Random microblog posts from the weekend

Saturday 21:45
'Black Panther' was simply amazing. The heroes are heroic (with the female leads stealing the show), the antagonists aren't just bad, for the most part you can see how their views conflict with T'challa, so better than most bad guys in comic movies. Lots of good fight scenes, lots of great one liners and character interaction. Plus, the depiction of Wakanda is just amazing. One foot in traditional cultures, one foot in the future and just plain nifty. My one complaint, I wanted more of a tour of Wakanda vs superfights. But I can hope for special features on the bluray.
5 out of 5 Vibranium Claws.

Sunday 16:29
Going to the store today took my last bits of ability to cope with humanity. The urge to scream 'Move your ass' at the people ahead of me in check out was almost uncontrollable. Possibly in Koine Greek because life should be interesting like that. (note to self, learn to say 'move your ass' in Koine Greek before going to the airport next week). At home now, doing laundry. Cthulhu bless my gillslits, I'm tired.

Sunday 16:55
Well last night's dreams were weird. From historical churches with ancient cults and exorcism schools (convenient placement there), to fighting against a zombie horde invading random suburbia with one of those magic movie katanas that is more lightsaber than steel in it's ability to remove limbs. I'll take zombies apocalypse and horrors from beyond space time over my usual anxiety dreams.

Sunday 17:19
Last night after 'Black Panther' we stopped by the nearby Half Price Books. I didn't get anything, nothing I couldn't live without, and I have plenty of book shopping plans for the trip to Providence. But I did find, in the rare/nostalgia section, volumes one and two of "The Encyclopaedia of Russian Crime Tattoos." Not something you find in bookstores every day. Almost got them for the oddness factor, I think they were $30 each. (If anyone is interested in them, I can send you the info of the store, I'm sure they'd be willing to ship for a reasonable fee, or I could pick them up and you could pay me back. I'm sure one of my author or game designer friends could make good use of them)

Sunday: 19:32
Self quote of the day.

"Must try to stop reading the Latin aloud, just frickin' Google it!"

Sick fox is recovering

Not been doing good healthwise. Thought I had a bad sinus infection, but I woke up yesterday in major pain centered around a tooth. So yay, dentist. I'm very phobic about dentists. They ended up extracting the tooth, which was a royal pain in the jaw because I'm a mutant, and I have extra roots that extend deep into the jaw. So it took forever to extract, I had to repeatedly remind myself that clenching up every muscle wasn't going to help things. Still I came out of it in more pain in my joints and neck than in my jaw. My hands were shaking and I felt light headed most of last night, and I barely slept. Took today off as comp time (working on President's day, a Carcosa Corp holiday). I'm mostly spending today eating soft food and watching 80's horror movies. I'm hoping I'm back to normal enough to spend some time with friends tomorrow.

Providence trip is a week from tomorrow. I'm kind of a basket case about it at the moment, the trip, the state of me, etc. To be honest, I've thought about canceling it...will decide later on. 'Try to avoid major decisions when depressed, in pain, or stressed'. So we'll see. *sigh*

On the bright side I've read a lot of good books in the last week. I highly recommend 'Widow's Point' by Richard and Billy Chizmar, a classic ghost story that grabs you and doesn't let go. If you like military sci-fiesque, 'The Void' by Greig Beck won't let you down. Super-soldiers vs space monsters. If you rather have movies, 'The Ritual', an adaptation of Adam Nevill's novel will convince you to never go hiking again. Or if you want horror comedy gore, see 'Victor Crowley', the 4th 'Hatchet' movie. So that's my random one line reviews.

That's about it. Hoping I can make til bedtime tonight, and get some real sleep. I'll also like it when my body stops being in full flake mode. Have a good night boys and ghouls.

Been a while

Haven't had the ...whatever powers blogposts in a while. Part of it is the less than great headspace I've been in. Work is somewhat stressful, with us being short an admin, and the different groups I am matrix managed by are pulling in various ways. Brainmeats are pretty annoying too, with all my usual issues showing themselves, usually when I could really use a break.

Took a long weekend from work, off Friday through Monday, back on Tuesday. Probably one of my better decisions. I've caught up on sleep, caught up on laundry and chores and managed to rearrange bookshelves to make room for... more books. *chuckle* I expect to come back from my trip to Providence with a bunch of books, so I'm trying to make room for them. I've also spent yesterday and today updating the VM horde. New versions of Fedora, OpenSuSE and LinuxMint, so I've been busy. It's also therapeutic, I find patching to relax me.

Speaking of Providence, I leave in less than 3 weeks. Half a week of wandering Providence and nearby environs, and the StokerCon fun and games. My plans are kind of nebulous, I really should sit down and get my list of stuff down on paper (virtual). Museums and history sites, bookstores, and of course all things Lovecraft, plus whatever insanity I get up to at StokerCon. Should be a lot of fun, and I'm finally getting to go visit Grandpa Theobald's stomping grounds.

I'm about to call it a day, turn off the movies and spend the rest of the night in a book. Or several. Books that is. Hopefully tonight is restful and full of good reading, and tomorrow I get a final day of time off before back to the crazy. Wish me luck.

Liber Cultes de Vulpes

Well my idea about transferring my Facebook posts to my blog didn't work for the last couple of days. Too busy to transcribe. So, instead I thought I'd talk about something near and dear to my heart. Books.

Half Price Books is a chain of used book stores, quite a few in Texas and other scattered across the US. The flagship store is in Dallas, north of SMU. I like going there because they have a lot of book turnover. The downside is, occasionally my book expenditures are a little...crazy. Today was such a day, also, things got weird.

First part reminded me of the opening scene of a horror movie. I walked in, by a display of journals and notebooks, and the word 'Satan' caught my eye. Odd for a journal... so I looked. It's a 50's hardback about diabolism and assorted related stuff, mostly translated from a French medical journal about religious Psychology, if I'm reading right. Lots of S.J. (Jesuits) as article authors. It should have been in the rare/nostalgia section, but I guess someone was being silly. So yeah, I grabbed it. As I was wandering around the store, I kept thinking. "Jeez, I've seen this horror movie where the lead finds a random book on Satan in the first act, and then all hell breaks loose.' Which had me giggling. I may leave the book in a box of salt though...just in case.

I found a number of other odd books. A hardback collection from the 40's of weird fiction edited by August Derleth, 'The Night Side'. Not Arkham House, the publisher is Reinhart, which I haven't heard of before. Nice book, some authors I don't know, but it's got Lovecraft and Machen and Dunsany. Bloch and Wandrei and Kuttner as well. Also for a reasonable price, or so I told myself *wink* This was also in rare/nostalgia.

In the horror section I found a couple of S.T. Joshi edited criticism, a nice trade paperback of Chambers 'The King in Yellow', and two paperback story collections. One 'Cults of Horror' is a 90's DAW collection, with a reprint of Karl Wagner's 'The Sticks', and one of those classic covers. The other is 'Tales of the Occult' from the 70's, with more Machen, MR James, Blackwood and some other authors. Always good to find old friends in books. Last was 'The Green Man' by Kingsley Amis. The back blurb mixed words like 'horror' 'satire' 'post-Lovecraft' 'slapstick' and other weirdness. So I grabbed it, odd to find that mix of words anywhere. So yeah, a lot of good things in the horror section for me.

I also picked up a Eurohorror flick, 'Beyond the Darkness' which seemed weird and up my alley. It's playing now, pretty standard Italian horror bizarre...with the plus of a soundtrack by Goblin, same band that did the music for 'Suspiria'. I saw a couple of other movies I wanted, but not for the price they were asking. Then after some more wandering in the rare book area (No I don't need an 18th century book with a Latin title that sounds like it's out of Lovecraft's library...it was a medical text I think), I headed over to the religious/metaphysical/occult section...

The occult side of things seemed to be the usual Wicca and related stuff, with a fairly nice selection of 'the history of witchcraft', but nothing that leaped out at me. Same with the Druid side of things...but under the actual 'Occult' shelf, there was something that had me written all over it. A Princeton University press work on Greek and Roman Necromancy. Author is Daniel Ogden. Hits a number of my buttons, ancient history? Check. Scholary work? Check. Esoterica? Check, double check and mate. Plus I got a good deal on it, about half what it seems Amazon wants for it *grin* I think that just leaped to the head of the to read pile. They also had a big section on 'esoterica' (read Templars, Masons and Jesus conspiracies) and 'Gnosticism' (Dead Sea Scrolls, more Jesus conspiracies, and similar), but nothing else leaped at me, at least that I wasn't sure I already owned. Will have to do some organizing and list making before a return visit.

So yeah, my book hunt was fruitful as heck. Necromancy, random book on Satan waiting for me as I walked in, and lots of my favorite kind of fiction. Now if I suddenly go silent, make sure to not read aloud any of the books on my desk, and 'have ye words for laying ready at readie and stoppe not to be sure when there be any Doubte of Whom you have.' *grin*

Yog-Sothoth Neblod Zin
Vulpine

01/10/18 – daily stuff

09:57
More bad dreams, was living back in NY, with Mom. Dad was dead, and in the middle of the night some 'Christian Psychics' were there to tell us what Dad wanted us to do. They knew odd facts about Dad, so Mom was believing them even though I pointed out that's not hard info to find. They did something, and suddenly I was shooting all three of them, repeatedly as if they were monsters in a horror movie. While Mom sat there shocked, I dragged the bodies down to the basement and dissolved them in acid (that we just happened to keep around). Then I woke up. W! T! F!!! Dear subconscious, stop with the dead relative dreams, please ?

10:12
Also woke up with aching joints, and a meh mood. Today I need to clean some stuff up, and start the Jan patching. Also need to go to get my weekly allergy shot. Wild times.

15;34
Starting the Jan patch schedule for Carcosa Corp. So of course, I'm listening to an audiobook of 'The King in Yellow'. Lets see if I can unmask these servers...

18:22
Does the previous comment make me a 'Repairer of Replications' ?

Five dollars in The Imperial Dynasty of America currency if you get the joke. ;)

19:46
And patching done, at least the development shoggoths. Tune in tomorrow, when I do it again.

Providence, here I come!

Well, it's official. I'll be going to Providence for StokerCon this year. Actually decided to spend an entire week up there, (stoker runs from Thurs-Sunday) so I can have a few days to wander Grandpa Theobald's stomping grounds. Not staying at the 'con hotel, but I'm just a couple of blocks away at The Dean, which is where I planned to stay last time. Yay for vacation plans!

I'm also thinking I may consolidate, edit and post my more common Facebook ramblings into a daily post. Then hopefully I can turn my weekly post into something more interesting, if to no one else...me. It's easier for me to do daily rambles there. We'll see.

First Post of the Year

Well it's the new year. First week of the new year has been kind of nuts. New Years Day was friend time and book hunting. Have had a lot of trouble getting up in the mornings to go to work. But each day was a little easier. Work itself has been a kind of mixed bag, spent most of Friday troubleshooting a Linux issue with one of the other groups at Carcosa Corp. Lots of 'why do you do $x, and $y and...huh that's odd'. Think I figured out the issue for the client, but waiting on their testing which isn't quick.

WEekend has pretty much just been movies, books and sleep. Got the chores done too, well most of them. Need to put together stuff for the work week, have to deal with my car's registration, and I should probably pack up the work laptop...because given how fuzzy I am on Monday mornings, I probably would show up sans laptop. Work week will be busy, first patches of the new year...and boy do I have some big things to deal with. (see computer news in the last week for details). No plans for next weekend as of yet, probably will need some more hermit time post patching/general work week. But I also want to see people, possibly people with cats. I miss cats.

Forgot I'd planned on work foo tonight. Got reminded a while ago when one of the tester's pinged me about it. The brain needs an upgrade, or I need a keeper. I'm going to go ahead and finish this post, since I've been working on it since Saturday.

Last Post of the Year

Don't really have an end of year post, nor a post about the plans for the future. I don't have the cope to go through all the things of the last year, and I don't want to put plans down on virtual paper for the future, if 2017 taught me anything, is no plan survives contact with the Cosmic Void.

As for this New Years Eve, my original plans for movie, dinner, and a party/show in Fort Worth. But given that Ithaqua had a flying visit in, and the roads are being closed due to the lousy weather, the plans were changed to hiding at home. Given how I deal with social anxiety, this is probably for the best. Plus I rather ring in the new year with horror movies, snacks and reading.

So here's to the end of 2017, and to the beginning of 2018. May Cthulhu rise from his depths, may Yog-Sothoth open the gates, and may Scarlett Johansson finally get a Black Widow movie. Iä! Iä! and all that jazz!

Twas the day before Cthulhumas

And all through the Château Innsmouth, the shoggoths were stirring, mostly because Vulpine is having a day. No, I'm not turning this into a prose poem. Just feel like talking about the holidays.

They used to be a big thing for me, as a kid/teen. So many memories of putting up the tree with Mom and Dad, laughing at silly stuff and stories, just good stuff. As a teen ager, I started renting REALLY bad movies for Xmas eve as the folks went to bed, starting with 'Rabid Grannies'. It wasn't a Norman Rockwell holiday, but it fit us just fine.

Then Dad died, and the first Christmas after that really kind of made me wish to never here another jingle bell again. The family tradition boiled down to taking Mom out for Xmas eve, or her cooking something. Telling stories, and giving each other presents. Very little 'holiday' in it. Then I met Amythest, a true Christmas Pixie. When we were together, I tried to de-scrooge at least on the outside. Things got easier after we split up, but became friends again. We had our own traditions, including both of us going to visit my Mom, which Mom always liked.

I tried turning the holiday on it's head a little, created my version of Cthulhumas. Cthulhumas Ctharols from the HPLHS, weird cards, reading 'The Festival', finding horror movies either about the holidays, or more enjoyable for me, movies that have weird relations to the holidays. 'Haunting of Hell House' or 'The Amityville Horror', 0 festiveness, 100% happening around the holidays. I'd help Amythest and Nymaz put up a tree, and do outside decorations (something I swore as a kid I'd never do). New traditions, friends, and that sad core in me got smaller...

Then Mom died. And since then the Cthulhumas game isn't as fun, in fact I haven't listened to Cthulhumas Carols this year at all. I've narrowed down my 'holiday' to a few hours with Amythest and Nymaz when they get back in town. And honestly, I'm just hoping I don't have a complete crash tonight. Plans for tomorrow is full on hermiting, probably in a book or 3. Then it's back to work when I have a moderately sized pile of stuff to knock out. So...wish me luck on surviving tonight and tomorrow. And maybe finding a smidge of that old Cthulhumas spirit.

How do I cope? Books.

Another long week. Jury duty last Monday. Would have been a hell of a case, in a bad way. Luckily for my sanity, the defendant agreed to a plea bargain and we all go to home. The rest of the week has been work foo, I'm really learning to loathe Sybase. Still do like my job, mostly because of the people I work with. Had the company holiday party on Thursday, was fun until my social anxiety went to 11. Yesterday (Friday) was pretty lousy as well. Stressors from work, friend issues, a whole bunch of wishing this year was done. That's kind of a theme lately.

Today, I woke up and decided that I needed a self spoiling day. Went and got gas, and went on a tour of Half Price Bookstores in the area. Kind of over did it, but I got some really cool books for the library. Mythos stuff, some esoterica and a book about the Beast of Gévaudan;, which was the inspiration for the movie 'Brotherhood of the Wolf'. Also a few movies. While driving around I went by King Tut's again for comfort lamb. Also drove up for critter care while some friends are on vacation. One kitty hid from me, the other saw the sucker sign and came up for pets. Came home, finished up season two of 'The Exorcist' and watched a couple of flicks. Then, as I was starting to ponder book time...work screams. Fecking databases. Hoping we cleared it up right now...that seems to be a no. *sigh* Ok, going to wrap up this post because I'm out of tentacles. Ciao.
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