Got this from "Red" Seth Schwarts. It is a magnificent implement, made by the renowned and world famous Jim "Atar" Hrisoulas (www.atar.com). In the brief time I've had it, it woulds seem I've already put it through a lifetime more than it ever saw in Seth's hands. And so, it needed to be repaired. /shrugs :p I just received word from Chris as to why the repairs have taken so long.

- The practice of solving all of the world's problems the hard way.

My latest endeavor is now functional and is the direct result of solving a coding issue which has been vexing me (part time, as I have many other things to) for a couple of months now. Something about the entire world taking July 3rd off as part of their  July 4th holiday this year has left me with several undisturbed hours to hammer through it. Not a big deal, but I figured it out. So there. :p

I went willingly.

You see, with the acquisition of my latest tax writeoff toy, I can do everything I'm already used to doing from ( wherever I end up )

Any organization that espouses a supposed "truth" that cannot be promoted by its adherents without the need to attack their critics is indistinguishable from a cult.

-a brand new chadism

As the local "add-on" act for this major club tour, we're not on the actual bill, but we will be there and we go onstage at 9:45 PM! 

This is a must-not miss (the marketing guys made me say that) chance for all my OC friends to see me perform at a show that's seriously worth going to!

Now I already know that lots of the people reading this post on LJ will already know who New Model Army is, but I'm not going to fault anyone for not knowing. For those that don't: If you listen to any kind of punk, post-punk, indie-rock or alternative music, then chances are that either the bands you listen to now are direct contemporaries of NMA (who's first album was released in 1984) or were directly influenced by them. it's a major honor for Idiot Stare to have a chance to play on the same stage as these guys, even if they themselves are not familiar with us. Those of us from the deeper, darker and edgier parts of underground alternative music still tend to be major NMA fans, just as we are of The Cure, The Smiths, U2 and other bands from the same era who found greater commercial success in the States, even if it's not the music we listen to most often. The front-men of Idiot Stare and my prior band STG are both over the top NMA fans, adoring their vision, their sound and their poetic, political and humanitarian lyrics. And it shows in the songs they write. I myself had to review their catalog and rediscover which of their songs I even knew. Hey, it's my journal, might as well be honest. :p

This is our last show before we go on break to produce our next album, so you need to catch this show!

Click here for all the info you need!

A week ago today I lost my wallet. That is to say, I couldn't find my wallet a week ago today *after* I had already come home from everything I had done that day, with a solid and complete memory of handling it (and my change) the last time I dealt with money last Friday.

OK, so let's blog this sucker out. About how it seems that most everyone I know had 2007 plain old kick them in the ass pretty much the whole way through the year. It's certainly what happened to me. Even those who did the kicking have their shit to deal with. It seems that almost nobody came out of 2007 on top. Instead, things just got torn down all over. Well, except for Bunny. She seemed to have everything this year go just right, right down to her Christmas trip with Matt to London! :D 

There was good as well as bad, but the bad took so much energy, took so much from me, that I don't know if I have it in me to write out a big manifesto, but here it comes anyway. :p

I can sum up the year with these thoughts: 

• Never before 2007 have I had a year with so much financial prosperity yet with so much uncertainty hanging in the balance threatening to ruin me at any moment and without warning.
  
• Never before 2007 have I had so much potential manifesting in various projects yet with so much uncertainty threatening to cancel funding, delay progress, or halt production.
  
• Never before 2007 have I felt such a complete and all-encompassing love for someone with so much uncertainty threatening to tear my heart out no matter what I did. And in the end it did, in the most cruel of ways. Note to the kids: never fall in love with someone who is bipolar unless they're already getting the help that they admittedly know they need, no matter how well you thought you knew them or know them now. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you want it, no matter what you say, or how you say it, the other person (bipolar or not) is always going to do what *they* are going to do... /rant

Fortunately, some of this uncertainty panned out in my favor. I'm a pragmatist, a realist, not a pessimist after all, and I was able to take the successes and turn them into powerful resources that will continue to help prepare me for what's to come. Because while so many other things broke my heart, or stole my credit, or misrepresented me, my interests and/or intentions, or were simply the result of someone else showing that they didn't have the guts to look at their self in the mirror (or me in the face to talk it through), the pot of gold was at the end of the rainbow just as it was foretold: my deal working for IBM after they acquired FileNet (because we kept handing their asses to them in the marketplace with our better product offerings) ended as it was supposed to. Not early or later than expected, and not without the severance package they promised when the deal was agreed to. That left me pretty (OK, *very*) flush for the final quarter of 2007, which allowed me to have a degree of comfort and safety that I'd never known before, and which helped a great deal with seeing that life will in fact go on, and that I can in fact make it though anything, just as I have so many times before.

So I took this bounty, and I spent the last quarter of 2007 building new armor, sharpening my blades, pressing new shells for the big guns, fine-tuning my sensors, recalibrating my targeting reticule, and drawing brand new lines in the sand. In 2008 I'm going to be ready for the fight like never before. Because when it's all said and done, this fight is on familiar territory. Nothing new going on, I just wasn't ready for the sucker punches thrown at me by the weaklings in my life, which was a flaw I admittedly had created for myself. But a flaw that has now been corrected. Cuz hey, if you're a real warrior of any status or caliber, you can never stop training. And you have to be ready for *anything*, not just the enemy in your forward sights. For 2008, I'm not making any declarations of resolutions. I'm instead going to continue to follow through on the work already in progress...

And in 2008, I may burn yet more bridges. But every one that's been burned had someone on the other side who did nothing to prevent it. They did what *they* were going to do, or they hid their true intentions/selves, or they hid altogether instead of facing the challenge head on. And if I didn't like it, they made it clear by their actions/in-actions that it wasn't going to be *their* problem. And so, I no longer give a rat's ass what they think. Introducing the 2008 model "The Fin": kicking ass, but not bothering to take any names. Just leaving it in the past. Always forward, never straight.

But let me be clear about this part: I'm not heartless, and I can and do forgive even the greatest of betrayals when it can be seen that it's worth the effort to try. A couple of those bridges, for one the wreckage of which had lay cold and dead for many many years, is now in the process of being built anew, based on a new understanding, a new set of rules, a new relationship with different goals in mind. Because true love never dies, it just sometimes has to take on another, stronger form. And there's some great things going on lately that will gel in early 2008 that show that the way forward has love and trust and prosperity and other fluffy fuzzy stuff that suggests that I may be doing something right. And still other bridges were never actually burned, the road too important, the destination too valuable. Those bridges will just have to lay unused for the time being, until the time is right to once again make contact with the other side.

And yes, with this kind of a hardware/wetware upgrade, I know I have to do a Saving Throw vs. Inhumanity, because if I do this wrong, I'm just going to end up being an ass and pissing everybody off. But I get sweet dice modifiers for high natural numbers in my Empathy, Spirituality, Awareness and Determination attributes, and I've got Contacts and Fixers you can talk to who will swear that I'm a good guy with a heart of gold. Things have just been tough, ya know? And now it's time to bounce back full force. But on *my* terms...

So hello 2008, whatcha got?