Big Random Post

[newnumber6]

Haven't done one of these in a while, so here we go, strap yourself in... if you're into that sort of thing, anyway.

Lets start with a Interview meme:
Want me to ask you five questions? Leave a comment, I'll ask you five questions, and then you answer the questions in your own journal.

Here's 5 questions from foxfyre...

1) What was it that got you started using the internet?
Hmmm. Well, if you go back far enough, it'd be my dad. He was always a tech geek, always liked having a computer and such, and he also eventually got a modem. This was back in the 80s. I don't know, maybe he saw War Games and had dreams of playing Global Thermonuclear War. Now this time was not technically before the Internet, but before it was known about by almost anybody.

What we did with the modem instead is call local Bulletin Board systems, over the phone line, connecting at speeds of 300 baud (or occasionally, the lightning fast 1200 baud!), where you could read text faster than it came in. And, although I can't remember it specifically, I got hooked on BBSing. It was a regular part of my routine - come home from school, check out BBSes. Hell, wake up in the morning before school, check out BBSes. I suppose it was because I felt myself a little more mature than some of my peers, and online, nobody knew my true age. A lot of people reacted with shock when they learned I was only 9, or 12, or whatever it was at the time.

A lot of the ones I went on were RPG BBSes. Since for most boards only one person could connect at a time, these were message board based. In the 90s, I even started my own BBS, Sithicus RPG BBS (by this time we were up to 14400 baud). That's actually where I first met xet_ith (well, we might have met on other boards before that, but I think we became friends more on Sithicus).

I think my first experience with the Internet was when I was visiting my Mother for the summer in Ottawa. We signed up for something called 'Freenet', which was a free internet portal. Non graphical at this time, still. I mostly went on it for USENET message boards, but at some point I found myself on a MUD, and started playing, and got hooked on that for a while. I found out Toronto had a freenet too and so signed onto that to continue. Eventually I found my way to a superhero MUSH, and the idea interested me, so I started there too, and quickly got addicted.

Though it should be noted that I was still BBSing - I treated the Internet as just another kind of BBS, and MUSHing an extention at that.

Freenet had a one hour per call time limit, so I was continually playing for an hour, logging out, then logging back on. They also tried to block access to MUSHes and MUDs and the like, and I recall going through extreme hoops to trick my way back in. I took really complicated routes, and almost considered it an adventure. For example, when they blocked off the ability to directly telnet to places of your choice, I could find a link to it through Gopher or some other means. When they blocked off most outside telnet, I used their ability to telnet into other Freenets around the world, signed up for an account on any I could (or, where it was possible, used the guest account), and played from there instead.

At some point I got more conventional internet access from an actual ISP (although still text based for the most part), and continued more regularly. It was a small ISP and my brother worked for it so I got unlimited access for a decent price. BBSes slowly started dying out as the Internet gained prominence, and I made the shift over. And here I am.

2) You generally avoid any ODA (online displays of affection). What are your criteria for making an exception to this rule?
You make the common mistake of assuming that anything I do makes any kind of sense at all, or that I'm aware of what goes on in my own mind! ;)

Really, like all things, it evolves. Actually before XET I was reasonably affectionate. Probably still less than average, but not like I was after. But after I took charge I gradually began to worry that people weren't being nice to me for me, but because I was 'in charge'. To curb that attitude, I sort of became more standoffish, although it also spread to other places even where I wasn't in a position of authority, so it might not have been entirely that. I think I slowly evolved the idea that if you hug everyone, what's left for the people you actually do like? Things like jumping into laps and snuggling generally felt a little obnoxious.

The exceptions? Well, some were grandfathered in. There were a few people I was affectionate with online in certain ways before hand, I generally maintained that. For most others, I preferred more neutral greetings, waves, shouting of names, etc. I might have had affectionate feelings for people in these categories, but I wouldn't express them mostly. Though I generally maintained an gut attitude that if someone was feeling down (someone I liked, anyway), I'd try to cheer them up, even if that meant being somewhat affectionate.

Of course, like everything about my mental states, it's applied haphazardly and inconsistently.

3) How the heck did you put up with running XET for so long?

The same way I put up with everything in life. Lots of hookers and blow.

More seriously, the good times made up for the bad. There was a real sense of building something people enjoyed, and that helped a lot. And of course, all the RP I personally enjoyed and the people I liked hanging out with, although it's a shame that I fell out of touch with some of them after the game ended.

And really, most of the time it wasn't so bad. I actually didn't do perhaps as much work as I should have - one of the reasons app times were so long was that I wanted to get a fair range of other staffers opinions on apps, but in our dying days and brief resurrection I was able to cut that down by doing more work myself and concentrating less on getting a consensus of opinion. Most of my day to day work was in trying to keep plots going and do new plots, and that was often fun as much as work, and I still managed to find a decent amount of time to play so I couldn't have been doing too much work.

And during the bad times, I'd just think about the great plots we'd done and the plots that I still wanted to do (the Hastur plots count on both scores), and that helped get me through.

4) You've mentioned in the past that you don't like music. Can you explain that a little bit?

Well, it's not so much that I don't like it (except in certain instances). It's just I feel no need for it. I don't know exactly what it is. I can enjoy the lyrics of a song, but for the most part I don't need to hear it - I can run through the lyrics in my head, and I generally don't get anything from the non-lyrical part of a song, except if it specifically connects me to a certain time or thing I enjoy. For example, theme songs to my favorite shows or movies, I can occasionally groove on, not for the music but because it connects me to the feeling of the show. And again, there, I don't seek out the music for that - I'd just watch the show.

I've never been to any kind of doctor about it, but I've heard of a condition called Amusia. Or true tone deafness, characterized by an inability to distinguish between similar tones, to recognize music by hearing it, and to be emotionally moved by music. Now, I tend to not have too much trouble recognizing music I hear before the words. I don't think my ability to distinguish between similar tones is _too_ bad, but I've never been tested. Still, if I had to guess, I'd say I believe I have a mild case of amusia. Maybe my discrimination is good enough to recognize but still bad enough that I can't get the emotional connection from music. Or maybe it's something else entirely. Or maybe I'm just an emotionless robot.

5) If you really were a super-powered individual, what do you think your power would be?
What do I _think_ it would be? I don't know. It'd probably be something lame, like the ability to cook an egg with my mind, but only eggs. Or, if you use the idea of 'expanding one of my natural talents into a useful mutant ability', probably a technopath, or perhaps the ability to 'find' things or information.

Now, the superpowerset I'd most _want_ to have is that of my old RPG character, Chris. I think you might have played with him once on XMA (or if not, at least he kept fainting OOCly at any sign of affection), but for those who don't know the character, he had the ability to leave his body and travel about in an intangible ghost form. The body remains comatose (but doesn't require food and very limited air), and the ghost form can travel at high speeds and look like anything he could imagine. There were also other characteristics that went along with it. That's probably my most wanted power. Or teleportation.


Facebook continues to be an odd source of nostalgia. I've made contact with a few friends from way back that I hadn't heard anything from in years. There's even a group for the old BBS scene in my city. And found, but didn't contact, a couple other people, mostly old crushes and the like. I was also surprised to find a photo of myself in Grade 5. Someone uploaded a class picture, and I stumbled upon it (through a weird series of searches). I don't actually remember the person who uploaded it, but I found myself in it all the same.

On to talking about writing, I'm on another writing cycle. I've been toying with making an addition to the workload. Right now, for 'on' weeks, I do 2000 words per non-work day, for a total of 8000 words. But lately once in a while I've been feeling an urge to write somewhat more... frivolous stuff. Stuff that I'd feel bad claiming under the word limit, but that I kind of want to do for fun. Like, for example, attempting to write a movie adaptation of a book I like, or a comic, or something like that. It's not really 'my' work, but I find such things fun sometimes, even if it couldn't go anywhere. So I'm thinking of devoting one of my work days on a writing cycle to working on these sorts of things. Not Wednesday of course, since that's also comic day, which means in addition to work, I'm walking for something like 3 hours that day, and it's also a relatively big TV night, so I don't really have time. But on Friday I usually could swing at least some time for writing, and Sunday my work's really negligable, although I tend to sleep more in the afternoon to make up for waking up so godawfully early. Though also on Sundays at least on a semi-regular basis I go do family stuff, so that would eat into the time. Anyway, I'm still thinking.

So, that big university massacre. Normally I'm silent on such things, but there were a couple of things I noticed on the coverage that I wanted to get off my chest.


I suppose one of the things that interested me, as it often does in these situations, is that a lot of the early descriptions of the shooter could easily be applied to me. Quiet, loner type. They said some people who'd shared classes with him for years reported never hearing him speak. I'm sure similar things could be said about me. Heck, I even heard at one point in my school career someone mention they thought I was mute.

So, I think when you notice something about yourself in another person on the media, it's only natural to be interested and try and see where you're alike and where you're different.

I don't think I could ever go that way. For one thing, and I think I've mentioned this before... I'm not terribly interested in violence itself. Or guns, for that matter. In books when there's a battle scene, my mind sort of glazes over and tries to get to the plotty stuff. Similarly in TV and movies. I'm not repelled by violence, specifically, I'm just... not interested in it. The only time a 'fight scene' particularly interests me is if something superhuman is going on. Now I am interested, to some extent, in what drives people to violence. I think this might be why I like Battle Royale the novel but not the movie. The idea of people being forced into violence can at times interest me, but the violence itself isn't interesting. And guns? Meh, I just don't see any appeal in them.

So, I suppose, even _if_ (and that's a big if) I were to go completely bugnuts and eager to kill people, I'd probably be more likely to be one of those evil psycho 'experimentalists'. Putting people in traumatic situations to see how they'd react, or forcing them to kill each other to survive. So no mass shooting spree.

Anyway, I veered a little off topic. A lot of people are saying how many warning signs there were, and don't get me wrong, I'm sure there were some that were clear and where more action should have been taken. But I think a lot of this, for the majority of people who've been interviewed is people noticing things in retrospect rather than something they could have noticed in advance and thus prevented the incident. At the same time I heard a lot of play, especially in the beginning, about his writing being 'disturbing', as though that's a warning sign. Yes, when you put everything together it puts out a compelling case that he was a ticking time bomb, but no one sees all the pieces, and when you try to prevent future tragedies by targetting the pieces, you're going to get people who aren't dangers. Our justice system is based on the idea that it's better to let a guilty man go free than to punish an innocent one. I think we need to be aware that that policy should apply to an extent, to preventative actions as well as punitive. I think it's worse for us if we start targetting people who are quiet and isolated and/or who write 'disturbing' things, than if we have tragedies once in a while.

It's not how we'd like it to be, but the fact of the matter is there really is no clear and unambiguous sign someone is going to go on a shooting spree. Even _saying_ "I'm going to go on a shooting spree" isn't a definitive sign of it (although it's close enough and serious enough to be a crime on its own, and rightly so).

So crimes like this will continue. You can't defend against everything, just like with terrorism. Which this almost is, in a way. It's sort of a very personal form of terrorism, from someone who considers himself his own little world, striking out at its 'oppressive' neighbors.

And, on a mostly unrelated topic, they were interviewing someone who 'knew' the gunman in high school. And by 'knew', I mean 'was vaguely aware of'. And she said something that made me want to scream. I'm paraphrasing here, "he never made eye contact, so I knew he just wanted to be left alone." Gah. Now it wasn't so much that she said it, hey, it's a mistake people can and do make, but what bugged me so much is that it went uncorrected. It was as though both the interviewee and the interviewer were saying, "Yes, obviously he _wanted_ to be left alone if he didn't make eye contact."

I say again, gah. No, lack of eye contact does not necessarily mean someone wants to be left alone. It can mean many things, but among them are extreme shyness and lack of self-worth. It can even mean 'want to be left alone' in the way that someone who's afraid of and unskilled with social interaction can, even while craving it, also want to avoid it (especially if they come to see the more casual contact they receive day to day as ultimately fruitless and disappointing).

I'm not apologizing for him in any way, but you can sort of see some of the things in his past that have driven him this way, where isolation becomes pathological. So if I have any advice to impart in this world, it's that if you can, try and draw shy people out. Be patient. Don't push, but keep trying. You might make a difference. And eat gyros. That is advice unrelated to the topic. Probably best not to combine them, also, although inviting a shy person out for gyros is probably good.


But on to happier things to end off. TV! New Heroes on Monday finally. Woot. Supernatural was fun this week. Grey's Anatomy, okay. Didn't care for LOST this week (Sorry BKV, I knew it was your first, but too much stupidity on the part of the characters). Still mixed on Drive. Other than that, there really hasn't been a whole lot new, aside from Doctor Who. (very few spoilers behind
cut)
I'm liking Martha so far, more than Rose. At least, more than the whole of Rose - it's hard to separate and try and remember how I felt about Rose after only 3 episodes. I am getting a bit sick of Rose references and the sort of attempt at pushing the romance angle again, even if one sided. The episodes have been a bit iffy, plotwise. First wasn't bad. Didn't much care for the second too much (part of my distaste for Magic + Who). Third was more enjoyable than I figured it would be from the first quarter or so, although there were still some stupid elements that bothered me. (Haven't seen the newest ep, downloading it now).

Comments

[foxfyre.livejournal.com]

To answer the question in your answer to question 5, yes, I played with Chris. Your default LJ icon is Chris, no?

Very interesting stuff here. Thanks for playing along! :)

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Yep, my default icon is from an image I made for Chris in ghost form (in Central Park), one of my first attempts at photomanipping.

And thanks for the questions! :)