Life

The Psychology of Anthropomorphism

~ lobablanca

Anyone who knows me, knows Sammy. He’s my car. Yes, not only did I name my car, but I also gave him a gender. I even decided to go against the grain of “normalcy” in this instance and make him male rather than the traditional female gender, assigned most often to seafaring vessels but probably applicable across the transportation board.

I love Sammy. Not in the way that most people today love their cars, as extensions of massive yet vacuous egos. He’s not “tricked out” in any way other than floormats imprinted with my favorite cartoon canine and a radio I bought for him 8 years ago to replace the standard one that had no CD player. He’s got several dings and scratches in his paint job, and each one pains me…not because of any vanity on my part, but simply because he received them while under my care. I failed to take care of him in those instances, and now he wears the scars as reminders of my inability to be everywhere at once, much to my own personal chagrin.

Does all this sound a bit crazy? Of course it does. It’s He’s a car. But he’s a car I have owned for almost 9 years. Sammy has taken me thousands of miles in that time, but the “life distance” is measured in quite different terms. In terms of laughs, tears, confusion, heartbreak, giddiness, loss, anger…all carried within his sleek silver frame. It amazes me how much life takes place inside a car when you live in this area. They become our own little microcosm for hours at a time, conveying us and those we love to whatever destination we can reach on four wheels. I’ve conducted business and pleasure in that car, laughed and cried, sung unrepentantly off-key as miles ticked by on his odometer, sought solace in his silence when sound was just too much to bear.

Is it any wonder we ascribe human attributes to inanimate objects? Sammy is just as much a part of my life as any “real” person, has played just as important a role. This mesh of metal and mechanized motion has treated me very well, taken me places both wonderful and difficult, but has always protected me as we’ve gone along. More happiness is wrapped around him than I’d ever considered until today. And I considered all this while commuting home…in Sammy. He is my favorite location to get lost in the strangest thoughts.

Now I sit typing all this up on another inanimate object into which I have imbued a sense of anthropomorphic love: my home computer. This is the last computer that my uncle ever built for me. It was one of the last things we ever discussed on the last time I ever saw him. Every single time I turn this computer on, I think of him…of how much he loved building computers, how much he loved to talk about technology, to tell me about the latest new techie toy he had his eye on. I think of how he passed that love on to me. I think of how we would talk about things like how beautiful my latest computer case looked. I’ve had non-techie people laugh at me when I say something like that around them, but it’s true. My computer is beautiful, with its silver sheen, see-through side panel, and neon blue glow. It’s even more beautiful because my uncle built it specifically for me.

And now he’s gone while this beautiful silver machine keeps on running, because of him.

I don’t know why I’m so pensive about these things today. No, that’s not true. Yesterday would have been my grandmother’s birthday. What pains me most is that I forgot until this morning that yesterday was her birthday. It caused a bit of an existential shudder as I then began to panic that I would forget about her, about all the people I have loved and lost. Jumping to the worst case scenario is one of the exercises at which I completely excel, as I’m sure you can tell.

I know this won’t happen. I think about her all the time. I’ve gone out of my way, in fact, to surround myself with things that will serve as mnemonics for the wonderful memories of all these people whose paths I was lucky enough to share for such a short, bittersweet time.

I’m not really sure how to end this entry, so I’ll just slip away silently. Maybe I’ll go take a drive. I’m sure Sammy will be up for the adventure…

Drone On

~ lobablanca
Your vacation as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will work with us.
Your vacation as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will work with us.

It’s rough coming back to the office after a week off. My Borg implants have been offline so long that they didn’t really want to reconnect to the work Collective this morning. But the nearly 200 e-mails sitting in my work inbox forced my hand in that regard. Stupid inbox. Thankfully, many of the e-mails were stray spam messages about hot Russian love slaves and discounts on herbal supplements to increase my virility and girth…you know, for the Russian love slaves I’m being sent. It’s all those non-spam messages that are now causing me to suffer from a “case of the Mondays.”

I suppose I could have lessened the stress by checking my work e-mail when I got home on Saturday…but I just couldn’t do it. No. I wouldn’t do it. I know that some with whom I went to the beach did this. And some actually checked their work e-mail while at the beach (ahem…you know who you are). Here’s the thing, though. I’m paid to do my job at the office. I do this very thing 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. When I’m on vacation, I’m using my hard-earned leave to enjoy time away from work. Why, then, would I check my work e-mail while I am on vacation?

We’re just work-stupid in this country. Do you know that other countries make fun of our paltry vacation policies? They make fun of us for other things as well, but that’s par for the course anymore, right? They also make fun of us for our “working vacation” mentalities. That’s well-deserved mockery, if you ask me. What do any of us do for a living that would require this kind of on-call 24/7 mentality (beyond doctors, that is; doctors and maybe magicians)? True, I’d like to think that I’m an integral gear in the machinery of my office, but every gear’s got to take a breather now and again before all their cogs snap off and they’re just spinning uselessly.

I still feel a bit like I’m spinning uselessly, but that’s okay. It takes at least one full business day to slip back into the swing of things, right? It’ll all work out. And hopefully I’ll be able to eke out a bit more time to work on all those book challenge posts I accumulated last week. They’re coming, denizens. I swear. Trust LobaBlancus of Borg. We will come through for you.

Please Close All Programs and Reboot

~ lobablanca

So I may have forgotten to mention that I was taking a vacation. I think I may have mentioned it to a few of my ImagiFriendsTM, but other than that, it completely slipped my mind to hang a “Be Back Soon” sign on the lair’s door. Sorry about that. But I was in desperate need of a reboot. Actually, to be more precise, I was in need of a complete system shutdown and a cold boot several days later. I was tired, denizens. No. I was weary. It’s been a hectic, frenetic end of the summer, and while my birthday journey to Toronto was teh awesome, it also served to tempt me with the taste of nuts and honey in regard to a proper, long vacation.

So Sammy was packed to capacity and away we went for a week at the beach. I learned several very important lessons while on this magical mystery tour of an undisclosed beach destination, and I would now like to share these lessons with you!

  1. Not even weather like this almost every day can ruin a beach vacation.

    2. cloudybeach

  2. Why? Because of my own personal mantra: A bad day at the beach is better than a good day at the office.
  3. Also, when you come properly equipped, weather is incidental:

    4. boxobooks

  4. This box of books combined with oodles of free time also allowed me to get back on track in regard to my 50BC09 journey. How so? I read nearly six books while at the beach. I’ll be posting reviews over the next few days. True, none of them were Proust or Balzac, but they were all enjoyable and more than appropriate reading fodder for the location.
  5. As long as you keep moving, the calories consumed at the beach don’t count. That’s why it’s possible to have frozen custard for lunch…just keep walking along the boardwalk and you’ll be fine (I say this now, but you know come Monday afternoon, it’s back to my workout routine with Captain Janeway and her crew).
  6. There are 3,873 T-shirt and tchotchke shops at the beach. It won’t be until you go into the 3,872nd shop that you will finally find that perfect hoodie in just the right shade of blue that you’d almost given up trying to find (the last shop just smells of dead hermit crabs and incense sticks, so everyone avoids this shop).
  7. Rum tastes better at the beach. I guess this is why pirates prefer it. Actually, everything tastes better at the beach. Must be the sea salt.
  8. BlackBerry screens are too effing small. But maybe that’s the point. After futzing around for about 10 minutes, scrolling back and forth to read things on that impossibly small screen, I would just give up and go back to my reading…or napping…or eating. Those were the important tasks anyway. Life’s too short and the beach is too tempting to be sat, squinting at a BlackBerry. Although…
  9. …I was inspired to come up with a new device that I think would be awesome: It’s a combination of a Kindle and a BlackBerry. Think about it for a moment. You’d have a portable device with a screen the size of the current Kindle, with Internet capability. The current Kindle is almost there anyway. It’s got 3G wireless so that you can download books. Just bump its capabilities to be more surf-worthy. That way you can switch from your current beach read over to your e-mail and back, lickety-split, and not kill your eyes or your scrolly finger. Tell me that doesn’t sound groovy? It’d be the realization of the Personal Access Display Device that I have always wanted to have!
  10. When I am released on Funland, I tap into the memory of all the warrior princesses to have come before me and I discover that, indeed, I have many skills. And most of them involve tapping into my anger management issues through a padded mallet wielded at unsuspecting fiberglass moles:

    whackamole

    Behold my spoils:

    11. winnings

Okay, I think 10 lessons is more than enough, right? Anyway, I hope that’s enough to make up for the fact that I did sort of disappear on you without much warning. I promise I won’t do that again any time soon. Okay? Now let me start working on these book reviews. I’ll probably get at least one finished today. I hope. I might need a nap after that though. Because going to the beach is so very strenuous… 😉

beachreading

Mes Amis Canadiens Imaginaires

~ lobablanca

Happy September, denizens! I do apologize for my rather spotty visitations throughout the glorious month of August. Last month of summer and all, you understand. Plus, I’ve mentioned work woes enough throughout the month that I’m sure you all get the drift.

And then, in the final throes of Monthus Augustus, I abandoned the States yet again. This time, it was to the country right above us. Yes, it was time to visit those delightfully bilingual friendlier-than-us/cleaner-than-us/saner-than-us neighbors, the Canadians, eh? (I know, that was a stereotypical “eh,” but what are you going to do aboot it? Okay, I’m sorry; I’ll stop now).

Plus, it was time to meet some “imaginary friends” I’ve made here on teh Interwebz. Yeah, I’m one of those nerds who makes friends online. I’m also one who talks about my online friends like they’re “real.” Sometimes, I talk about Dr. Crusher in the same way…you know, saying things like, “Yeah, I hate when doctors cancel appointments at the last minute. Once, my doctor failed to even show up for an appointment, but later she explained that she was trapped in a warp bubble.”

…

Uh, so yeah, these friends in Canada are actually real and, even better, they weren’t trapped in any warp bubbles this weekend! So we flew up Saturday morning and by that evening, we were consuming delectable foodstuffs and libations and enjoying a relaxing summer evening get-together as though it was perfectly normal that we’ve all known each other for about a year…but this was the first time we’ve physically been in the same room. And I can honestly say that it was the most fun I’ve had in a very long time. There’s something magical about sharing in-jokes with imaginary friends that I don’t think most people will ever experience or understand…but I wouldn’t trade Saturday evening for all the latinum in Quark’s bank account.

Ain’t the Internet grand?

Everything else about the weekend was, of course, icing on the big geek cake of happy that was Saturday evening. We got up early Sunday and headed over to the Royal Ontario Museum, or the ROM for short (and yes, I do point out the acronym because of its DS9 geekiness). Additionally, the building itself looks like an alien crash site and earns even more geek points for being the primary setting for one of the better discoveries I’ve made during my 50BC09 adventure.

Last communication from the lost vessel indicated that it was going down somewhere over Toronto...
Captain, our shuttle's last communication indicated that it was going down somewhere over Toronto...

The museum took up most of the morning, but once we were finished, we had no real itinerary other than wanting to see the city. I’m a big believer that the best way to really experience a city is to walk it. That would be the most logical reason behind walking from Buckingham Palace to Tower Bridge the last time I was in London (the less logical reason is that I just really, really wanted to do it). So we walked from the ROM on Bloor Street to Queen Street, which is apparently where the hip, young people like to hang out.

I don’t know so much about the “hip” but there sure was a ton of young people. A screaming, squealing clusterfuck, in fact, of pre-pubescent girls gaggled around the Much Music building, making more high-pitched noises than should be humanly possible either to make or to hear. I rather snarkily asked, “What, are the Jonas Brothers in town?”

And the answer to that question was yes. Leave it to me, she who is utterly clueless as to who or what the Jonas Brothers are…yes, leave it to me to find them in Toronto. Suddenly, the entire block was a-rumble with some of the shittest bland-pop music I’ve heard in a very long time, and not just because it was being nearly overwhelmed by the roar of girly screeching that surrounded the building. Needless to say, we couldn’t get away from there fast enough.

Hey, Doc, where the frack are we?
Hey, Doc, where the frack are we?

Otherwise, Queen Street was fun with a funky Camden Town vibe mixed with Georgetown urban chic. What made it over-the-top for me, however, was the discovery of a comic book/action figure store. I’ve encountered many a comic shop here in the States in which the odd action figure is sold. Never, however, have I encountered an actual action figure store. Row after row of tasty poseable goodness. I found a Viper pilot more super-charged than the coffee of the same name along with a wickedly fun Mirror Universe doctor. They’re still MOC at the moment. Starbuck’s not going to be long for her protective casing though. I’m still contemplating what to do with Mirror McCoy.

Afterward, we ambled back up toward Bloor, stopping off at the Art Gallery of Ontario, or the AGO. Methinks this was my favorite of the two museums we hit. I guess I’m much more into art than old bones not of the McCoy variety. The highlight of this stop had to be the surprise discovery of a piece done by Odilon Redon, one of my favorite French Symbolists. I’ve never seen one of his pieces in person, so the thrill was exquisite, even if it was one of his later oil paintings rather than one of the charcoals I adore from his oeuvre.

Finally, it was dinner time. I can honestly say I have never had an Italian meal quite as delicious or as filling as the one at Spuntini’s. Plus, as we discovered on the restaurant’s wall of stars, it ranks high enough to be on the radar of three Scream stars, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, and the ever-Canadian Neve Campbell. Now that’s Gen-X appeal!

Food coma soon ensued and the next thing it was Monday morning and almost time to leave. But not before discovering two awesome used book stores and stocking up on literary geekanalia. A little triskaidekaphobia trivia, a photo book of Ontario, and a new Richard Matheson collection to add to the shelves, and before we knew it, it was time to head to the airport. No poutine before we left, which I know some consider a crime…but we did finally partake of some Tim Horton’s. It’s a sin to have maple doughnuts that good.

All in all, a wonderful trip. Honestly, the major reason I wanted to go in the first place was to finally “meet” my imaginary friends and make them all the more real. I’m so glad I did, because I don’t think there could be any cooler people in Canada than them (and maybe Terri Clark, but I think I’m biased a bit on this one). Plus, Toronto proved to be a groovy weekend destination, with lots of different things to discover during aimless meanderings…and they’ve got blue water on their shoreline! I swear, I don’t know what we’ve done to our portion of the Atlantic that’s made it look like raw sewage from the air, but I was beyond delighted to see the vibrant blue of Lake Ontario from the sky.

So there you go. That’s what I did on the final weekend of August. Oh, and I aged a year…but that’s incidental 😉

Summertime Indulgences

~ lobablanca

So, remember when Data showed Dr. Crusher his “On/Off” switch in the first season episode, “Datalore”? Even if you don’t remember or have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, just nod. It’ll make me happy.

I think I found my “On/Off” switch for work. I found it on Saturday, the second my supervisor told me that I could leave the onsite meeting we had all been working downtown last week. I flicked that switch off faster than Data replaced all the isolinear chips down in Engineering during “The Naked Now.” (Again, just smile and nod.) I spent from Saturday through last night in an undisclosed Southern location with a whole passel of family, consuming mass quantities of delectable food and beer and just enjoying the transformation of my neural pathways into blobby tapioca pudding. It was wonderful.

I can’t seem to get the switch to turn back on though. I’ve been here all day, trying to focus on a task that I do every year, only this year it’s taking me far longer. I don’t think my brain is quite ready to return to active duty. So I’ve been coaxing it along in the most ridiculous of ways. For every page I complete of this task before me, I allow myself to read a page from the latest story I’ve been perusing on one of my consistently favorite Web sites EVAR: FanFiction.net.

I love fan fiction. You can’t really be as big a nerd as I am and not at least have read some of it. I read a lot of it. Not as much as I used to, but I’ve been getting back into it lately. Some of it is breathtakingly beautiful, written with a care and talent that rivals or sometimes surpasses the professionals. Of course, some of it is achingly atrocious. I can suss out the truly horrid works quite quickly most of the time, but I have to confess that I delight when I find a gem among the sludge. And FanFiction.net is probably one of the largest collections of fanfic anywhere on the Internet, with stories on almost any television show, movie, cartoon, manga, etc. They’ve even got Golden Girls fanfic (no, I haven’t read any of that; I know what takes place in some of the other fanfics I’ve read, and I don’t think I could handle reading something similar about any of that cast).

Yeah yeah, I’ve written it, too. You can’t find mine online anymore. I keep it under lock and key now and only show it to those who are really in my good graces. There’s nothing that can test the bonds of friendship quite like sharing bad fanfic written by a teenage Trek geek who hasn’t experienced anything beyond school and a deep burning love for a nerdy sci-fi show 😉

To be honest, I still write fanfic, but only in my head. I haven’t put any of the stories to paper since I was in college, but I carry around certain stories inside my messy tangle of a brain, and I dip in every now and again to push along the plot. I have my favorites. One takes place on Deep Space Nine and Bajor and centers on a character I actually created for something else a long time ago, but kind of found a more permanent home in my Trek files. You don’t get anymore than that though. Yes, that’s right: I’m a Trek tease.

I don’t really have more to say beyond this. I suppose this was a purely indulgent post, but I really don’t have anything relevant or poignant to say. How about this? I’ll repost the cover I drew for my fanfic. I used to have it in my old site’s portfolio section. I haven’t really put pencil to paper since I drew this. I was never happy with it and finally just gave up. Besides, PhotoShop just makes everything so much easier now…

You’re So Dreamy…

~ lobablanca

Bet you thought that I abandoned den, didn’t you? Not quite, but kind of. I’m working a gig downtown all week, and my online free time is severely cramped as a result. It’s hard to blog when you’ve got people coming up to you with their laptops in hand, crying “Save us!”…and I sure can’t whisper no and get away with it with my boss right there (and, yes, that was a little nod to Watchmen, thank you very much).

Anyway, I did get to come home last night. My sabbatical, however, is almost up and it’s almost time for me to venture back. Never fear, though, my friends. There will be a Flashback Friday this week. I wrote it last week and it’s scheduled to go online automatically. Don’t you just love technology sometimes? I might also try to fit another post in between now and then, but I can’t make any promises at this point.

So I had this strange dream this morning right before I woke up. Never mind the strangeness that I remembered it, which I very rarely do with dreams. But this was about me hunting. Yeah, that sounds plausible already, right? I won’t go into details other than to say that the only people I recognized from the dream were my high school softball coach and a kindergarten teacher from my old school. I don’t know who I was supposed to be hunting with, but we were walking through the woods with shotguns and we heard this sudden commotion of screaming and crying. We came into a clearing where two bears were rampaging through a campground down below (we were standing on a cliff that strangely had a staircase carved into the side that descended down to the campground).

Next thing I know, I’m loading my shotgun, climbing down the stairs, taking aim at one of the bears, and then…BLAM! I shoot it and kill it with one shot. The second bear stops running, comes over and sniffs the now dead bear, and then just sits down and hangs its head. In the dream, I drop my gun and start to cry. In reality, I wake up and am five shades of relieved that it was just a dream.

Now I’m trying to figure out what the hell might have inspired that kind of dream. I don’t think I ate anything weird last night, and I went to bed early enough that I got a good night’s sleep. All I know is that if these are the kinds of dreams I have, maybe it’s for the best that I don’t remember most of them.

Anyway, I need to locomote now. I’ve got a jean folding seminar to get to (and if you sugar boogers can name the movie I just kind of quoted from, I’ll pay for your next tank of gas).

Have Some Culture On Us

~ lobablanca

So if you’re a Bank of America customer with an affinity for hanging out at museums and art galleries, you might be carrying around a free pass in your wallet and not even know it.

Bank of America has arranged for free entry for their customers on the first full weekend of every month for the rest of 2009 (with 2010 dates coming). Sound good? Thought so 🙂

If you’d like to see if there are any offers in your home state or a state you’ll be visiting for vacation, head on over to BoA’s Museums on Us page. Hope you find something enjoyable!

Brain Dump

~ lobablanca

That heading sounds disgusting, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, that’s what I’m about to drop on you now. I promise it won’t be too messy though. I’m just in a bit of a work maelstrom right now and am finding it difficult to surface for long periods of time. For those familiar with my mirror universe existence, this time of year is always one of the busiest work-wise. It’s one of two major drawbacks to a job that I’m still mostly loving (those of you who know the mirror universe me also already know what the other major drawback is, but that’s not for public airing ;-)).

So what’s been going on since we last chatted? Well, first off I spent a wonderful weekend in the company of a great friend who flew in to spend a few days in Lobalandia. She moved to the cold nether regions of the American heartland a bit more than a year ago, which I have to say stinks for us here. However, this weekend was solid evidence that great friendships are like your favorite University of Maryland hoodie: Even though you don’t get to wear it as often as you’d like, when you do slip back into it, it’s just as warm and comfortable as you always remembered it being (and it smells Downy fresh, too!).

The highlight of the weekend (and the reason for my friend’s return) was the Tori Amos concert on Saturday evening. In case you’ve missed this, I love Tori. This was concert number 9, I believe, and it was wonderful. Truth be told, the last few times I’ve seen her haven’t been stellar because of poor sound quality at the last one and poor sound and fan quality at the one before that. But this concert was market-worthy, it sounded so pristine. Plus, it’s an extra special treat to see her when she comes to D.C., because that means she’s come home (face it, Tori…it doesn’t matter how far away you move, your heart belongs to the Dirty City). The set list for the evening was as follows:

  1. Give (Abnormally Attracted to Sin)
  2. Body and Soul (American Doll Posse)
  3. Cornflake Girl (Under the Pink)
  4. Flavor (Abnormally Attracted to Sin)
  5. Space Dog (Under the Pink)
  6. Hotel (From The Choirgirl Hotel)
  7. Jamaica Inn (The Beekeeper)
  8. Icicle (Under the Pink)
  9. Carbon (Scarlet’s Walk)
  10. Mary Jane (Abnormally Attracted to Sin)
  11. Gold Dust (Scarlet’s Walk)
  12. Pretty Good Year (Under the Pink)
  13. a sorta fairytale (Scarlet’s Walk)
  14. Fast Horse (Abnormally Attracted to Sin)
  15. Precious Things (Little Earthquakes)
  16. Strong Black Vine (Abnormally Attracted to Sin)
  17. Bouncing off Clouds (American Doll Posse)
  18. Raspberry Swirl (From The Choirgirl Hotel)
  19. Big Wheel (American Doll Posse)

As you can tell, it was a pretty solid set with lots of perennial favorites mixed with some of the stronger offerings from her latest CD. I wish she had done more than just “Precious Things” from her first CD, but I was happy to hear so much from Under the Pink. Noticeably missing were any songs from Boys for Pele and Strange Little Girls, two CDs that I consider to be weaker links in the Tori musical chain.

I think the only major criticism I have of this concert is fan-related: I hate when people stand/sway/dance. I get that some people simply cannot resist the pull of the rhythm. But, dammit, I paid for a seat. Seats are for sitting so that I can comfortably listen to the music. Seats are not for getting an eye-level view of the woman in front of me pulling her underwear out of her bum crack as she stands dancing to practically every song (yes, I am talking about you with the navy blue pleated skirt and matching button-down vest; perhaps if you fed your ass before a concert, it wouldn’t get so hungry and try to devour your underwear every time you got up).

Small complaint, I suppose, for what was otherwise an excellent concert. If you’d like to see what I saw and hear what I heard, head on over to Undented.com’s review of the show. This is where I got the set list for that night; I personally don’t see how Twittering, texting, snapping photos, and recording video makes for an enjoyable concert experience, but obviously there are lots of people out there who don’t feel the same.

Okay, I need to split now. Hopefully, I’ll be back later this afternoon to make my latest 50BC09 entry. Finally, halfway there!!

div class = “sorrow”

~ lobablanca

You opened the door to this cyberworld in which I have now lived for the better part of my years on this planet. You introduced me to this life of tech-savvy geekery that captured me in its Web and helped lead me to who, what, where, why, and how I am today.

Computers were always our starting point, our common ground, our shared language. I think for a while, you were close to giving up on me and my timid, clumsy ways around a computer. It wasn’t long, though, before I fell into the binary rhythm and began to hold my own in our conversations about the bigger-better-faster computer bug that had now bitten us both. You always indulged me, custom-meeting my every CPU craving, from 286 right through to dual core Athlon-ed gigs of geeky gamer goodness. I’m forever a PC Girl because of your influence.

You indulged us all regardless of how silly our passions, welcomed us into your home (whether for a dinner or a summer), accepted us for all our familial weirdness (with minor ribbing, of course; that’s what family does). Fleetwood Mac owed you huge for turning me into another of their lifelong fans. So did Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart.

You also fathered and helped raise two of my absolute favorite people in this whole universe.

You were a great big guy with an even greater, bigger heart. You’ll always be the Tech Guru in my Geek Pantheon.

I love you, Uncle E