Cop-Out Weekend #1

Hey guys! I have to level with you—I have nothing to write about for this moderately cooler Sunday. I've got things bouncing around in my head, but I have nothing definitively planned out.

I know, you hate me. I'm sorry.

But don't despair! (Because I'm sure these blog posts is the highlight of all y'all's week.) I do have some filler material for you to read. It's some experimental creative writing work—I wouldn't say it's my best stuff, nor my most entertaining stuff to read, but feel free to share your opinions and comments on it. Brutal honesty is appreciated. :-)

I might have some important announcements for next week, on a little project I've been working on for some time now, so stay tuned!

Infuscomus

The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents

--H.P. Lovecraft

Why is it you seek me out? You are not the first, you know, to crave. To crave what you cannot have. To crave what you do not deserve. It is no problem of mine to let you reap what you have sown. Why would I care at all? Your hand shakes with anger, your heart beats with fear, and your mind cries in agony. It's too much for you, isn't it? It is not enough what he did to you, that you cannot torture yourself.

Post tenebras spero lucem¹

Do not change the subject. You cannot see light in the darkness, and cannot hope your shroud will be lifted. You are here with a purpose. You are here because you chose to be, not because you want to be. I will do nothing for you without a clear purpose.

Infuscomus²

I will not pity you. Listen to what your mind tells you. Listen to what your tongue tells me. I cannot feel your hurt, you fill me with no empathy. I will tell you what you want to hear, I will give you promises I will not keep, as I dangle a carrot in front of your face. What do you care? You are not even listening!

Pestis cruento. Caedo amor.³

What a pitiful creature you are. If you could understand your own words, I would admire your audacity. I would congratulate you on your choices, on your steadfast determination. Instead, I am subject to your fear and angst, your paralysis. It is not my duty to care for you, for I do not know how. It is not my duty to get you to listen, for I do not speak your language. It is not my duty to grant clarity, for the minds of man are too fragile to know truth.

Nihil Sine Deo⁴

You were already nothing, before you came to me. Your icons and phrases mean nothing to me. Your formalities and prattling mean nothing to me. The only thing I want is your heart. I want what drives you forward through your time of stress. Give me your motivation, give me what fuels your fear. Determination, steadfastness, love—they mean more to me then anything else, yet few have ever given me that much. Few believe I am capable of all three.

Ego tribuo meus animus⁵

Very well. You shall have what you seek, if it will cease your endless whinging. You exist among the many unwilling to change, unwilling to accept who they would be if they could let go. I pity those who will endure your wrath, those who become victim to your paltry designs. You will not have mine when the time comes.

Badly Translated Latin:

1 After darkness, I hope for light

2 Blacken

3 Plague with blood. Kill love

4 Nothing without God

5 I give my soul

Hope you enjoyed it! I'll have some real content for you next week.

Some Like It Hot!

My god, has it been hot last week! Hot enough to melt your Winnebago!

For those of us living in the United States, we've been experiencing record-breaking temperatures, with exceptionally high humidity and very little rain throughout the entire country. It's terribly hot, and I lack the motivation to do absolutely ANYTHING outside.

I'm not sure how people can enjoy these ridiculously hot Summer days. I'm sure these temperatures are too much even for Summer-lovers, but I can't even stand 80-90 Summer weather! There's nothing pleasant about trying to keep cool, with the sun continually sapping the energy right out of you. I've always been a Winter guy myself, preferring to keep warm in below-freezing temperatures. I feel there's a lot more to do in the Winter on extremely cold days then there is on extremely hot days.

Yeah, I can hear you Summer-lovers snickering over there, lying lazily on your sofa, in a wife-beater and Daisy Duke's, drenched in sweat. It seems oxymoronic, right? Winter's supposed to be the stay-indoors time, and Summer's supposed to be the time to get out and “git-r-dun,” so to speak.

Yeah, sure, the snow and cold air makes going outside a bit unpleasant, and going for a causal drive can be treacherous between all of the blizzards and patches of black ice that form on the roads (especially since there are so many people who don't know how to DRIVE in such conditions). But you also don't have the brutal, inescapably pervasive heat killing construction workers and the elderly, who are typically doing nothing but just sitting in one spot. Unless you have the luxury of having several AC units, you'll be constantly fried, even if all you do is sit in the shade, thanks to the humidity. Think stripping down naked is going to help? It might for a bit, but all it'll do is make your sagginess a little more noticeable, and you'll still have to cover yourself in cold water and ice to feel any better. Whereas in the winter, if you start feeling chilly, all you have to do is throw on another layer of clothing and you'll be comfortable enough. Of course, if you're the type who enjoys turtling under a pile of blankets, it might make mobility a bit of a challenge, but generally you'll only need 2-3 layers when you're inside (make that 3-4 if you're outside). And if that's not enough, there's room on your body for more.

I mean, what can you do on a hot Summer day, besides sweating all over the furniture? What would you have the motivation to do, besides sitting on the beach sun bathing? (Actually, I'll admit that summer has one benefit—bikini-clad chicks sunbathing.) It's too hot to go for a hike, too hot to doing work in your garden, and too hot to make any kind of exertion. It makes you easily fatigued, whereas the brisk, cold air of Winter is enough to wake anyone up (note how passed-out drunks are always revived with ice-water to the face, and not boiling water...though I suppose, on second thought, they do that to prevent sending said drunk to the hospital with second-degree burns). There's so much to do on a cold, snowy day—you can make forts and snowmen, you can go sledding, skiing, or snowboarding, and you can even EAT the snow if you want! (Insert mindless “yellow-snow-ain't-lemon-flavored” joke here.) People make sport of ice climbing, and it's fairly easy to stay in shape when you shovel at least part of your driveway and walkway each week. I mean, who wants to work-out on these hot Summer days! Gah! You people make me sick!

With all that being said, I don't mind 70-80 degree weather with some humidity. The Fall and Spring are great times to hike and enjoy the sights Mother Nature has to offer. But any hotter than that and I'll be cursing you people who enjoy this kind of weather! And as our current weather has broken all previously made records, I don't even have the motivation to do that. Hell, typing on the keyboard is making me sweat with exertion.

So do you hear me Mother Nature? You better start cranking that thermostat down! Or else I'll—I'll—well, I'll just sit here fuming, making myself feel even worse! Yeah!

My first lecture

As promised, my first real blog post is being put up today! Hooray!

I want to talk about something that I just watched a short while ago on YouTube. The video has been out since 2007, so I'm definitely a little behind the times, but I felt it was a very interesting video to watch. I'm talking about “Randy Pausch's Last Lecture.” If you haven't seen it, it's a recording of a university technology professor giving a lecture at Carnegie Mellon University. He had been diagnosed with cancer, and was quite literally giving the last lecture of his life.

I generally cringe whenever I have to sit and watch a motivation speaker. They're like those motivational posters you see hanging in offices with things like “TEAMWORK!” or “SOAR LIKE AN EAGLE INTO YOUR FUTURE...AND TEAMWORK!” That is to say, they don't mean a whole lot, but you are forced to listen to it in order to bring about a sense of motivation and camaraderie. To be even more blunt, motivational speeches tend to be a complete waste of time.

Someone I knew recommended this video to me, and I knew he had basically the same opinion of motivational speeches as I do. I went in with some skepticism, but I must say I thought it was well worth my time.

The man was just so up-beat about everything he had ever done. He had helped to develop some amazing VR technologies and spent much of his life teaching youngsters how to develop their own talents in the tech field—even for the students who weren't Computer Science majors. He was laughing, he was making jokes, he was looking back at his life with nothing but fondness and contentment.

He did all of this, with the specter of cancer floating over his head.

It was truly remarkable watching Randy talk. This wasn't some guy getting paid to say a few fancy-sounding words of wisdom to a bored audience. The guy had a passion about his accomplishments, despite his ailments, and his way of communicating how important it is to just get out and grab life by the horns reached me in a personal way.

I don't want to poorly summarize his speech, so I'll give you the link below—it's an hour long and completely worth watching.

The video certainly puts things into perspective for me, as a young guy going out into the world. It's easy to lose track of where one is heading in life, or to become lost in the tangled mess that is our past experiences. I guess these would be the “brick walls” Randy spends so much time talking about, that prevent us from reaching our destinations.

It's important to stay focused on the things you want to do. As the Ricardo Montalban sound-alike guy on Zombo.com says, “The only limit is yourself!” And that is so incredibly true.

The brick walls everyone faces are meant to be climbed over and surmounted—the real question is, do you have the motivation to get over it? What else is stopping you from achieving what you want to achieve?

God, I sound like one of those typical motivational speakers, don't I? I'll stop before I get too full of myself, I think. But Randy Pausch has some good things to say about getting through life's troublesome periods, and is definitely worth a watch. If a man with cancer could look at life with fondness and a smile, then what is stopping the rest of us?

Remember, I'll be updating every Sunday with something new, so be sure to check in!

Let's get this party schtahted!

I guess this would be the first post of my blog. Welcome to the Tut's Tomb, a blog to be filled with my ramblings on various topics. At least for now, I will be using this space as a way to focus on what I find important, or on the kinds of topics I wish to REALLY write about. I might put up reviews on movies, books, or games, while discussing whatever might be happening in the REAL world. I will also use this place to post some of my creative works, for the rest of you people to throw rotten tomatoes at.

I plan on updating this weekly (Sundays, presumably), but we shall see where things end up. I expect to put something up tomorrow, so be sure to check in!

LINKS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo&
http://www.zombo.com/