TJamesWhite.com

Devil’s Night
The house is mostly set for tomorrow. Being Devil’s night, I haven’t bother to put out all of the decorations, but I’ve got everything ready. All I need to do is move it all to the front yard when I get home from work tomorrow.

Tonight I finished off the plumbing for the pumpkins. It works really well. I’ve fashioned some 1/2″ PVC to pipe the fog from the fog machine up and into my two pumpkins. The effect of the fog rolling out of them is wonderful. They will be lit by some red glow sticks. All I really need to work out is where to place the strobe light. I think it will go off to the side and bounce off the front of the house. That should take out the harshness of the light while provide the fun strobie effect we all love.

2 Days / 8 Days
Two days to Halloween! The pumpkins have been carved. The new fog machine is ready, along with plumbing for pumpkins. Now it is time to cook pumpkin seeds! Yes!

Eight days and we’ll be in the U.S. Virgin Islands! And, Sarah and I have decided that next summer we are going to Italy. Yes!

Notwork
Well, our network is down so I can’t work. I wish I had something more exciting to post. I need to try and find time (and thoughts) to post more often.

[edit] OK, the network is back. I guess I should work now.

I Hope This is on ESPN
I surely don’t want to miss the Rock Paper Scissors World Championship. Check out the rules, especially point 2: the forbidden throws. I didn’t know there was anything besides, oh, rock, paper and scissors. Silly me.

And don’t miss The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide. I particularly like the Gambits section.

There is something sad about this. Of course, there are professional Magic: The Gathering players and it was on ESPN2 at one point. And for some reason I can’t help but watch the World Tournament of Poker when its on.

Cheap Faux
In tonight’s chapter of Sex, Drugs and Coco Puffs Klosterman relates an evening he spent interviewing a Guns ‘N Roses cover band. The very notion that a band doesn’t want to be a band but rather act like a band is very strange. But at least they are honest about it – it isn’t about making music, it’s about making money and getting chicks (not very much money, but more than they’d make as a “local band”). Very strange what our society produces.

In other worlds, over on James’ gaming page there is a thread about non-rpg games. It seems we are in agreement that we should hold a Cheap Ass Games game session. With the holidays and the Virgin Islands I’m not sure when we could do this, but it definitely sounds like fun. If you are interested, let us know. Oh, my warning: I plan on playing Time Machine and Witch Hunt, two time-consuming and possibly convoluted games.

Finally, I’m now going to head into Icewind Dale now to kill some verbeegs and stuff. Ah, D&D in nifty computer graphics. My party of 6 is at 5th level now and going quite nicely. (For geek: Two fighters, one specialized in two-handed sword, one in the bow; one fighter/thief; one cleric; one mage; one cleric/mage.)

And so it begins…
Forty people were laid off today, four in my department.

They say that is all. I have a feeling we might see some more come 2004, but allegedly our department is done. There really isn’t much more they could cut from us, not if they want us to get anything done.

Oh, I’m still working.

Archetypes
In Sex, Drugs and Coco Puffs, Klosterman talks about the one-dimensional personalities that MTV’s The Real World helped create. We now see them everywhere (Survivor, Big Brother, etc) and we find ourselves using those classifications – “Oh, he’s the angry black guy”, “Oh, you mean the vaguely gay one”, etc.

These are nothing new. Archetypes (stereotypes) have been around for a long time – Jung wrote about them; there are plenty of Everyman stories; The Canterbury Tales. Jung referred to them as being the collective unconscious of the human race.

This got me to thinking about why “we” want to be one of the stereotypes on MTV. Where do they come from? And I realized that there are always a few true individuals who led the way, whether they are pioneers in physics, fashion or tattoos. They are the prime movers, the ones providing the impetus for the rest of us to follow. A lot of us might like to be prime movers, but we can’t, it simply isn’t in us. So we settle into the role of following.

I’m still working on this whole notion. I’ve got notes jotted down and have to figure out how it all connects and works. If you’ve got ideas, feel free to comment.

Bachelor Party
It’s 5:20 AM. I just got home from John’s bachelor party. ‘Nuff said.

One Box
This week a lot of us got our desks down to one box of personal items. Let the lay offs begin! (I’m 80% sure I’m OK.)

[Edit: While we know layoffs will happen, no one has officially said anything yet. Rumor has it that they are starting this week and plan to be done by the end of the month. I love office rumors. 10/20/2003]

From the Polk Audio Newsletter
They are working on an interesting new speaker system: IP addressable speakers. Very interesting.

And, for those of you looking for a new fashion statement, pull out the duct tape.