of internet forensics: Girl faves me, I read profile, get curious and fave her. Usually this is where things end, seeing as I'm tired of dropping a hundred bucks on a site that has utterly dismal results (unless you're Meyrick), plus I'm still spending a lot of time confused these days - although the CT trip always helps with that... So for some loony reason I get the feeling that there's something to this nick, maybe because I was thinking of riddles to embed my own email address in my profile as a screening method for smart people.
One quick google later and I've found a deviant art page. Has to be her. She's good, very good. I get the feeling I've seen both her and her stuff before. Hmmm. Oh well, fuck it: Email sent. Plus I'm feeling chuffed at outsmarting the capitalist dating site ;)
(If said deviant is reading this, "More hi. Isn't this whole thing freaky?")
...
Other life stuff:
Company name change came through today, QCF Design now makes games. Woot :) Off to the bank tomorrow to change the account name and all sorts of other admin-type things. Working on a mobile game for Mindset with Squid at the moment, first official big project, very happy with how things are going. Go go magic dream job...
Cape Town got two visits recently: Nationals + holiday in dec before xmas and a family trip for new years. Broke my hand at nats, it's starting to come right, was able to train properly for the first time today again. Enjoyed hanging out with everyone down there, Katie and co are still awesome, Chantal keeps me sane sometimes ;) Such good conversations! From random people too!
Seriously. Christmas shopping in Canal Walk, people start talking to me about my hand, asking if I do muay thai, etc. Its big in CT apparently, met a girl who does it with the world champion in-Getz-advert-dude.
Had a great new years. Katie makes a good wingman. Still a good kisser. Jacuzzis have redeemed themselves after last new years' lesbian shenanigans.
Anything else? I need to go see Ed. Bigtime. Also, Luke. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| The internet produces the world's best shirts. I want them. Specifically I want the ones from here and here.
I want them ALL. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I'm really busy again, at least it's stuff that's progressing me to where I want to be, plus most of it is paying work too ;)
I'm feeling a bit crap about the lack of Game.Dev updates tho. I haven't been as active on the forums as I want to be, plus I've still got to finish judging competition 16 and writing up the rAge report-back. Those are both horribly overdue...
Skating competition two sundays ago. Skated my first ever 100% clean run, no falls, nailed everything I went for. Stoked with what I was trying for best trick too: 540 topsoul on the roof, burly ;). Got sunburnt to shit, still peeling, but it was worth it. Michelle came to the park late to watch, didn't catch much of the skating. She said I seemed distant (post-breakup). Dunno how on earth I could seem distant after 6 hours of skating, I was completely trip-happy - oh well.
Been going out quite a bit, enjoying Zeplins more now that I'm not afraid of the dance floor. Halloween party at Zeps, went as a recent Matrix escapee, got tons of compliments on a really quick costume idea. Might do that just for random Zeps nights again (very easy). Had another halloween thing with Kevin and Aleks at Brightwater, really missed hanging out with them. Which is why I joined them at Nox for yet another dress-up party. Freaked Ed out when I asked to borrow his collar for a Bondage Fairies theme, hehe.
So. Single again. Ho hum... Definitely not desperate right now, Michelle boosted my ego pretty nicely, are you supposed to like someone more if they dump you for reasons you hold in high esteem? That's a first for me. Plus I'm finally putting an end to all the undermining I was doing of myself. Odd that it's over a year and a half before I spotted those habits. At least I saw them...
Work is going crazy. Currently losing sleep to a boardgame that I need to have a first version for ready by tomorrow, on track on that (ish). Squirrel Cube is going, just got the go ahead to build a prototype game in GM for a client, muhahaha! Felt really good getting both of those.
So. Happy am I? Yeah. Even Ed noticed ;) If I rush I can still grab a few hours of sleep tonight before tomorrow's meetings. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| (Repost of a comment I wrote in reply to a paste of a newspaper article detailing why someone would want to leave South Africa. I think it's worth keeping in my journal, plus I've just been reminded of it via other sources)
I've thought long and hard about this recently. My parents were in an armed robbery a few months ago, after a spate of burglaries at their house, they were both certain that they were going to die. My father wants to move, he says that this sort of thing is not acceptable. My mom is simply afraid, she's always been afraid, she doesn't want to move because she has a life where she is.
People adapt. People live. It's what we do. It's our gift as monkeys. People can live in warzones and survive through atrocities most of us cannot imagine.
My own personal solution is not exactly normal. I wish it were. The only way that I can make it more widespread is to live it every day. Then, perhaps, more people will pick up my philosophies and keep spreading them as they live them too, one person at a time.
I know that nobody is safe anywhere. We have never been safe since weapons were invented, even less so since guns were invented. Anything can happen to you anywhere. Believing that you're "safe" somewhere is the most dangerous thing you can do: It'll make you complacent, amplify any danger. So my personal solution is to try to make myself as safe as possible within my current personal bubble, actively. Not paranoia, not fear. Just awareness. An awareness of the world around me, of what's going on and how I react to it. That's the core of everything I've ever been taught in self-defense, or in the defense of others.
It works. I've been involved in dangerous situations and come through alive. I've helped other people in danger and saved lives. I don't know exactly how many possible dangers I've prevented from happening by simply being aware, for both myself and others... When my parents were telling me how scary it was to have a gun pointed at you, I could identify with them, tell them of the times that I'd had guns pointed at me. They didn't know that had happened to me, they didn't need to until then.
I know that this way, the warrior's choice, isn't for everyone. It doesn't have to be... In my studies and research I've seen the pattern of where and why warriors arise in societies: They're a response to societal danger, to living with fear and the possibility of death. They're an immune system, of sorts... Soldiers are different to warriors. I only realised that I was a warrior after I'd already learnt what it meant to fight, to be a soldier. Being a warrior doesn't take much, all it takes is a little more from you than you're willing to give: The choice to lessen danger, to fight only when there's nothing else possible, to rather die than give up, to treat a random life as your own.
I step in. I don't pretend to ignore something bad if it's happening and be glad it's not happening to me. Two days ago I stopped a scam at OR Tambo Intl: A woman was asking people for money to pay the (R400!) lost ticket fine, classic scam markers. Talking very fast, started with a line about you thinking she's crazy/scamming you, sympathy story. Alarm bells. Most people wouldn't even engage her. I did... Offered my cellphone to call her previously-mentioned husband to come help. Came up with leaving her ID/passport with the parking authority so that she would have to come back to pay. She didn't go for either, wanted the money. Scam. I told her I'd draw money, she followed me straight to security. Nobody else would have to deal with the scam...
Not exactly a dangerous situation, but an example of being aware and getting involved. How many of us hated the guy that walked past the woman who was being stabbed in CT? We remember that story because we revile him. But we need to stop being him, culturally. That's where my choice comes in: The more people I can touch, the more people I can influence to make the same choice, the harder it gets for crime to succeed. The safer our society gets. The safer my future children get.
I will probably die from sticking my nose out too far. That's ok. I'll die trying to help someone. I'll die without giving up. I'll die having made a few more people like me choose to go on changing the world, one moment at a time. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| Ok. Thanks to a few of my LJ friends I'm reading Dawkins' The God Delusion. So far there's very little new in the book that I haven't either considered before or spoken about with friends/parents/random strangers. Dawkins does seem rather pointed at times (there's a humdinger early in the book about feminist theologians) but generally his arguments seem well constructed if aimed a bit towards the Christian side of generalist religious thinking.
What gets me is that he seems to be constantly trying to convert people to atheism. Now, I never really thought that that needed doing. It just sort of seemed something that people would naturally decide on themselves, given their own personal beliefs and a little bit of self-examination. (I'm not saying that everyone would be an atheist, just that I don't think people needed pushing towards it) To me it always seemed that standard religious dogma always pushed people towards atheism anyway, provided that unfair indoctrination and/or guilt tactics weren't used...
So I went and did some research (I googled Dawkins looking for the feminist theologian priorities quote) and was completely freaked out at the level of crazy expressed on the intertron around the whole Christianity vs atheism thing in the US. Wow. Just, wow. I seriously thought that people weren't that antagonistic about religion anymore. I thought that people, you know, grew up outside of schools and the constant pressures of religious exposure there.
Perhaps I'm just lucky. I'm a child of one atheist parent and one non-practicing Catholic parent. I was never pushed one way or the other as a child, so school and the religious indoctrination there came as a shock to me: I didn't know what to do with it so I asked questions. Yes, I was that type of kid. Highschool was crazier, me vs Anglican private school was one of the unhappiest periods in my life. Thankfully I had my parents and friends to help me out. I doubt many of them understand how much those conversations shaded how I viewed the religious zealotry I was constantly exposed to: On the one hand I had these rational, friendly people who would attempt to understand and convey their own understandings; And on the other I had shouting matches, hatred, fear and eventually stubborn glowering silence. All because of ideas and questions...
I haven't had to "defend" my beliefs (or lack thereof) in a long time. I had thought that perhaps religion was finally a personal topic, fit for discussing with others but the province of your own relationship with reality on your own time. Turns out that I was just ignoring a lot of it, if anything things have gotten scarier for young atheists out there. That's certainly true if you're American... Why? No wonder people like Dawkins feel the need to defend atheism as a viewpoint, lest it disappear in a haze of politeness and refusal to discuss religious issues that's never returned in kind by the overtly theist.
I think one of the problems might be that atheism offers no sense of community (except in various subcultures where "dissing the mainstream religion of your area" is a common conversation topic) it doesn't exactly unite people. Wait, that's false. An atheist does see themselves as united (in my own personal experience) with the rest of humanity as a human being, sharing similar vulnerabilities and giving rise to ethical behaviors... Atheists aren't isolated: They're simply not united against another group of people. They're too morally connected for that, too polite, too ideologically considerate. Because that's what they themselves want... Do unto others indeed.
Perhaps Dawkins is simply trying to unite atheists against what he views as a common enemy. Maybe that's why he seems so militant to atheists that have gotten over their anger with everyday religious bombardment. He attempts to re-awaken that anger through logical argument, saying that we shouldn't have to squirrel away those feelings of unfairness and politely sweep odd comments under the rug lest we mortally offend someone holier than ourselves. It remains to be seen what he wants people to do with that anger, what he suggests should be achieved with a united atheist movement.
At least, that's what it seems like so far as I read the book. After all, how exactly do you fight for rationality when making sense is apparently against the rules? | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Quick update on recent happenings in my life:
rAge has just ended, was awesome as usual. Got Game.Dev a stand again this year, worked my ass off, talked my voice to shreds and met more cool people. Got a bunch of new recruits and a lot of cool contacts. One of them is an interview request from FHM, wonder if they want me to do it shirtless...
My company is now registered, so next step is setting up the bank account and buying the domain name. Then it's website time and starting to sell things. Very excited about that, yay. Also, the Brit paid me half of the outstanding money, the rest is "coming soon". We'll see, not doing more work for him until everything is settled in full. Will only decide if I'm going to still continue working with him or not after things are all square.
And I met someone :) At a skatepark no less. Instant chemistry, I trusted my gut and ended up somewhere cool again, surprised I can feel like this... Still very tentative, but after two dates and tons of things we identify on and/or share, I asked her out officially. I mean, come on, we share the same lucky number, the same outlook on religion, drinking, smoking, sport, the zone, living in the now, etc. It's actually a little crazy. I half expect her to kill me in my sleep or something... She says she expects the same thing.
But she would, wouldn't she? | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | logic | | Time: | 11:29 pm |
|
| *Gtalk noise*
"Hi, come do blah with us!"
Hmmm. Do I ever blah? Would I normally? No. Hmmmmmmm.
"K, cya later" | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I feel like I've just taken today off. Or rather, someone has taken me off the hook today. I'm aimless.
Not that I didn't do anything today, far from it. A new chapter began in my ongoing struggle to get paid for work I've done, now the guy is saying that he'll pay half of the money he owes me on condition that I provide assurances of a design document emerging at some point. Oh no, that's not how it works, you pay me for the work I've done or I don't work more. Simple. If a design doc is what you want, answer the questions I need answered so that I can do my job. Better yet - pay me so that I will WANT to do my job...
So I spent a lot of time today digging up old emails between me and this guy and forwarding them on to my dad who's interested in finding out what's going on. Me, I'm half inclined to say fuckit and never set eyes on this project again. I haven't managed to reply to the "half-on-condition" email yet. Too angry.
I found the deposit slip for the R900 for the place in Hatfield that Illona never got back. Maybe I'll try getting it if I feel that tomorrow is going too well or something.
I toned things down with the girl I've been seeing for the last couple weeks. I don't want to say dumped because things weren't that serious, it's just that she wanted to make things more complicated and I realised that I didn't feel comfortable with that... If I went along with it I'd just be yet another asshole. Easy choice for everyone else, I stay up worrying about it. At least things are simpler again now. No more frantic trying to date, rather wait until I meet someone who reawakens me. Feels good being true to myself at least. Tired of going against instinct.
Finished Bioshock. Enjoyed the whole game, wish I had more of it to enjoy. Feels like the hollow after a good book... At least I can appreciate that for what it is. Don't feel up to playing C&C3, despite coming third at the national competition this weekend. Apparently I have colours for a computer game. Oh the irony ;)
Illona invited me to a party on Saturday. No idea if I'll go yet. Guess I'll see... We chatted a bit, some of it hard, some of it easy - none of it really touching me. Maybe that's where the disconnected feeling started. Found out afterwards that she and Paul broke up on the weekend. That's a shame. The reasons seem very... Illona. All or nothing with her always, that's why she feels so alive.
I need to be somewhere where people just ARE that alive. Probably why I like skaters. Had dinner with Chantal last night, chatted a lot, realised what I needed to do today. The place that does warm gold tequila in Sandton actually doesn't do warm tequila, it was just a fluke. Shame really. I declared the evening not over until silly cocktails happened. And happen they did. Places that put toblerone on your pillow are awesome.
rAge looms. Oddly enough all I want to do is run around outside... Anyone up for a game of something? Froccer? Squash? ... Tennis? Anything. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| This is going to sound weird. Be aware that I don't have many words to successfully describe the feelings and things that I'm trying to write about here...
On a date, I got asked what Chi was after I talked about martial arts and similar stuff. You can talk about energy, mental focus, intent, whatever you want to call it - but in the end the only way to actually explain it is to use it. The easiest places to "feel" chi are areas with high bloodflow or parts of the body with thin skin. So I got her to close her eyes and concentrate on her lips (no, I didn't take advantage, although it would probably have been nifty if I had). I concentrated on my hand and brought my finger up to her face.
The reaction was immediate. She recoiled while my hand was still 20cm away, saying it felt like her pulse was everywhere and her lips felt huge. I guess what I call the feeling of chi could be described like that, although I'd add in a tingling prickle to that. What surprised me though was how strongly she felt it: Generally I have to bring my hands very close to my lips before I feel anything.
So that got me thinking. Is that sort of sensitivity normal? Are people who practice focusing with chi more used to it, or even "immune" if it's used on them? Should I be a lot more careful when and where I use it, if it can create responses that powerful?
I reckon I just don't know as much about it all as I should. More to learn :) | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Right now I'm very much in a state of "Eh? WTF am I doing with myself?". Have been for a month or so now, which is strange seeing as I'm still happy, I'm just very confused and unsure about the things I actually spend my days doing. Loony.
I'm currently owed three months worth of pay on this game design contract. I finally stopped working on it at the beginning of this month with an ultimatum. So far I haven't actually received any direct replies to my emails, despite still getting emails from the guy that he sends out to everyone parcelling out work or ideas. Feh. I'm living off my credit card now, which is not good at all.
I'm training more often again. I actually called my old sensei yesterday. No answer. Go figure... After such a meaningful batch of decisions to make the call, typical ;) I need people to train with, I'm atrophying worryingly.
I am not a businessperson. Starting companies sucks balls. Especially when they're overseas. If I'm still not moving on this crap by the end of the year I'm calling it quits and buggering off to Japan to teach english and be a failure.
Relationships still don't make any sense. At least I've had a bit of an ego boost recently, but it's nothing I haven't convinced myself not to believe before. I have this idea that nice guys don't have enough experience of where the boundaries of introducing themselves to women are, they just never get the exposure... So I'm tempted to try and force myself to get rejected by at least 5 women every time I go out. Actually try to get told to fuck off, should be interesting and no-doubt educational.
And to top this all off I'm still not sure what the hell I want in terms of all this life/love/lead. (That felt like it needed another L) It's like all that melodramatic stuff you say when you're in love is actually true, bits of me did need to die to get through things. Bleh. I'm still happy, I just sometimes feel like I shouldn't be, like maybe it's all just wishful thinking and mood manipulation. Pointless worry, I know, but it seems to creep up on me.
I told Illona something once, something that scares me. I said that if we ever broke up (which was an impossibility back then) that I'd be happy, I'd had my love and my one person to be with, I wouldn't need anything else. So far it appears to be true. Ho hum. Que great big melodramatic episode that always happen when someone "gives up on love" in the movies... No? Fine then. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | mmmm? | | Time: | 01:07 am |
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| Apparently I'm still a good kisser.
And how are you not supposed to do something about it when someone sings the entirety of Hanging By a Moment while staring you directly in the eyes... With actions? | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| I just read through a whole bunch of my memories on this journal. I've had some really important moments and thinking captured here, not all of them, but the ones that are left are powerful. I have to appreciate that...
I'm feeling a little aimless at the moment. It's probably just a lull in my conviction to keep trying, I definitely haven't stopped trying the things I've been working on (I'm up so late because of them, after all) I'm just feeling rather un-rewarded.
Well, in an attempt to man up and deal, here's a good thing: I'm much better at brushing my teeth with my left hand than when I started, sometime last year. There's some personal improvement to cheer me up :) | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| Aargh. Marc just killed me... Been working on strengthening my arms with stuff like one-arm and handstand pushups, so he suggests doing one-arm pushups with a jump/switch in the middle.
So of course I try them. Gah! Ow... At least they work. Plus it feels kinda good to be able to do something like that ;)
... So. Yeah, I've been quiet recently. Busy being confused with contract work, busy with rAge and Game.Dev, busy with the new company and busy with a few more ideas. Feel like I want to be working on a game more and more every day, but I've got some sort of lethargy/barrier to overcome. Still haven't heard any news about the Dream/Build/Play contest, don't think that I finished enough of the game idea to do very well. We'll see...
Generally I have no idea what I should be doing. I want to train with people again. I want to travel. I want to do so many things but it feels like I'm just sitting still here, treading water financially. Is this how everyone feels most of the time?
Oh yeah, went to go watch a Sanshou boxing tournament (Sanshou is Chinese boxing, rules very similar to kickboxing but affiliated with Wushu) that Kevin was participating in on Saturday. Arrived too late to watch Kevin's fight by about 2 minutes, saw a recording though. He got kicked in the face, rolled and came right back up (that's Kevin for you), referee ended up stopping the match because Kevin was bleeding from the kick, looked like he could have won though... Turns out that his jaw is broken in two places :(
Strange seeing sparring like that again though. Saw a couple of knockouts. Some very flailing technique and some good technique. Lots of people were using Muay-Thai or western kickboxing over more traditional Wushu though. So not keen on competition like that personally though, but good to watch for some perspective. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Crap. I slept too long... Grinding away at this 360 game for the Dream/Build/Play competition, haven't done anything else all week. Deadline is early tuesday morning, so I'm in super crunch mode atmo. Crashed around 8am this morning with the idea that I'd only sleep for a couple of hours.
Meh.
Had a lot of strange thoughts last night, one of the more coherent was that this was a lot like an MMO and I was grinding away to reach level 50 gameplay and get my epic mount so that it could wing it's way over to the competition... Features list = quest list. Bug list = side quests along the way. Etc.
Lvl 36 top-down hack-and-slash LFP? | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Had a working lunch at Cappucinos in Menlyn today. Was amazed at the sheer numbers of hot girls that apparently don't have anything to do on tuesdays except go chatting with their hot friends over coffee. Decided to begin doing something about boys being tarred as stupid...
As my table left, I walked over to a table where two attractive girls were sitting talking to each other after their meal. I purposefully chose two natural looking girls, compared to the scary numbers of fake barbie-doll, bleached blonde, UV-tanned, my-boobs-were-paid-for-by-someone-else kind of girls that were all around the place and who were busy gossiping to each other about how little they'd managed to eat...
"Hi, don't take this the wrong way, but I just wanted to say that I think both of you are absolutely gorgeous. I hope you have an awesome day, enjoy."
They were both stunned, then blushed, smiled and said thanks. I smiled and walked away.
Hope I totally made their day :) | | comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
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