Sethers's blog

Memories I never forget but are still Meaningless

I was lucky enough to have a couple of stoner friends in a few of my science classes in high school. I say that only because the stoner kids I knew were always very nice, pretty smart, and fun to goof off with in class while still getting good grades. Don't do drugs kids!

Anyhoo, despite having a couple of stoner kids for friends I was a pretty uptight dude back then. There was this one time we were working on a project and a girl came in with a note for something or other. I can't remember how the conversation started but, to be mischievous and obnoxious, one of the friends called loudly when she walked by "hey this guy thinks you're cute!". Being the uptight dude I was I needlessly denied the accusation vehemently. I say "needless" because it was obvious he was just messing around and, really, nobody cared.

But the truth is, I did think was cute. And I let that random girl who I thought was cute leave the room, and leave my life forever.

And that is the story of how I didn't meet your mother.

An old Story

Here's a story I might have told you before.

A few years ago my dad and I got to be extras in a documentary for a Californian PBS station. It was about the big San Francisco earthquake and directed by a guy my dad worked with. Our role was to be scientists in a crowded room immediately following the quake, all excitedly talking at once deciding what we should do.

It was very short scene and, although we were supposed to be animatedly discussing the problem with each other, none of the audio was used. So what did we talk about?

I paired up with a couple experiences extras. One was a middle aged guy who'd been in the business a while and the other was a kid probably around my age who did magician work on the side. At first we started discussing the actual earthquake, because that seemed appropriate. But somehow the discussion veered towards the much discussed possibility of California sinking into the sea sometime in the future. And the lucrative possibilities that come with it. This is our plan:

1. Buy a bunch of barren land on the California/Nevada border. 

2. Build luxury hotels.

3. Wait for California to sink

          -or-

3. Use evil science to make California sink.

4. Enjoy the profits of your cheap, instant beach front property. 

Also we found out that after the earthquake there was a very small tidal wave that hit California, inches high, We decided that if you could shrink the giant fire to a very small size, you could use the wave to take care of it.

This is how short filmers Roll

A short text messaging conversation between me and Bobby, who is coming over to edit some film with me:

Seth: Wanna come over in 15-20 min? 

Bobby: Yeah that's fine.

Seth: Hip. Don't forget to bring your Hollywood attitude.

Bobby: I already packed, but I'll try to find room for it.

Seth: Remind me to high five you for that.

Bobby: I will. 

QotD: "You May Delay, but Time Will Not" - Benjamin Franklin

What have you been putting off doing?
Submitted by BeautifullyBroken.

I love it when the QotD is perfectly aligned with the reason I wanted to make a post.

It's time for unthinking, immediate action people. It's time to make a mess of things and then destroy it. It's time to bring dejunkification to a close.

While my dejunkification project may have started only a year or so ago, in spirit it's been a battle nearing a decade. It all started on the last day of my freshman year of high school. I got tired of having to take care of my dusty, gross carpet so I tore it out. That started a "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" chain of events that ends NOW. Well not "now" now. I'm at work.

Why the sudden desire to deviate from my carefully paced plan? My sister and I moved out of our parent's storage (that sounds so pathetic when you look at it in context) and got our own much smaller storage room. We barely, baaaarreely managed to fit everything it. The pool table didn't help and I apologize for that. It's amazing how compact you can make a pool table...

 

Anyhoo, seeing a good bulk of my possessions, after already being whittled down greatly, jammed into a tiny space makes me want to whittle it down even more. Like a semi-obsessive session of grating cheese. Sure I have enough grated cheese on the plate, but it's just so facinating to see the block of chedder slowly shrink and transform into a stringy pile. Equal parts destructiveness and creation.

It just seems to me that the farther  I go the easier it is.

ALSO my mom and sister threw away my favorite Christmas decoration ever. It was a little wooden featurless reindeer that went together in parts and I loved it. Sure it was kind of broken, but I still loved it. Seeing that tossed aside so carelessly has thrown me into a severe depression DEPRESSION I SAY and I no longer care for anything I own.

sniff. poor reindeer.

In which seth goes to Hell

The backstory:

A while back some Mormon Missionaries were asking around for me. They talked to Bobby who felt they were being a tad standoffish, but told them where I usually was and said I wasn't working at the moment. A little odd. That was a while ago and I haven't heard anything since.

Since today.

They came back and found me at the desk. I actually needed to go work on something at the time so I was preparing a list of polite replies that would end the conversation quickly and amiably. There was a mischievous  voice in the back of my head telling me "Lie! Lie! It will be hilarious, lie!" but as usual I ignored it.

     Missionaries: "Are you Seth?"

     Seth: "No."

     Wait what did I just do?!

     Missionaries: "Oh...do you know where he is?"

     Seth: "I dunno. He might be in later."

And then they left.

I TOLD THEM I WASN'T WHO I AM.

So is this hilarious? Yeah it is. Was this a horribly wrong thing to do? Yeah it was. Mostly I'm curious as to why they know me and what they wanted. My theory is they're friends or know of my friend Eric, who is on his own mission at the moment. If so I'm sure we can all laugh about this later. Or they'll think I'm a jerkface. Either way.

 If, on the other hand, they came here for the purpose of converting me, well then it's a little inappropriate to do so in my workplace. ALSO they could have been Russian spies. You need to keep that in mind.

But that's just my opinion. What do you guys think? Am I going to hell, or did I merely give into instict?  

At the very least it does make a good story to tell the grandkids.

ALSO! I have to give credit to Nicole for sitting next to me the entire time and keeping a straight face. I guess we've been working together long enough to know how to react when one of us does something crazy like lie to a missionary. She's got my back.  

Breakthroughs can be Messy

I think I've had a breakthrough with some of my current problems. When I got home from work I noticed my room is a mess.

Well fine, it's been a mess for a while and it's been a pretty obvious mess. 

The point is history and my extensive self-diagnostic system tells us that my room is usually in a mess when I'm working on a big project. I'd link all the past cases discussed in previous Vox posts but I don't wanna. 

So if we assume that I have a major project going on, the only thing I have to do is...figure out what it is. I'm not really in school right now so...well that in itself could be the project. Maybe its becoming better organized at work? Really the project could be a metaphorical one, a project of my soul. Or maybe I've just gotten so worn down by life that I'm so lazy I can't be bothered to take off my clothes and put them in the dirty clothes bin five feet away and also can't be bothered to put my clean clothes in my closet two feet away, leaving confusing piles of clothes on my floor that may or may not be clean.

...

Yes, a project of my soul. 

QotD: Only One Choice in the Cereal Aisle

If you could only eat ONE cereal for the rest of your life, which one would you pick?

If I was thinking about survival, it would probably be some Kashi deal. But in all honesty I'd pick Cinnamon Toast Crunch and never look back.

Some things to Say

Let's get right to it.

-Vista reinstall. Again. 

My computer was giving me some odd errors when trying to upload photos to Photo Gallery. The chain of errors were sufficiently odd that I deemed it necessary to reinstall the OS again. So I think it's "ok" again, but I won't be able to use it until I (finally) buy some anti-virus software for it. Kaspersky is on sale at Amazon, but I need to wait until pay day to buy it, then until it ships to install it.

-School/job stuff.

There are some part time jobs opened up at the Clark County Library District that I want to apply for. Hopefully I'll have a means of transportation to get to them if I get one. But I doubt I will because that would be too easy, right? And as far as school goes, there's nothing more to report. I sent off an email to someone at UNLV but haven't heard back from them yet.

-What's with all the Woot! Offs?

Seems to be a lot of Woot! Offs going on over at woot.com. But I checked the numbers and it's no so far above average for a wooting year. Guess I'm not used to it. Did get me another Screaming Monkey keychain though.

-More on Ups and Downs

I've had a lot of highs and a lot of lows lately. I've decided to just take it in stride and assume tomorrow will be much better/worse regardless of today.

-Wasting time on YouTube but gaining inspiration.

The other day I was spending a lot of time watching short films on YouTube. It's made me really want to start making short films again. So if someone wants to buy me a nice video camera and/or a digital SLR with HD video that would be super.

-Planning storytimes

I've decided I really need to plan ahead for storytimes. As such I'm taking the downtime between storytimes sessions and making a reserve of them. I'm also going to set up a Shelfari account because Nicole says it's good for orgainizing books with tags.

-101 update

Ok. Uh...can't really think of anything to say for this one. Haven't completed any more that I know of.

-How the nice old man screwed up my work out routine.

Yeah this one sucked. Around Febuary or so I went to the rec center one early morning to renew my card for the fitness area. I was completely missing from the system. Working in the library I know weird things happen like that. But just to simplify things the lady at the desk renewed my card for a year. Free excersise for a year! It was awesome.

But my card gained an odd quirk. Everytime they scanned it the picture would show up as someone else. Not a big deal. Guess it isn't that uncommon there. Last week I went in and the kindly old man was so helpful as to take it upon himself to talk to the people on desk downstairs about it.  I feigned appreciation, not wanting to mess with a good thing. I ended up getting a new card anyway.

Then the next time I showed up he tells me someone else has gone wrong. The card is now only set for track use. I can't use any of the equipment. So then I have to talk to the people downstairs again, and this time they said I couldnt' do anything about it unless I had a reciept that showed the purchase, or at least something from my bank account. I told them straight up that I didn't pay for it, for which they countered that they'd still need a reciept. Logic!

In any case I paid for another month, so I haven't quite working out. Yet.


Aaaand I guess that's it for now.

Making a note to Myself

And I want you all to know so you can hold me to it. 

Tomorrow I will make a Vox post. Of quality. 

No, nothing really exciting. No, I'm not announcing anything. I just figured you guys would appreciate a decent post after so long.

I could do it tonight, of course, but while I was coming up with an alliteration inclined title, I decided to wait until after tomorrow's storytime. Who knows, by then maybe I'll have more news. At the very least I'll get paid to do it. Because I will be at work. 

Here's just some of what will be featured:

-Vista reinstall. Again. 

-School/job stuff.

-What's with all the Woot! Offs?

-More on Ups and Downs

-Wasting time on YouTube but gaining inspiration.

-Planning storytimes (yes with songs so shut up you three)

-101 update

-How the nice old man screwed up my work out routine. 

That should be enough for now.

ALSO remind me to update my theme.

Ups and Downs

I had half a mind to announce an indefinite Vox hiatus. Not because I'm going on a hiatus, but it would be more official than just never posting except to talk about how I'm not posting anything.

I think instead I'll just not post anything unless I feel like posting something.

Good news: Today I feel like posting something.

Bad news: It's one of those "I'm only posting to make a checkpoint record of my current state so I can read about it years later"

Right now life is swaying between "terrible" and "pretty good", depending on what's on my mind at the moment. But I neither feel in a doldrums and my motivation is actually not completely horrible.

 I even started working out again. I had planned on not starting again until next week, when the work on our bathrooms will be done. But there's always some excuse to not start today, be it arm surgery, sweltering heat or forgetting how to open the front door.

So when today was yesterday, I went for it. If only I could be so spontaneously decisive in other areas of my life. But progress is progress.

Speaking of progress, I finished my Adobe Classroom in a Book book on Phtoshop! Spent a long, difficult week with it. And haven't started any of the other Classroom books since.

 I also haven't done anything about getting a 2nd part time or a single full-time job aside from casually looking once in a while. Current research has proven that there's like, no jobs out there. Someone should alert the news.

Dejunkification is going along splendedly. I've realized that so far I've yet to get rid of anything and regret it. Most of it I'd probably forget if I didn't take pictures. This leads me to the theory that I probably could have just gotten rid of 90% of everything I own on that first day. But even if that was possible, it would have been exhausting, both mentally and physically. The psychological impact would have been astounding, of course, but I'd much rather get rid of everything I own a little bit at a time than fail at trying to kill it all at once. My sister and I are getting our own smaller storage. When I can see everything I own in one place it will be easier to know what I need to keep.

Aaaaaaand that's all you get today.

Sorry.