The Azure Sea Weblog

Someone has WAAAAAAY too much money and free time.

2009-03-09T23:42:00.001-05:00

Triple X (plus one)

2008-10-21T04:07:00.001-05:00

So I checked my driver's license and discovered that I am 31 years old today. A little over one year ago I was sitting at my desk at my old place of employment, knowing that I was within a week of the end of my tour there, having been informed of my downsizing less than a month earlier. I was strongly considering laying down some weblog smack on turning 30 and employment and unemployment and all else that was wrong in my life.

Then I realized it would have sounded bitchy.

So I decided to leave the blog alone for a year (well, a month, then two months, then three, and eventually it became a year), after which I hoped I would have something better to write about. So here's what I have to write about:

Nothing, really.

Don't get me wrong. A lot has happened since the last time the Earth was in this position in its orbit around the sun. Just not a whole lot of good things. So I'm trying to gain a more positive mindset in looking at the immediate future and each time I try I wind up looking a few years back.

I have skill sets. Good skills. Skills that everyone in 2000 told me would be marketable for years to come. Unfortunately, those people did not tell me that those years would only be 2000 and 2001. After that, it seemed like advanced technical skills and $1.25 could get you on the subway. I sat patiently and waited for my skill sets to come back into demand, and they did -- in India.

I do not live in India. I live in the American Midwest, where technical jobs are hard to come by. It seems that each region of this country reacts to economic downturns differently; the Midwest reacts by reverting to a farming community. People who used to work in high tech can now be seen riding tractors and hauling grain. The guy who sold you your iPod last year now wants to know if he can interest you in some top quality fertilizer. The staff of Circuit City is cracking out a living with their roadside fruit stand and it's weirding me out.

And it's brought me to a spot in my life in which I'm going to have to do one of two things: Either I'm going to have to toss my old skill set and get a new one, a process which may take years; or else leave the American Midwest for greener pastures elsewhere, an option which will be expensive and time-consuming and could just as easily leave me unemployed in a new city. I'm looking for advice wherever I can get it, so if you would like to leave a comment other than "FIRST!" please feel free to do so.

So that's my Age 31 rant. I sincerely hope that it doesn't come across as bitchy or whiny. I'm holding out hope for the future and the return of at least moderate prosperity. And now if you will excuse me, this corn won't husk itself.

Ninja Cat

2008-10-20T22:39:00.002-05:00

This is precisely why I'm not a cat person.

The Super Mario Bros. Theme Performed by an RC Car and Some Bottles of Wine

2008-04-25T16:21:00.003-05:00

Pardon my silence, I'll be updating soon.

In the meantime, please enjoy this:

http://view.break.com/487616

People I Know. Or Sorta Know. Or Met. Once. In Passing.

2007-09-20T10:49:00.000-05:00

1. Dan Meth

When I was in college, which is starting to seem like so long ago, I worked on a student-produced television program. One of the first people we invited onto this program as a guest produced a comic strip for the student paper, a sophomore by the name of Dan Meth. Dan had some serious (if undeveloped) artistic talent and a sharp wit, and I thought that one day he would be famous.

Or, at least I would have, had I possessed any foresight. For now, Dan is on the edge of fame, the point where any of us who knew him in the Beforetime start to feel that sense of pride that can only come from meeting somebody in passing who later becomes famous. It's an indescribable feeling.

Why, you may ask, is this Dan Meth on the verge of fame? Why, for the same reason anybody else in the 21st century becomes famous: He's gotten a lot of hits on YouTube. Or rather, his animated tribute to other people who became famous thanks to YouTube has gotten a lot of hits on YouTube. He works for Frederator animation studios, the good people who gave us such awesome shows as The Fairly Oddparents and My Life as a Teenage Robot.

Here is Dan's most recent work. I know Dan Meth. Sorta. Or I met him. Once. In passing.

Samuel August Rotskoff

2007-06-07T21:50:00.001-05:00

My nephew, Samuel August Rotskoff, was born on June 3rd. 8 pounds, 2 ounces. Sam and parents Joe and Kelly are all doing great. I, on the other hand, could not be more weirded out. I mean, seriously. This is ME we're talking about. I don't know what kind of uncle I'll be.

I'm not a thief, so I can't be the Klepto Uncle. I'm not crazy, so I can't be the Psycho Uncle. I work 2 jobs and go to graduate school, so I can't be the Fun Uncle. I'm even self-supporting (more or less), so I can't even be the Mooch Uncle. I won't be a sitcom uncle, always dropping by to annoy everybody and steal the show from the main cast. But I still need to be some sort of specific Uncle. Any suggestions?

Snowy

2007-01-21T01:45:00.000-06:00

And now it's snowing.

And in six hours the snow will turn to sleet, and then rain, and then some sort of fantasy creatures that want to turn everything in the world into cotton candy or eat our brains. Or both.

Icy II

2007-01-20T21:17:00.000-06:00

Okay. This is ridiculous. Another ice storm. Two ice storms and not one single snowflake. Meanwhile it's snowing in Malibu. But the images I have taken have prompted me to get a Flickr account. So I guess it's sort of a wash.

Then again...

2006-12-15T17:42:00.000-06:00

On the other hand, ice storms make for some really neat photographs:

Icy

2006-12-15T17:23:00.000-06:00

Aaaaaaaand another one bites the dust. This is (again) the parents' backyard, and this time the ice storm of November 30 was the culprit. This was an old, 3-trunked tree, and as you can see, the 3 trunks split in 3 ways, one falling into the adjacent 2-trunked mulberry.

I think that leaves the mulberry as the only remaining backyard tree from my single-digit years.

What the hell am I going to use for touch-football goalposts now?

World Series

2006-10-29T03:11:00.000-06:00

I cannot claim to be the most loyal baseball fan, and in recent years I've developed an aversion to physically attending sporting events. Still, the St. Louis Cardinals are a team that I grew up with, back when growing up with a team actually meant something. I remember the same players from 1982, the year of the last world championship, to about 1990. Nowadays you're lucky if you have any players on your team now that were there two seasons ago.

But all griping aside, I'm thrilled to see the Redbirds bring home another championship. The tenth in team history but only the second in my lifetime (I had just turned 5 last time), it didn't "make me feel like a kid again," as the trite saying goes, but it did result in an adrenaline increase, something I normally don't get as an adult. I found myself cringing when something went poorly and jumping out of my seat when a Tiger pitcher threw a ball into the outfield and the Birds scored. I was unable to get to sleep until 2 hours after each game ended, which sometimes made me late for work the next day. I had convinced myself that I wouldn't tie my emotional state to a bunch of baseball players, but the October run that these guys had temporarily broke through that conviction.

Way to go, guys.

29

2006-10-21T04:07:00.001-05:00

Time won't stand by forever
If I know it's true
And I've learned not to say never
'else I'll seem the fool

29, you'd think I'd know better
Living like a kid
When my lies may seem less than clever
Is when I fall for it

Only time will tell if wishing wells
Can bring us anything
Or fade like scenes from childhood dreams
...Forgotten memories

Some rides don't have much of a finish
That's the ride I took
Through good and bad and straight through indifference
Without a second look

There's no intentions worthy of mention
If we never try
So hang your hopes on rusted-out hinges
Take 'em for a ride

Only time will tell if wishing wells
Can bring us anything
Or fade like scenes from childhood dreams
...Forgotten memories

Only time will tell...

Gin Blossoms
29
New Miserable Experience, 1992

Sigh. I'm now at the youngest age that I once considered "old." Yes, I know that I won't be receiving mailings from AARP anytime soon, but it does depress me a bit that once I thought of 29 as the age people get when they get as old as my parents and teachers, and now here I am.

Almost as depressing as the number itself is the concept of "the cusp." I am on "the cusp" of 30. I am on "the cusp" between young adulthood and adulthood. I was born on the cusp between star signs Libra and Scorpio. What the hell is a "cusp," anyway? How the hell did I get on so many of them and how do I get off? Is my life moving too quickly or not quickly enough and should I even care? I have a college diploma, a full-time job with responsibilities, living expenses, two bank accounts, a self-run limited liability company, retirement plans, and business cards. I also sleep in a bedroom that once contained a framed nursery rhyme embroidery that was placed on my wall when I was 4 days old. For a while, it hung next to my college diploma.

Sometimes I wonder which has done more for me.

And so here we have the phenomenon of Cusp Anxiety. Neither here nor there, caught in between, feeling like the same people who, just yesterday, wouldn't let you swim without water wings have now thrown you face-first into the deep end.

Cusp Anxiety leads to Unintentional Angst. This disturbs me, because I haven't experienced Unintentional Angst since I stopped attending weekend religious school. All my angst since then has been of the self-imposed variety, which is much easier to control, even if it does create the appearance of being a neurotic, introverted, brooding weirdo.

I have no doubt that this will all clear up in due time, but it is still a rather angsty moment in my life and one that will impact many of my upcoming decisions, many of which will have consequences that will be with me for the rest of my life. I suppose that's the main source of Cusp Anxiety, at least in my life.

Also, my driver's license has just expired. Frack.

Lost

2006-09-25T20:05:00.000-05:00

1. adj. The state of no longer being possessed or known.

2. adj. Unable to find one's way.

3. n. An unhealthy obsession, characterized by nonstop repetitive watching of DVD box sets and surfing of affiliated websites. Can also result in often-heated debates with Internet geeks over meanings of symbols and theories to which one still ascribes despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

The Lost Experience has come to an end. Season 3 begins next Wednesday. In the interregnum, I shall make an attempt to get out in the light. Climb out of my hatch, as it were. But then WHO WILL PUSH THE BUTTON?!

WAKE UP, MAN! BACK TO REALITY. I must come back to reality. The leaves are starting to change, monarch butterflies are about, Thomas Werner Mittlewerk is plotting to slaughter 30% of the human race for scientific purposes....

WAKE UP! Think about something else! Be an individual for God's sake! Make your own kind of music. Sing your own special song. PUSH THE BUTTON.

WAKE THE HELL UP! Okay. Obviously I need help. Somebody give me something to occupy my brain. Just nothing too islandish.

Windy II

2006-07-23T13:25:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday night, it was raining everything but actual rain. I was driving from my house to a restaurant, and I got buzzed by the following: a utility pole power transformer, a live electrical wire, two traffic barrels, half of a Bradford pear tree, a street sign (not pictured, this is a reader photo from the Post-Dispatch from the same time), a mini-tornado of debris and what I think was a lid from an old washing machine. Somehow, my car emerged undamaged. Of course, our power was out for upwards of two days. I think Mother Nature may be off her medication.

Linear time is for wimps

2006-06-14T20:22:00.000-05:00

So make an effort to change your way of thinking, because going nonlinear will greatly improve your life.

Don't attempt to understand it. It's like trying to understand anything by James Joyce or Louis Sachar on a first read. It can't be done, because you're used to thinking in terms of linear time. Shame on you. Everyone knows that linear time is an illusion, and that there is no true differential between past, present and future. Silly. Once you understand that, it's a bit easier to understand those writers, as well as Haruhi.

Haruhi seems to be another high school relationship series, of which there are plenty. But then you start to realize that the episodes are intentionally written in nonsequential order, which shouldn't make sense, but does. It also makes it more acceptable that everyone is either a time traveler, an alien, an android or an esper. Again -- don't think in terms of linear time.

The latest anime series that has gripped my brain and prevented me from making any effective contributions to society is called The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and I feel that I must issue some pre-viewing information for anyone who intends to watch it, lest their brains might explode. ;)

So long, Dick. Sorry -- Rich.

2006-05-28T10:33:00.000-05:00

Paul Gleason, a.k.a. Principal Richard Vernon from The Breakfast Club, has died of mesothelioma.

That sucks.

He'll never make good on his promise to knock Bender's dick in the dirt.

Windy

2006-05-19T18:08:00.000-05:00

Yeah.
This is the backyard of my parents' house. We've lost trees to lightning, hail, flooding, tent worms, ice, construction-related root damage and now wind. But we've planted new trees in their wake. Doing our part to respect the circle of life -- or tempting that hella bitch Mother Nature yet again?

A War to End All Wars to End All Wars to End All Wars...

2006-05-02T13:52:00.000-05:00

So I'm watching Real Time with Bill Maher as I tend to do on Sunday afternoons, and there is a satellite interview with Victor Davis Hanson, a personal adviser to Vice President Cheney. Hanson has, in his written works, supported the position that war is the natural state of mankind, and that it is inevitable in any case. I go through the usual paces of rolling my eyes, clenching my teeth and muttering bad words under my breath.

But for the rest of the day, I can't get it out of my head: what if this guy is right? I mean, look at history. When you can stomach it. The whole of human recorded history is sectioned by wars. I can't, offhand, think of one instance of great sociopolitical change that did not come about at least in part by violence or unrest of some kind. We, as a species, have yet to come up with a workable alternative to war as a method of sociopolitical evolution.

And then my brain had to go and connect these horrific thoughts to others I had previously -- specifically, the idea that mankind has stopped evolving. With the advent of civilization, there is no more need for survival of the fittest. This is not to say that lazy people being mauled by a sabretooth tiger is a better scenario than lazy people sitting around watching TV all day, but loss of any kind of evolution can only serve to make a species weaker and more vulnerable to the whims of the surrounding environment.

And so my damned brain combined these two horrors into a new thought that kept me up last night: What if the human race needs war? I mean, wars have been justified throughout time by numerous red herrings: a king's ambition, a personal grudge, extreme nationalism, political expansionism and/or colonialism, and most often, religion. All of those reasons are pure B.S. There is only one real reason wars are fought: Too many people, not enough resources. At its most basic, it is the notion that we need war to thin the herd or else we'll literally waste away.

And so I am forced to consider: could this all be for real? We, as a species, need war to evolve? Somebody please convince me that I'm wrong.

Vorticity

2006-03-19T17:38:00.000-06:00

Okay! Okay! Enough with the damned rotating weather patterns already!

I don't know if you follow weather news, but Eastern Missouri and Western Illinois have been getting pounded by tornadoes recently. Lots of tornadoes. One entire town was almost completely annihilated. One guy out in Festus woke up to discover that his car was on top of his house and most of said house had been relocated, presumably to Oz.

Not only were there tornadoes, but ordinary storm systems now rotate as well. They tear across the plains, damaging everything in their path, get to just southwest of where I live, and start spinning around for a while. The weatherman calls it "Vorticity." The weather here has gone schizo to the point of being Vorticitous. It's hot in the morning, cold in the afternoon, and violent at night. So, not a big fan of vorticity.

EDIT 3/21: Aaaaaggghhh! Blizzard! It was 60 degrees all throughout winter, but now on the first day of Spring we've got a fracking blizzard?!

Bad Cartoons Are My Draxon Drear

2006-02-23T10:04:00.000-06:00

I understand the animated Justice League Unlimited will be drawing to a close this year, following its adorable kid cousin Teen Titans to the Realm of the Ancillary, where old cartoons go to begin their Celestial Cycle: Creation, Marketing, Popularity, More Marketing, Peak of Greatness, More Marketing, Jumping the Shark, Desperate Marketing, Cancellation, Marketing of Anything That's Left, Return on Investment, Greedy Marketing, Poorly Written Remake (Usually involving motorcycles and the word EXTREME), Damage Control, Fan Anger, Fan Wars (pointless arguments between fans of the classic version and fans of the new), Reconciliation and finally Release of a New, Well Done Version.

I should point out that not all shows reach that last point. I have been waiting 20 years for a remake of Lazer Tag Academy and so far, nothing. For a while I was wondering whether they would remake Bucky O'Hare, but then I decided that it was probably best that they didn't, as it would be a New EXTREME version with motorcycles and really lame dialogue. Think the new Kids WB show ****NAME OMITTED BECAUSE OF SHOW'S OVERALL CRAPPINESS****. I mean, seriously! Give today's kids some credit! So there were no motorcycles or extensive fart jokes or the word EXTREME in the old Bugs Bunny shorts! Is that any reason to deprive today's youth of the pleasure of watching a rabbit in drag seduce a bald hunter with a speech impediment into shooting himself in the face with an elephant gun? I don't buy it.

Speaking as a GUITE (Grew Up In The Eighties), I would like to see faithful restarts (notice I said reSTARTS, not reMAKES) of the best animated shows that the eighties had to offer. I want to see more episodes of Lazer Tag Academy and Bionic Six, of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. I'm interested to see how Captain N would fight his way through the new generation of Nintendo games, aren't you? And just what the heck was wrong with Danger Mouse? He was the greatest secret agent in the world! Wherefore art the Mysterious Cities of Gold and Kidd Video? I mean, Kidd Video had both a super-strong pixie that wears leg warmers AND Cousin Oliver from the Brady Bunch! If that doesn't warrant another season, what the hell does?!

So, in summation, JLU shall be missed for so many reasons. I tell you, today's kids are being shortchanged. Something must be done. Not by me, of course, because I like to stay in and watch cartoons.

Band Camp

2006-02-15T07:17:00.000-06:00

No real comment here, I just happen to think that it's funny. Band camp. It's one of the funniest concepts out there; even the name is funny.

"Hey, dude?"

"Yeah?"

"Band Camp."

(incessant laughter)

Yes, sometimes humor is just that easy to achieve.

Snow

2006-02-13T08:01:00.000-06:00

Can I interest any of you Northeast-dwellers in a shovel?

Today in St. Louis, it was 6 degrees with flurries at 9am and 57 degrees and sunny at noon, with cold spot showers in the evening. The weather here seriously needs to be put on Lithium.

Update: How does your neck of the woods react to 22 inches of snow?

So what does it all mean?

2006-02-07T08:50:00.000-06:00

Essentially, nothing.

But a better answer would be that it all means what we want it to mean. If we mean what we mean, of course. But meaning what we mean to mean itself has meaning. Unless it doesn't. But if it does, then its meaning shifts depending on the people who are meaning to do the meaning. So its meaning becomes the average, or mean, of all the meanings that were originally meant. And if that in itself is the true meaning of it all, then we will have found meaning where no meaning was before. But if it is not, then we will have created meaning where no meaning was meant to be. And that's just mean.

In other words, I haven't slept since Sunday.

Jessika: The Most Adorable of Blogger-Haters

2006-01-11T10:12:00.000-06:00

Image courtesy Todd & Penguin.

Fictitious Blog Entry

2006-01-03T11:03:00.000-06:00

After responding to a thread on a friend's blog (one vastly superior to mine), I started to think. This freaked me out at first, because I don't usually start thinking until a few minutes after posting a signed comment on the internet for all the world to see. But this time I actually felt my brain come out of sleep mode as I read my entry, and I started to wonder, why don't we just admit it?

Admit what? Why, the fact that part of each and every person's life is fictitious. Let's face it, our lives would be horrifically boring if not for at least a minor amount of artistic embellishment. The problem is that we impose upon ourselves the need to make the fiction sound realistic, e.g. "Yes, that's my BMW!" or "No, that's not my sidewalk vomit!" May I be so bold as to suggest that we all come right out and admit that not everything in our lives is true, and - more to the point - come up with some entertaining fiction.

I, for example, am a crime-fighting ninja sorcerer. Now that's something that we all know to be fictitious, and yet, it makes for a HELL of a conversation. Just think! No more inane small talk at parties! No more boring blind dates! No more having to come to the realization that the high point of your life is sleeping in on Sundays! So go ahead, tell your friends about that time you fought aliens on Mars! Tell your boss that you were late today because you had to protect a nursing home from a swarm of robot Nazis! It's not like your boss's life couldn't use a little fiction! Remember: if it's well-written, then it's all good.

A Yearning for Glory in the Halls of Office Buildings

2005-12-22T15:05:00.000-06:00

This is a time of year when nobody at my place of employment has any need of my services. I've got a whole department full of LCD projectors, DVD production, rolling wireless computers, DAT recorders, and Anything That Can Fit on a Cart -- On a Cart. And yet, my schedule is blank until January 3rd. As such, the boredom can get rather intense. I have already cleaned my work area twice, created a handful of PowerPoint templates, sketched out a blueprint for a homebrew high-definition media center PC, fixed the broken laser pointer, and got the office's new lightscribe DVD burner working. Beyond that, until the scheduled events start up again in January, I really haven't much to do. So I am seriously considering starting a Hallway Sports League.

I get this idea because I took second place in the peanut butter football league my floormates and I thought up freshman year, and I have been yearning for that level of glory, as well as rewards that don't involve being forced to clean peanut butter off of dorm hallway walls. So I've been tossing around a few ideas for Office Hallway Sports Leagues:

Bagel Horseshoes
Pen and Rubberband Archery
Task Chair Equestrian Events
Coffee Filterpack Hockey
3-team Basketball
5-team Basketball
Every Man For Himself Basketball
Tackle the I.T. Guy
Kill the Man with the Paychecks
Desk Gymnastics (vault, balance beam and floor excercise)
Mayonnaise Football
Stale Muffin Handball
Hallway Slalom
Christmas Tree Ornament Dodgeball
Windex Fencing

I think I would fare well in any of the above. And the best part is that if my boss complains, I can just offer her a handicap. Personally, I think the only reason the assistant residence director complained about our peanut butter football league is that her team came in last. O, how I yearn for glory in the halls of... hallways. O, how I yearn.

Of Websites and Weblogs

2005-12-16T08:00:00.000-06:00

Some of you may know that I have maintained a World Wide Web presence in one manner or another since December 15, 1996. My first shot at a website was simply black text on a white screen. I called it the "Lynx" or "Amish" version. All it contained was a list of made-up disclaimers called the Lawsuit-inspired Legal Fanfare Page. The page was meant to be funny, and was, for about three weeks. Still, it was my website. My official website. I decided to declare its officiality because there was an "officializing" craze at the time; people thought they would get more hits if they called their website "official," as in: "The Official Sony VCR Site" or "The Official Kermit the Frog Site" or "The Official Site of the Color Chartreuse." So calling my site the "Official Benjamin Rotskoff Homepage" was simply a joke that went on too long.

It went on for nine years, in fact. For two years it stayed in that format, a study in negative space. Then came The Official version 2.0, which was purple, and had lots of graphics, and was actually pretty well done for its day. After college, I published version 3.0 on December 1, 2000. It was, to quote a college roommate, "fun, professional, and grey." Yes, it was charcoal grey and had my personal logo and color coding and it went through numerous updates. But, on December 15 of this year, I elected to close The Official for good. Why, you ask? A number of reasons. First, after a while, I never had good reason to update it. This was a sad reflection of the way my life was going at that point in time. Second, I got downright sick of ad banners and guestbook spam. Oh GOD how I loathe guestbook spam. And third, it was just time to try something new. The Official had an amazing run, but now it's all about the weblog. The official weblog. :)

The Start of a Grand Adventure, or More Likely a Study in Slowness to Update

2005-12-16T07:00:00.000-06:00

Yes, here it is. My very own weblog. I tried my best to stay above it all, out of the fray, away from the ultra-combustible hotheads that turn what was once intelligent debate into a quagmire of name-calling, not unlike what one would hear in a kindergarten sandbox. Or on cable.

I look forward to sharing my thoughts and analysis which people don't understand on subjects they don't care about. After all, that's why we read blogs, isn't it? We like to read a three-paragraph essay featuring college-honed analytical thinking and the insight of human experience and then respond to it by informing the author that he sucks.

What do I ask of my loyal reader(s), in exchange for providing them with unrequested opinions on uninteresting subject matter? Why, only civility and honesty, of course. The internet is no place for loud, obnoxious bullshit. That's what TV news is for. And so, here at the end of my third paragraph, I shall invite any and all to join the quest for greater knowledge of the world around us, and then sit back and listen to people tell me that I suck. Let us begin....

Of Azure Sea

2005-12-15T07:00:00.000-06:00

The azure sea has never looked the same way twice for as long as the Earth has been cool, and yet it always seems familiar. Though the waters of the azure sea travel through clouds, rivers, lakes and streams, they always come back to where they began and are seen again. People are the same way and don't realize it. You change every day of your life, and yet there's always something, if even just one thing, familiar about you to those who have seen you before. The human race is an azure sea of another kind, and I hope we realize that before it's too late.