Brainwaves of Sken

By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: Friday, November 5, 1999

The opponents of the measure gloomily predicted that by unshackling banks and enabling them to move more freely into new kinds of financial activities, the new law could lead to an economic crisis down the road when the marketplace is no longer growing briskly.

”I think we will look back in 10 years’ time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930’s is true in 2010,” said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. ”I wasn’t around during the 1930’s or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980’s when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.”

Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota, said that Congress had ”seemed determined to unlearn the lessons from our past mistakes.” | original article

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I started thinking about what it means to me, to be over 30, and what I’ve learned in my relatively brief time as an adult.

• I consider unreasonable personal fears to be an affront against myself – the assault of my subconscious mind upon my waking, thinking self. I think the way I deal with them started in middle school, when (after a particularly abusive year of failing to avoid attracting the attention of bullies) I forced myself to start looking people in the eyes (or their lips, at least) instead of the floor. It sounds like a tiny change, but it was huge, and I think I became addicted to challenging my own behavior.
• Speaking of, I have a fetish for trying to see things “as they are” rather than just from my own perspective. Oh, I definitely have my own viewpoint, and I may pursue it mightily, but I fail myself when I use language to make my viewpoint more appealing. Call it “bullshitting yourself with semantics”. Do I support the murder of animals (however humanely) for my own sustenance and clothing purposes? I do.
• In that vein, I believe it is vital that we understand what circumstances are within our control, and to be honest about the reasons that we do not change those circumstances. This feeds into item 1 – am I, hypothetically speaking, not pursuing a career opportunity, dating potential, or a difficult conversation because I am afraid of rejection? Is that fear reasonable? Most important to me is not blaming my circumstance upon other people or society as a whole, and also not to kick myself out of proportion to my role.
• Everyone won’t be satisfied with every decision. When making decisions regarding other people, I need to take the long view. That means considering what it says about me as a person. For instance, providing critical advice when appropriate – am I saying it out of affection and eagerness to help, or am I annoyed and attempting to change someone’s behavior?
• It’s not my responsibility to ensure everyone knows that I know I do not attain all of my goals, all the time. Similarly, I should not agonize over people taking my perspective as my ‘arrogant hypocritical dogma’. I speak for me, and hope others find something worthwhile in it, but everyone is responsible for making, and owning, their own decisions.

I’ve come to accept that some people will be more disappointed in me for failing an established moral path than in those with no direction at all. By stating what I stand to accomplish in my life, I make it easy to point to where I fall short. My compensation is in knowing that I’ve decided, in words, written down, who I want to be, and I reach to be that person at all times.

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I love it when my friends get together, especially from diverse groups. I’ll forget introducing people, and months later find out they’re fast friends – how awesome is that?

There was a friending frenzy on another journal, and it seemed to work out well so I thought I’d jump in.

Coment with some personal information about yourself, explaining why someone would want to read your journal; interesting people should find each other. ;)

You must, in addition, list your favorite music artist and your favorite book. I don’t care how you define favorite, as long as you don’t wuss out by saying you can’t decide. Pick something! Pick ten somethings!

I’ll start (and you needn’t be as verbose):

Skennedy here. My journal is not amazingly compelling at present – I share most of my cool links on Google Reader, frankly.

Sometimes, though, I write something of significance so I can be smugly impressed with myself. :) I talk about the nature of emotion, my love of learning, growth, video editing, my latest rant about crappy marketing tactics, and my snarky, attractive fiancee.

Mostly, I’m good to be friended because I’m a frequent commenter, and can be guaranteed to have an opinion on everything.

Music:
I like music with harmony, dissonance, or amazing lyrics. I like Poe, Ani DiFranco and the Indigo Girls, and I like Great Big Sea, the Decemberists, and Gaelic Storm. I dig White Zombie, (old) Metallica and Guns n Roses, and MC Frontalot, MC Chris and Massive Attack.

Books:
The last book I’ve finished was Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross. Previous to that, I finished a manuscript from Cory Doctorow for Makers – I identified with where he was going with it, and found it a good read.

My favorite book from my teen years was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. My favorite book when I was 10 (and the book I’ve reread more than any other) is The Talisman by Stephen King – my grandmother gave it to me, and I couldn’t put it down.

I am a highly sporadic reader, which probably stems from the way my family reads; like a locust swarm, if unchecked we will destroy our own food supply, sleeplessly consuming until there is nothing left to consume.

Therefore, I try to make it worth my time before I fall into that mess.

Your turn!

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So, the girl asks me if I could PLEASE make a post begging my flist for something.

Is anyone able to TIVO Sci Fi from Noon to Midnight tonight?

*chuckle*

See, we’ve missed out on the entire season of BSG, but we’d like to watch it together. And they’re doing the whole thing today, apparently.

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Top Secret Dance Off, an underground
network of real-world dance quests – pretty funky, eh? We should get on this shit.

The question is, which Top Secret Alliance should I choose?

Trouble-Chaser: Extreme environments. No fear. Stealth dance maneuvers.
Leveling up fastest in: +sneakiness, +awesomeness, +unreal

I’ll Be Waiting: Wild imagination. Will challenge anyone. Lays down the gauntlet.
Leveling up fastest in: +boldness, +coordination, +courage

Who Said I Was Dead?: Untested but unafraid. Untrained but not to be under-estimated.
Leveling up fastest in: +humor, +exuberance

Guilt-Edged: High-style, and yes we have dancing shoes. What’s cooler than cool?
Leveling up fastest in: +style, +beauty, +cleverness

The Scorched Face: Engineering a better dance-off. We have a system.
Leveling up fastest in: +awesomeness, +style

Forever After: For the love of dance.
Leveling up fastest in: +cleverness, +style

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So in paying my bills online today, I notice that comcast has my address as “15573 NORTHVILLE FORE” … which, as you might imagine, is missing a rather lot of vital information, yes?

I emailed billing customer service, asking them to flesh out my address, and what is the reply?

That I have to go to a local billing center to make this change.

I mean, what the hell? A) it’s clear that my address is wrong. B) it’s clear that the address I gave them is right, especially since I’ve had them visit my apartment multiple times. C) JUST FIX IT ALREADY. #%$&**&poop …

In other news, I think (other than rent and school loans) I’m entirely ebilled now, which has a number of benefits, including preventing those spies at HP from social-engineering my privacy away! Oh wait, that only happened to journalists … hm.

The work on our TV studio continues apace – apparently they were hauling in drywall this morning, which is a good sign that I’m not going to wake up canned tomorrow.

Getting up at 7 am sucks. Yes yes, some of you get up at 4 am, but I have been a night person since I was six, and I was rather enjoying the mosey in to work at 9:15 thing. I bust my ass while I’m here, and I often stay late, so it seems reasonable.

My ideal work schedule is 10-6. Well, to be honest, my ideal schedule would be 10-9p Monday through Thursday, but that was the singular good thing about doing phone support, and I hope to never do that again.

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We’ve all had someone walk by smelling like something really peculiar. Our elevator is like a torture chamber some mornings, as people put on perfume at 9 am so they smell nice at 5pm. It’s enough to make a guy take the stairs.

This morning, someone smelled intensely of Egg Nog.

What strange smells have you come across?

(No, poo isn’t strange. Sadly.)

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