Maebius Musings

Just a quick video clip I found… which was awesome.

The subject is a bit of paraphrasing on a picturing being worth 1000 words. I’m guessing an animation is worth a few more than that.

http://www.babelgum.com/html/clip.php?clipId=147374

My favorite ‘clip’ is the one with the ‘mirror’, though the toast is pretty neat also.

also: The sprogling and his ducks!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrm9_0hxqfk

Enjoy!

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Yesterday, I was cleaning up my desk at work and re-arranged the little semi-altar spot with a few less wintery things and a few more springy things, but somehow it turned out less Brightly Spring and more “Spring evening“. I do this either when the muse strikes me, or about four times a year. I don’t actually adhere to a strict calendar of Beltaine/Samhain decorations at work, but keep it more subdued and only change it when I look and think “Oh, I should change that“. It’s better that way, I think. (click pictures for full-size)

To the ever-present cactus pot and ficus sproutling (raised from a cutting of a cutting of a cutting, with the ‘parent cuttings’ also visible on my desk), I had added a clam-shell that I found in a box of random junk from home while spring cleaning there, and a chicken bone we found in my back yard and picked up so the dog wouldn’t, plus replaced a few assorted rocks from the “bunch of collected rocks” I have.

To the clam shell, I added 4 chunks of rock-salt that were still sitting in the sandy gravel in the parking lot. (Usually, our workplace de-ices the lot with sand and slag-ash, which I then collect in buckets to augment our soil or fill flowerpots for seedlings. Unfortunately, in the last big unexpected freezing rain, the trucks apparently flung rock-salt crystals, which means the tonnes of sand still being swept into piles around the lot are useless for planting in now.)

While puttering this morning, I noticed the mood was rather darker (not necessarily bad) than the original “spring brightness”, but continued fiddling with things until it felt right. To the shell, I added about a half ounce of tap-water which started dissolving the salt crystals and made a really neat swirly pattern as the different densities swirled and mingled in the ‘bowl’. After watching this for few moments, I was inspired to drip a few drops of 100% Pomegranate juice into the shell.

Let me say the effect of that crimson liquid was immediate, unexpected, and powerful. My fingers tingled, the hair on my neck tingled, and I got that “Real Magic” feeling. My eyes were drawn into the impossibly deep pool of water as the pigments swirled and spread out. I felt myself lean into the pool, hesitate a moment to consider the fact I’m still at work, then shrugged and allowed myself to ‘fall in’ visually. Quite a visceral scrying experience!

In the depths, I saw a hillside bathed in just-morning light, red and welcoming, then a huge bonfire sprung up off to the side. Then a series of smaller fires flickered in and out over the course of a few seconds, as if an assembled army or pagan gathering were making cookfires in the field where a central Drumcircle-fire was built, but the cookfires sped up to fire-fly flashes while the central bonfire burned ‘normally’. Then, as fast as that happened, the vision swooped upwards like a barn swallow wheeling towards the distant cloudy horizon, and I had leaned back upright here at my work desk, an idiot grin on my face.

The whole thing took probably 20 seconds, but felt much longer, and by now, the Pom juice had evened throughout the water, and it was a simple shell filled with pinkish water.

However, the thing that made this experience even more entertaining and caused me to have this almost idiot-grin this morning, was when I looked up from the shell and saw the after-image on my mostly white computer monitor.

It was a blue shell-thing, hovering across some work-note about our timecards.

Blue Thing. (referenced from this dream)
I laughed.

…of course it makes sense that the thing I was supposed to be looking for wasn’t a Thing at all. Tricksy Fae!

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Yet another computer-game post, which you folks here for odd musings can skip if you need to. Long rambling fanboy-glee to follow.

The newest patch in World of Warcraft enables an additional new boss for folks to try out, named Emalon the Storm Watcher. He is no lame pushover, either! (Nolame=Emalon backwards :/ )

This boss is available periodically only after your faction wins a player-vs-player battle in a zone of the game, and defeating the boss drops top-end awesome gear if you are lucky. I was lucky enough to run with some of my guild folks, and some other random characters, ten of us in total (plus pets), but he dropped rogue gear, so nothing for me.

While I am not quite epic-geared as many in my guild, I was not turned down for the boss run, which made me happy. I get really annoyed when random PuGs look at my character and say “no, sorry, you need moar purplz” (epic gear).

The fight is rather complex, with multiple enemies, and a few tricky gimmicks for timing and positioning. As a single-target healer, my job was a little less chaotic, but still fraught with stress and rapid-fire keypresses. Essentially, my job in this fight was to heal the off-tank, and toss some group-heals if time permits.

The boss has 4 helpers, and will energize/overcharge one of them every so often. The DPS classes must, MUST kill the overcharged helper within something like 25 seconds or it explodes, killing our group. While this is happening, the main tank is holding the attention of the big-boss, and the off-tank is keeping all 4 helpers in line. The overcharged helper gets initially healed to full life and every few seconds gets a “stacking buff” to deal a bit more damage. This means, every so often my off-tank rapidly, RAPIDLY takes increasing damage. Earthmother’s Ashes, does that damage hit hard and fast!

To round out the boss’s abilities, every so often he will stop and charge up a Lightning Nova, that damages anyone standing near the boss’s feet after 5 seconds. Thus, it’s all but impossible to stand still and just spam heals/damage. The group as a whole is spread out and must move away from the boss to avoid the nova.

To keep an epic-feeling story short, Kanandi shielded and queued up a heal to land a half-second after the boss was engaged, then moved quickly to a far corner where the off-tank would round-up the helpers. From there, I kept myself shielded and OMGWTF cast heal spells at my target. Only my off-tank. Did I mention only? …with about 4 minor exceptions where I could quick-miniheal someone who took some Nova damage. Otherwise, if I hesitated a moment, hit the wrong key, or otherwise made a ‘mistake’ like pausing to, you know, sneeze once, the person I was healing died.

In fact, the first time we engaged the boss we didn’t realize how FAST the DPS needed to switch to the overcharged enemy. 26 seconds later, the screen goes boom and 9-10 people were dead. 2 second or less after that, the still-standing main tank fell to 5 big nasties smacking on him. ..Woah!

All told, we wiped (died) as a group six times. Once from me tossing a few extra heals to patch up minor damage from the Nova on other characters, thus letting my target die (I learned quick!). Once from me and a few others getting a lag-spike that caused a fatal delay in healing/damage. And a few more on something/one else that eventually resulted in an Overcharged explosion. Still, each time we did noticeably better and closer to killing the boss.

The epic-ness of the whole evening was how little guilt and blame was given out. In the case of me not concentrating on my target, I understood, “do it differnet next time“. When the DPS zigged instead of zagged to pick up the overcharged enemy, those people nodded with a “yep, my bad“. The majority of us there were new to the encounter, and I suppose it showed.
Yet, each time, people understood the fight a bit better, smoothed out their strategy, and worked to improve. No one whined about repair bills, no one pointed fingers accusingly when things went wrong. We simply stopped, took mental notes on what happened, and vowed to push forward One.More.Time. until it was done. On the last attempt, with the local time of midnight and a few folks starting to mumble about sleep, we did it. The fight lasted just over 5 minutes, and had a rhythm and flow that was awesome to experience.

Offtank pulls everything, I heal-spam… main tank taunts boss and drags him to opposite corner… Boss novas, we run away, then move back in… helper gets Overcharged, all healers switch to the off-tank and pray he survives while DPS blows cooldowns to KILL IT NOW… Overcharge addd dies, I breathe for 1.834 seconds… Boss novas… another helper respawns and gets overcharged…. rinse… repeat. Every 30 seconds.

I have never, in all of Kanandi’s healing, had such a hair-trigger job, against such a challenging boss. I have never before felt that sense of “progression” where each attempt was better than the last with NO whining from the unguilded random people with us. I felt like a “Real Raider”, and was honestly and sincerely Proud to simply see some unknown stranger get the gear that dropped. The teamwork was palpable, and appreciated. We all worked our butts off to get things done, and each person had the most important part. If one fell, we all fell (within 25 seconds!).

It was epic.

I can’t wait to do it again next week!

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Back when I was younger, one of my more fond memories was hanging out with my dad (and sometimes uncle) and coming up with all manner of philosophical discussions on the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything. (yes, also inspired by that book).

One of our more persistant ‘theories’ from back in… I don’t even know how long ago, but think it was around 1990-ish..was that of Dark Suckers. While going through the attic to clean out some stuff, my father found this ancient manuscript, reproduced here for your amusement!

DARK SUCKERS

For years it has been believed that electric bulbs emitted light. However, recent information has proven otherwise. Electric bulbs don’t emit light,…….they suck Dark. Thus we should call these bulbs Dark suckers. The dark sucker theory proves the existence of Dark, that Dark has mass heavier than light, and that Dark is faster than light.

The basis of the Dark sucker theory is that electric bulbs suck Dark. Take for example, the Dark suckers in the room where you are. There is much less Dark right next to them than there is elsewhere. The larger the Dark sucker, the greater it’s ability to suck Dark. Dark suckers in a parking lot have a much greater capacity than the ones in this room. As with all things, Dark suckers don’t last forever. Once they are full of Dark, they can no longer suck. This is proven by the black spot[s] on a full Dark sucker. A candle is a primitive Dark sucker. A new candle has a white wick. You will notice after the first use, the wick turns black, representing all the Dark which has been sucked into it. If you hold a pencil next to the wick of an operating candle, the tip will turn black because it got in the way of the Dark flowing into the candle. Unfortunately, these primitive Dark suckers have a very limited range. There are also portable Dark suckers. The bulbs in these can’t handle all the Dark by themselves, and must be aided to a Dark storage unit [batteries]. When the Dark storage unit is full, it must be replaced before the portable Dark sucker can operate again.

Dark has mass. When Dark goes into a Dark sucker, friction from this mass generates heat. Thus it is not wise to touch an operating Dark sucker. Candles represent a special problem, as the Dark must travel into a solid wick instead of through clear glass. This generates a great amount of heat, thus it can be very dangerous to touch an operating candle. Dark is also heavier than light. If you swim just below the surface of a lake, you see a lot of light. If you slowly swim deeper and deeper, you notice it getting darker and darker. When you reach a depth of about 50 feet, you are in total darkness. This is because the heavier Dark sinks to the bottom of the lake and the lighter light floats to the top. The immense power Dark can be utilized to man’s advantage. The deeper the body of water, the more Dark is stored, and the more potential can be derived from it. We can collect the Dark that has settled to the bottom of lakes and push it through a turbine, which generates electricity and helps move the Dark to the ocean, where it can be safely stored. Prior to turbines, it was much more difficult to get the Dark from the rivers and lakes to the ocean.

The Indians recognized this problem and tried to solve it, as they were well-attuned with the natural world. When on a river, in a canoe, traveling in the same direction as the flow of Dark, they paddled slowly, so as not to stop the flow of Dark. When they traveled against the flow of Dark, they paddled quickly, so as to help push the Dark along it’s way.

Finally we must prove that Dark is faster than light. If you were to stand in an illuminated room in front of a closed Dark closet, then slowly open the closet door, you will see the light slowly enter the closet. But, since Dark is so fast, you would not be able to see the Dark leave the closet.

In conclusion, I would like to say that Dark suckers make all our lives much easier. So the next time you look at an electric bulb, remember that it is indeed a Dark sucker.

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Spring is here on my property, with the daffodils finally blooming yellow and vibrant agaisnt the muddy ground in our little garden.

The geese have returned to the pond, and buds are starting to swell in red-tinted anticipation for a proper warming of the soil.

Today, it is also the 250′s anniversary of Gregory Handel’s death, and what better way to celebrate both the returning flowers, and a brilliant classical composer, than to listen to one of his works.

Enjoy! (Parts 1 & 2 of “Music for the Royal Fireworks” )
Georg Friedrich Händel – Music for the Royal Fireworks Ouverture: Adagio – Allegro – Lentement – Allegro Paul Dombrecht Il Fondamento

Georg Friedrich Händel – Music for the Royal Fireworks Bourrée – La Paix – La Réjouissance – Menuets Paul Dombrecht Il Fondamento

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For those who celebrate the holiday, Happy (belated) Easter! For those who follow a more euro-pagan festival schedule, I realize we missed Ostara-proper already, but C’est la vie.

In more important news, I must admit I lost track of my Faerie mindfullness this past month, even in the midst of mentally preparing for visiting Spoutwood Farm’s Faerie Festival. The house-fae have noticed this, and actually enacted a dire portent for my idleness. (warning, long series of two two stories to follow, ignore as needed, I’m mostly posting this to record it for my own posterity before I forget it)
Friday night, I dreamed a strange dream that was part real-life memory flashbacks and part Dream-logic Exerpeince. I was in ‘the bonfire area’ after finding the Blue Thing for Windriver (It was a beautiful stone egg, which I found in real-life but did not have a working credit card to buy last week) but he was mad and said the Fire-Sprites were feeling un-loved as well. I was given the feeling in rather harsh yet capricous terms to “Fix That, dude”.
Our (real life) lack of trash-burning and a small bio-char fire to clear out the garden’s dried weeds were apparently not enough, or too disrespectful. Windriver didn’t want the Blue Thing anymore, since I was already too lazy to get it. I agreed I’d not spent as much time as possible looking for it. I was warned “You thinking of getting something nice at Spoutwood was too easy and not in the spirit of the deal. Please try harder now that Tax Season is over, M’kay?“

I woke up then and left it at that for the weekend. I’d been admonished my my own conscience as well for lack of dedication to that particular venue of spiritual practice. Plus, we had company over, so I couldn’t really get outside for a proper meditation in my usual place and time.

Saturday was fun, but had one disturbing event. We were walking around the far pack pasture with our guests (young girls, 11 & 15) petting the horses and such. I made a comment out-loud regarding a huge patch of mowed-over briars and wanting to burn them away to clear the location for grass and prevent injury to the horses. The girls were off petting horses, but at that very moment a flock of pidgeons cast a shadow over us as they wheeled about. It was coincidental enough I made note of the event with a wry smile, and subvocally told WindRiver “yep, I get it, that’ll be a good/useful fire“.

We returned to the house, getting rather chilly as the temperature dropped and our dog was howling at being chained up near the house. We let the dog off her chain, and ran around in the backyard for a good 15 minutes. Then, the older girl called me over to point out a patch of yard a bit off from where we were walking (due to being even more briar-strewn) appeared to be faintly smoking. I watched for a moment, and every so often, a small blue tendril of woodsmoke was coming from the thorn-patch?!?!

Of course, I then proceeded to gather up my charge (and the dog) and trek back out through the swampy bit of our yard. There, just off-center of a larger briar-pile, was a little flickering flame, slowly working its way through last years’ thorn-trimmings and dead grasses. By the look of the ashen circle, (about 5 ft across) it must have been smoldering for quite a few minutes before we saw it. I would have guessed it would burn itself out eventually, since the terrain around that pile of dry thorn-twigs was really soupy and bereft of dry grasses, but we stomped out the fire ourselves for safety sake.
I wish I could say myself, or one of the girls, tossed a lighter/matches off into the distance, or some other logical reason for a bush to spontaneously combust. I can’t think of a good reason why it started in such cold breezy conditions. Even today, my eyes almost water from the spookiness of that little flame…..

***

Last night, I dreamt we went to the Spoutwood Fairie Festival, myself, my son, and some random woman who was not my wife or any known friend. This didn’t seem unusual in the dream itself, until about halfway through. There didnt’ seem to be any reason or plot for hte dream itself, beyond checking out random vendors and interacting with lots of cool random people in costume. Somehow I knew that the setting was more PA Renaissance Fairegrounds than Spoutwood Farm, yet it was a completely different place, in that odd dream-logic that makes you know certain things while being aware they are not quite ‘correct’ in real-world definitions.

We bought some candy, we played along with a few wandering jester-types and fae-kin, and had a wonderful time, yet I was bored. Nothing bad was happening, but I had a dream-sense of faint apathy, bordering on worry. The sun was shining in my dream, and the kid was laughing. My wife appeared by my side about halfway through the dream, though this only made the lucid part of my brain consider “Hmm, wonder who that was here before her?“

Towards the end of this dream, the kid started fussing about wanting some Cotton Candy. We could not find the Cotton Candy vendor, but did run across a “Faerie” street performer with blowing bubbles (I dream-knew this guy was actual Fae, playing human at the event). He was using those “touchable bubbles” to the delight of the kids around him. They would get the bubbles on their fingers, hair, etc and much rejoycing ensued. I suddenly found a clear glass marble in my pocket and asked if I could catch one of the bubbles. After receiving permission, I held the glass marble in my hand, grabbed a bubble in mid-air, (popping it) and commented “No, you can keep it” while I tossed the “solid bubble”/marble back to the street performer.

At that moment, I smiled, thinking it was a nifty trick, but I instead got scolded for “cheating with real-life magic” and I woke up.

Hmm… The whole dream sequence was remarkably clear and lucid, but felt like it had no “message” other than to leave me rather confused at the clarity and lack of message. I’ll be pondering this one further tonight….

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Excuse the harsh tone of the title here, I just read some things on my web searches that struck me very deeply, and I am seething in anger and frustration.

My own employment is currently on the rocks, and a source of personal stress, since the cause of it is essentially outside my control. Our manager is fearing for her own job, and told us that the way things are going, it is assumed that one of us will be let go eventually unless something miraculous happens. It’s not a fun atmosphere knowing that even if I do everything right, I may still lose my job. It sucks.
Then I saw this article about FOX making a reality “vote them off” style show using small business employees as their “contestants”.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090408/ap_on_en_tv/tv_fox_layoff_show;_ylt=AnircPAgCc0eOatjJRyphJh34T0D

Here’s a blurb:

The series, “Someone’s Gotta Go,” is in production, but Fox wouldn’t say on Wednesday when it would go on the air.

Each episode will feature a company with about 15 or 20 employees that needs to cut costs because of the economy. Instead of the boss deciding who is fired, the company will open its books to show everyone’s salaries and let the employees make the call.

In an inverse to “The Apprentice,” the chosen one loses, instead of gets, a job.

Fox says the laid-off worker will get a small severance, but isn’t saying whether the network or producers are paying the participants in anything beyond the chance for prime-time fame. Fox is developing the show with Endemol USA, the company behind “Big Brother,” “Deal or No Deal” and “Fear Factor.”

Am I alone in being more than moderately outraged?! Has our debased humanity sunk to this level of voyeuristic sadism? What the HELL is wrong with us?!

For everyone who is losing their employment in this troubled economy, they have my sympathy. For the folks at FOX who decided to cash in on the situation like this, and offer unfortunate people a probably stipend beyond “15 minutes of bad-press fame”, I am finding it very hard not to wish you be dragged naked over burning coals.

/takes a deep breath….

To try to counter-point it, I suppose making public light of the economy is a defensive mechanism, and the studio execs are being creative in a sagging TV market. But even those feeble attempts at rationalizing it away seem too false for me.

This show is a new depth of lowness for an already low-brow station. While there are some decent shows on FOX still, the wheat is getting covered by more and more chaff.

I’m glad I don’t watch TV anymore beyond my few weekly dramas. (House, Bones, and Dollhouse)

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(original Mom-image link)

I just received the slightly inaccurately named “Mom of the Year Award” from my e-friend down in beautiful Rio de Janeiro, Nydia of the Bringing up Salamanders blog. Being a dad myself, I cant quite live up to the full Mom title, though I did share my part in bringing our little bundle of joy into the world (literally), and am happily married to the actual Mom. The image has now been added to the “awards” page for this blog. Thanks!!
Here are the rules:
First, Admit one thing you feel awful about involving being a mom dad. Get it off your shoulders. Once you’ve written it down, you are No Longer allowed to feel bad. It’s over with, it’s in the past. Remember, you’re a good mom dad!

Hmm…I wrote it down, and burned the paper. While I believe the spirit of this rule is to share the frustrations on Parenting as a show of unity and solidarity among all awarded parents, I feel that actual public airing of any grievances on my blog would only come back to bite me years later (when I become president or something). Plus, I don’t want to encourage the sharing of my own dirty laundry. The magic of getting it off my shoulders has been worked. I’m a good dad.

Then, Remind yourself you are a good mom dad, list seven things you love about your kids, you love doing with your kids, or that your kids love about you. These are the things to remind yourself everyday that you Rock!

Without further adu:

1. I love coming home from work and getting immediately accosted to “Help me with this Craft/Homework/Toy/Game”. He looks forward to seeing me return.
2. I love the fact that he’s created an entire fantasy world, with surprising consistency, for us to play in on rainy days or long car rides. Warrior Brothers are we.
3. I love the fact that he is a voracious reader, with a mastery far above his grade level, and a willingness to devour everything at the library. An evening without a book is a sad evening indeed, at our house.
4. I love going hiking outside, swimming, camping, and all the outdoor stuff, and knowing that my little one already understands basic ecological principles. Leaves are worm food and become dirt, the chickens eat bugs and lay eggs, and litter in the water hurts our garden food when we irrigate. Those are important skills to know, and he doesn’t shy away from such “boring science talks” usually.
5. I love boy-time, even when it makes my wife shake her head in soft-hearted confusion. Beating up, and getting beat up by my son until one of us is defeated is fun. The punishment for losing being a tickle-torture or “zerbert” is totally worth surrendering, even if I could overpower him easily.
6. I love the fact that this weekend, my son said “Dad, I love you best cause you help me and are the best video game player in the world!”.
7. I also love the fact that this same weekend, my son said “Mom, I love you best because you snuggle me at night and let me read you stories!”.

Finally, I am supposed to link 5 other mothers across the Blog-o-sphere, to nominate them for this award. Unfortunately, the blogs I actively follow are either already members of this prestigious club, are not mothers themselves, or have blog focuses which seem a bit out of place for such a “parent-centric” award.

So, I will have to possibly break a few rules and try to list just the few blogs who I do not immediately recall having been nominated already, and are parental-types, and are awesome. If you have this award already, my bad… If not, now you do!

• Of course, Anne Johnson of The Gods are Bored. Especially with her latest post.
• Barefoot Kitchen Witch,source of inspirational foodstuffs and awesome kids.
• The Hillbilly Fairy, maker of nifty little purse/pouches and generally nifty blogger.
• Having the word Muse in their blog, Magical Musing gets bonus points from me here.
• Two and a Half Orcs is a young couple with a dedication to family beyond the MMO.
• Pom Wonderful (who I must admit I associate now with delicious anti-oxidant-rich beverages in the goddess-shaped bottle. Sorry, I just love pomegranates !!)

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The Sprogling, my 5yr old, and I were making up stories the other day, and at the request of his teacher I encouraged him to write down at least a few lines himself (though I was available to finish things if he got too wordy).

The following is thus, a story by my son. Unedited, and translated from ink to electrons for your enjoyment, entirely in his own words! (Sorry, I don’t have the camera to scan the page as an image for here.)

One day there was a tillion frogs and they all turned into polywogs again. The polywogs played with the other Polywogs in the pond.

All the polywogs liked playing with the other polywogs, so they played some more.

But then, a big frog-eating bird came, but they were too fast. It could not catch them so they escaped.

The end.

I’m going to try and convince him to illustrate the story at some point, maybe this weekend, so we can make a little booklet to save and.or give away as gifts to family (I know Grandma would love one!)

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What more can I say, beyond the subject-title of this post.

May your days this week be SCRUMTRILESCENT!

-Maebius

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