I haven't posted in a while, so here are a few random thoughts:

1. WALL-E is the best movie ever... But why is it that when you love a movie and then decide to acquire the soundtrack, that the music, more often than not, turns out to be not quite so good when there aren't any visuals to go with it? This is especially true with Pixar movies. Amazing movie, amazing story, amazing characters, music, everything! But the music just doesn't seem to work when you listen to it alone. Here I am, listening to the WALL-E soundtrack and there's one good track on it... Which just so happens to be that eerie apocalyptic music that plays at the very beginning of the movie. The rest is far too ambient to be of any real value. That, and the music that does stand on its own is made by none other than Peter Gabriel... That's right. The guy Ubisoft insisted on putting into Uru as a selling point alone. You bet it was for marketing purposes... Not only did it not fit at all with the mood of any Myst game, but they even plastered the guy's name all over the box as if that was a reason for buying the stupid thing.

2. Holodecks in Star Trek: The Next Generation are very odd. On Voyager, if the EMH ever crossed the edge of the holoprojectors, that part of him would cease to exist, period, until he moved back into the projection area. The holodecks in TNG seem to have an interesting residual effect... Holographic lipstick remained on the real person even after they left, and holographic characters leaving the room lasted for several seconds until dissipating, and they insinuate that if you terminate a program with real people inside, that everyone would disappear if you did it incorrectly, as if the real people were also holograms. I think it's absolutely hilarious that the first real look at the TNG holodecks was also an episode where it broke down... You'd think that with such a high risk of deadly faults and susceptibilities that the things would either be isolated and shielded from outside interference or flat out removed from starships. I've come to the conclusion that Star Trek does not age very well at all... I guess this is a fact for most technology-based stories.

3. I'm playing EVE Online again. It started off just as boring as last time, but I did some more research and focused my character's learning on combat skills and now I'm in cruisers and killing things has become far easier. But then a friend of mine in real life invited me into a corporation that he was a part of and neglected to tell me that this particular corporation was at war with other corporations. Actually, there's a main corporation that he's a part of and then there's a training corporation that I'm a part of. New people start off in the training corp first for an evaluation period. The thing is that, officially, the training corp is not related to the main corp. They're supposed to be entire separate entities that each tend to themselves, so the main corp doesn't go out of their way to help the training corp. This proves to be an issue when the REST of the players know that they're basically the same corp, so when the main corp makes someone angry, they declare war on the training corp, too, but the main corp doesn't bother to help the training corp fight because, after all, they're not "officially" the same corp. It reeks of the typical "oh, sure, join our guild and we'll help you with anything you need" and then when the time comes to put the promises to the test? "We're busy, sorry, don't bother us. We can't help. Do it yourself." Right... First, if I thought I could do it myself, I wouldn't be asking. Second, though, they promised to help but are, in fact, not helping after I've decided to give them a shot. I'm debating leaving but, of course, if I do that, then I'm an arrogant fool who needs to learn how to deal with the fact that not everyone can come to my rescue whenever I call... Right. Because that's me to a tee, isn't it.

4. My new computer. After what? Two months of trying to work, I have a grand whopping total of 200 dollars in my bank account. I had expected to have my computer by now, but priorities keep changing around here and the jobs I'm assigned keep changing. First it's mass producing cabinets for some guy we know who never pays us on time, but at least it was a consistent source of income... But, alas, he hasn't wanted us to make cabints for weeks now, so then we had to concentrate on building a new kitchen for someone, but then I was relegated to figuring out how to make spinning wheels. That's right... Like those wool spinning wheels to make yarn? Apparently, it's a niche market with some strong demand in our area, since there's a lot of general backwards history-loving fanatics people who enjoy looking back to the "good old days" re-enacting and such. (Sorry, I'm feeling particularly snarky right now. My area of interest is, quite clearly, looking forward to the next technological breakthrough... Not wishing to live in the wild west.) The only problem with this is that nobody knows exactly how to make a spinning wheel, and I'm left to do a lot of the work by myself and it's taking far, far, far longer than certain people have predicted. I am not at all pleased and I may be looking into mowing yards with my brother. Unfortunately, the average work day is about 10 hours, from 7 to 5, and that will severely cut into my blogging and general "getting online-ness". On the other hand, my brother gets some pretty nice checks, even after taxes (which are taken care of by the employer, I might add). Soon, when college and school starts up again, there will be a shortage of people to mow, and I could probably easily get a job, but it would be from then until the beginning of winter. Hopefully the whole making 2000 dollar spinning wheels plan will pan out and I can make some nice money doing that, but even if we sell them for that much, I don't see myself making as much as my brother, since I obviously won't get all 2000 dollars. I might be lucky to make what I've always made...

5. (Which is the number of Riven, not that anyone remembers Riven anymore. Mysterium? Hah... More like Uru-Fanaticism-Erium, but that clearly doesn't sound as awesome as "Mysterium", nor is it something that people could even pronounce, so I understand why they keep the old name, even if it is misleading.) Anyway, 5 is that I'm tired and I'm going to go to bed now... I could inject something about liberals and Obama here, but I think that if anyone's been reading any news lately, they could easily see what's going on with the "objective" mainstream media and wouldn't need me to point it out. And now, without further ado, I will sign off on a post that could easily be turned in for a day of NaNoWriMo. (Which, didn't you hear, is such an absolutely worthless thing to do? Didn't you hear that it encourages people to write complete crap? Yeah! That's what I've been told... Those of us who actually participate know just how hilariously ironic those claims are, heheh.)

Yeah, I'm going now... Before I overdose on cynical sarcasm and hurt someone's brain or feelings (or both)! Not that, you know... Such a thing would be a bad thing. I mean, it could be, but I'm not lying or twisting the words of anyone. That could be an interesting philosophical discussion. I've already had one about the morality of lying to people to comfort them, but what about using the truth even if you know it could hurt people? Sorta the same thing, but opposite, only not... Guess it would depend on if your intentions are to hurt. I guess it's one thing to intentionally want to hurt by wielding the truth as a cudgel, and quite another to use the truth in a discussion with the intention of being truthful. You could know that it would hurt someone, but you say it anyway, not to intentionally hurt... The hurt would be more like a side-effect. I guess there's some truth to the phrase "the truth hurts", eh? Yeah... See, here I go editing a post I've made in an effort to inject more ideas nobody wants to hear into a post that nobody reads.