The thing is I used to routinely hang out with the “experts” at model shows. Many of them build scale models of armor and we'd meet at the convention and talk tanks for hours. If I went back to that I would never have time for comics ever again. It's a very all encompassing obsession. … um I mean hobby.

Since I started my comic hiatus I've been toying with the idea. I've been having so much fun building kits. Over a dozen since October and the figure painting has just piled up.

Just go to reading, no more writing or photography and just figure out what to do with the boxes and boxes of figures, accessories furniture I collected for my comics

Boy, I never notice how many mildly distressing things I'm subjected to until I'm feeling a bit panicky. My brain tends to assign more importance to unpleasant information and images(even stupid things like a skull on a t-shirt that is normally completely benign) when I'm starting to feel panicky thereby further raising my anxiety level, so if I'm not feeling well mentally I try to treat myself very gently. Last night I was experiencing some hints of panic feelings, so I thought I'd listen to one of my favourite radio shows - CBC's Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. As soon as I pressed play there was a promo for another CBC programme focusing on the mysterious unsolved murder of a child. -_-

I know exactly what you mean Hippie!
Well, sort of…
When I have a really, really bad migraine things like that set me off on something like a bad trip. I have to keep away from anything like skulls even in just my own mental imagery - anything horrific or even mildly nasty because it multiplies 10 fold in my brain creating a feedback loop of horror. It's awful to get stuck in and makes the sickness and pain so much less bearable.

So I have to consciously claw my way back to fairyfloss clouds in rainblowland (so to speak) to get out of it.

ozoneocean wrote:
I know exactly what you mean Hippie!
Well, sort of…
When I have a really, really bad migraine things like that set me off on something like a bad trip. I have to keep away from anything like skulls even in just my own mental imagery - anything horrific or even mildly nasty because it multiplies 10 fold in my brain creating a feedback loop of horror. It's awful to get stuck in and makes the sickness and pain so much less bearable.

So I have to consciously claw my way back to fairyfloss clouds in rainblowland (so to speak) to get out of it.

Yes, that's exactly what it's like! That's really interesting that it's so similar, actually.

I also find that it's way worse when I'm going to bed, which is why that's when my worst panic attacks used to (hooray for CBT!) happen. First of all because being less alert means that it's harder to logically think my way out of weird anxiety thought-loops. But also because I tend to have ‘waking dreams,’ i.e. mild hallucinations as I'm falling asleep. Usually they're just benign things like geometric shapes and patterns, drawn faces/figures, etc., rarely interesting enough to note. But those thing go crazy sometimes when I'm anxious. “Feedback loop of horror” describes it perfectly.

Interesting. Probably exactly the same thing with bad drug trips too.

I can see how that would be- it's probably a simple function of the brain that does the same thing for everyone given the right or WRONG conditions to set it off.
The wrong switch gets flips and it's a short, sharp trip to waking nightmarville.

Man, some of he things that come out of my mind in that state… Like if you think about a broken bone, suddenly your mind is conjuring up images of the meaty, bleeding, shattered bone splintering and sticking out of the flesh…
And skulls aren't just skulls but faces being peeled away with hunks of rotten, slimy dark red bloody tissue, viscous snot dripping from the open nasal cavity, staring bloodshot eyeballs without lids… and it just gets worse and worse and worse.

Thanks to some science show, I find out that migranes are so similar to strokes symptomwise that some people have to be actually tested for it! They must not be easy to deal with… So there are no effective treatments so far for the worst migranes?

From what I gleaned by talking to sufferers and neurologists; the best medication have to be taken at the onset of symptoms and alleviate them so the sufferer can function. That means the sufferer has to be aware enough of their condition to recognize the early onset to take the med. Or there are meds to take for some symptoms after it's happened like caffeine and analgesics. But that usually only dulls the actual pain and does nothing for the sensitivity and dizziness.


It would be nice if there was like an app for a smart phone where it would scan you body and tell you that the symptoms indicate. A hypochondriac's dream. Oh yeah, this symptom could be the first signs of a stroke, or just indigestion from that extra-hot chili dog you had last night.

So I had a dream where I was trying to shower and get to bed but constantly got interrupted. I finally got a call saying some friends had been in a major car accident. I was going to shower and get dressed when the doorbell rang. I went being careful of the screen door when a US World War 2 soldier shouldered it in, shoved his M1 rifle in my gut and fired. I woke up in mid recoil from being shot in the gut. I have felt pain and the impact of getting shot before, but this time there was just the recoil. So I figure the guy was using blanks. Still what a WW 2 us infantryman was doing busting in my door I have no idea unless my subconscious was doing its usual thing of suddenly shifting settings like from 1980s NJ to 1940s Europe.


Or may I should have payed more attention to the Sherman tanks going through my front yard.

Concerning Migraines… while they don't hit me often, when they do they are incapacitating…!! Dark Room, Windows Drawn, In Bed, No Sound… and wait it out…!! Comparing them to a regular headache is like the Flu vs the Common Cold…! And it's true what Bravo said, you learn to recognize those sort premonition-type symptoms, the way your eyes feel, etc… I have successfully staved off the worse of them by taking migraine pills prior to it coming on full-force…! Thank the Force that I don't have them too often…

Migraines suck. -_-

I had a funny dream last night.
I was on a very hot island with a large school camp on…
It started with me intervening in an altercation at a school camp where a small boy was being bullied.
Then I picked him up and took him under my wing, making it my mission to get him integrated enough so that he wouldn't be picked on again- which was a lot of hard work but he did really well in the end and I even found him a girlfriend.

Later as I was going back to sleep at the open dorm where my bunk was I found a whole lot of dead rats under it, which really annoyed me… then I looked around as saw there were heaps of other small animals lying about the place amongst the reclining people. They weren't dead, they were sleeping.
All sorts of animals, rabbits, armadillos, platypuses, cats, small dogs, birds, whatever.

So I tried to move some of these interlopers our of the way so I could navigate my way through the place, and they started attacking me!
The bunnies in particular bit really hard and left bloody marks.
But all I could think was that I had to be SOOOOO careful in fighting them off because I could maim or kill them so easily if I wasn't careful and I didn't want to hurt them.

So the theme of this dream was all about being in a hot, awkward difficult situation but trying my best to help out, or at least not hurt or damage anything no matter what.

Whenever I am hot in a dream it is always quite literal. I am hot where I am sleeping and should throw off some covers or distance myself from the space heater.


Would you believe that my supervisor is off on vacation again next week? I mean he's probably won't have a job when he gets back but really. Or maybe he finally figured out that the site runs better when he is not around. He had some rumbles in the past with employees who were trying to help but he fired them fired them for being critical and actually telling someone who could do something about it.


Well they mostly went to another company which it turns out just bought our company. They're supervisors in this new parent company. Kind of like those sleeping animals ozoneocean has to so careful of not harming. He will have to be sooooo careful in future. So maybe he should go on vacation, find another job and get away before they get the chance to turn the tables call him to task and boot him out the door.

I had a dream a few nights ago that I was driving around at night and I was really exhausted behind the wheel. Next thing I knew, my car drove too close to the median and hit the road divider in full force, damaging the front of my vehicle in the crash. I recall trying to figure out in my dream state whether or not it actually happened and if i had actually gotten into an accident the night before and ended up driving my car back home and parked it in the drive way. The good news was that it was all a dream. I wish I could have taken advantage of the lucid dreaming state after I came to terms that I was dreaming.

Well I dreamed I was eating some delicious Greek food, except when I really tried to enjoy the taste all I could taste on my tongue was the creamy mucus of sleep…
So I realised I was dreaming and woke up.
That was pretty disappointing.

Yay! It's Friday!

You know I wish I could play electric guitar…

electric but not acoustic? hehehe! I always wanted to learn but not enough to try very hard, I gave up very quickly.

Yes! I already gave up on acoustic, I like to imagine I'll try harder on electric. Has to have heavy distortion though 'cos I love that noise…

This has been such a crazy week! Had my final installation on Monday (and then saw a play in the evening!), presented the draft of my Dostoevsky paper and picked up a batch of essays to mark on Tuesday, panel discussion on Wednesday, catching up on a ton of reading yesterday, and then my directed reading today.

I'm pretty sad that my Russian history class is over. The prof was really lovely and challenging, and it was cool having class with only two other people. We got to know each other pretty well. The prof gave me a neat book called “The Suitcase,” written by a dissident about the eight things he brought with him when he left the USSR.

I had to go drop off a form at my city's other university today (the one I don't go to). It was quite a debacle. I got off at the wrong bus stop so the campus map didn't seem to make any sense, and then my phone died so I had no idea where I was. And for whatever reason they don't have phone charging stations (they're everywhere at my university!), so I ended up awkwardly standing in the doorway of one of the buildings using a random wall outlet to charge my phone. Eventually I found the right building but it was way too cold for the amount of wandering I did before I found it. Combined with busing there and back, dropping off this stupid form took literally my entire afternoon. But I probably deserve it for being too absent-minded to mail it in before the deadline.

Oh I do NOT miss the round-about faffing around I used to have to do at uni with forms, navigating terribly aid out campuses, dealing with idiosyncratic public transport etc… Nooooooo! You waste so much time that way.

And it doesn't get easier.
Even with cars instead of buses it STILL involves a lot of wasted time.
And even with new technology it doesn't change! I did most of my tertiary learning back in the ‘90s, but I did some more in the 2000s as well, and I occasionally have dealings so I go back to those places even now.
- A couple of years ago I was at an unfamiliar campus at night going to attend a friend’s life drawing class and I got lost there. Google maps was useless for finding the location WITHIN the campus, and my phone was gradually dying and it was raining and cold… And my idiot friend wouldn't answer his phone because he had it set up to play music for the life drawing session.

And now you know why being a security guard can be so rewarding or a colossal pain. Where phones and maps fail, ask the dumb guy in the uniform checking id's.


I taught map reading and land navigation in the Army so I can find my way anywhere. But people who have no idea about the orientation of your map to the terrain or that a GPS can be stymied if someone wants 751 to come before 750 on a street… are my stock in trade. And then there are typos on invoices.

This is for 761 Cliff road.
There is no 761 Cliff road. The numbers end at 751.
Well it says 761.
Then it's a building that doesn't exist. It says Pse&g, they're at 751. So it's a typo.
Don't argue, just take it there and see if I am not right.

ozoneocean wrote:
Google maps was useless for finding the location WITHIN the campus, and my phone was gradually dying and it was raining and cold… And my idiot friend wouldn't answer his phone because he had it set up to play music for the life drawing session.

Yes, this was exactly the problem! Aside from the idiot friend, I mean. My maps app could get me to campus, but not to individual buildings. So I was stuck trying to use the university's weird and not-very-useful campus map.

bravo1102 wrote:
And now you know why being a security guard can be so rewarding or a colossal pain. Where phones and maps fail, ask the dumb guy in the uniform checking id's.

That would have been the smart thing to do! I didn't seen any security guards (not a big thing at universities here, my own university only has like two), but there were definitely a bunch of people at various information desks who I could have asked. I was just feeling too shy, which is pretty silly.

I always ask people, but it's rare for them to know anything I find.

When I eat sweat stuff these days or even just have a single spoon of sugar in my tea it always leaves a very sour, acidic after-taste in my mouth. It's getting so bad that I'm seriously thinking about giving up sweat stuff altogether.
I LOVE sweat things, but as things stand now I need to eat something salty or just eat straight salt afterwards to get rid of the acid taste- or try and do that with a carrot or something instead. So it makes eating sweat snacks a rather pointless experience all up.

Does anyone else have that issue? I'm really curious to know!

It's mostly a problem with sugar and processed foods. Not an issue with sweat fruits or vegetables.

Sweat things? What do you eat armpits?

You can't see me right now, but I'm giving you the finger ^_^

ozoneocean wrote:
I always ask people, but it's rare for them to know anything I find.

Reason # 587 Why it sucks to be me. I'm the only guy who knows and can explain it clearly.

I have a delivery for 1201 Middlesex Avenue.
The GPS thinks you can cross the railway tracks to get there, but they never finished the road and it's not a through street.
But it says I can turn left.
Not a through street there's a kind of a trail for bicycles but not this.
But…
Go back to the stop sign, turn right, then at the light bear right and go under the bridge, then take Prologis Way and that takes you to Middlesex avanue. (I figured all that out just looking at a map. Wow. Me be have'um brain thingee and ooze dem oo!)


Great satellite picture sir, but you're holding it upside down. That's why you want to go right when it's left.
Well this is what we're interested in leasing.
Well sir it won't look anything like that if you continue to hold the picture upside down.

Like the time I lost my passport in Athens last year and Google maps informed me that the closest Australian Embassy was in Bulgaria… or Massachusetts. Seriously WTF????
I seems the Australian government is shit about getting those very important offices marked on Google maps- Either through wilful carelessness or a very mistaken crazy insane moronic idea of security.

I suspect the latter, because they ARE a crazy stupid bunch, and the security at the embassy was WAY heavier than it needed to be- not like the US embassy, but heavy in its own way.

The US embassy was a literal fortress, as you'd expect from the American empire :)
It had a fence made from 3 metre sharpened steel pailings all around it, like the US border fence outside San Diego. Mirrored armoured guard houses parked out the front- those are manned by Greek police officers I discovered. People can't even get into the compound (which takes up its own city block), unless they convince the US officer at the intimidating security station at the front fence. They just have to line up in the sun and rain on the wide pathway outside.

The Australian embassy by stark contrast is more like a secret agency- hidden on an upper floor of a nondescript office building. Once you find your way up there you almost need to get strip searched just to get through into the front lobby. And you don't get any further than that anyway. You communicate with the Greek staff who man it through armoured glass and closed circuit cameras.

Well it's not like Greece was the very picture of idyllic peace. A little domestic turmoil and the embassies arm up.


And the Australian embassy knew some guy was about to lose his passport so they removed the location from Google and tried to hide. But you found them anyway.

ozoneocean wrote:
Yes! I already gave up on acoustic, I like to imagine I'll try harder on electric. Has to have heavy distortion though 'cos I love that noise…

But are you talking distortion in a hair metal sense, or like Metallica, or that kind of classic Pagey type thing, or my personal favourite - super fuzzy fuzz box?

Wow… had some kind of story pop in my head at work. It's about a very rich guy who was single and had no girlfriends. Everyone knew he wanted to have no romantic relations with anyone and that he was okay with being unmarried without children.


Then he dies… unusually… No one knows the cause of death, but a woman shows up with what appears to be an authentic last will and testament. She claims he had romantic relations with her and that he named her the reciever of his estate. The lawyers look at the will and confirm that it is authentic, but the man's friends (most of them female) have doubts about her claim…


Could make for mystery novel… if only I didn't fall asleep when actually trying to write one…

Good story Lonne. Write it!

@Scarf- Page style 100%
Do they even distort in hair metal? Especially Metalica type groups… Always seemed just to be about playing fast there. I'd like a guitar to roar like a lion and bellow like a crazed bull :D

I think he means “wowie bar” and slide? Or at least that's what I heard it called by my musician college roommates. One was really into the different guitar techniques of Jimmy Page and Pete Townsend. He could talk about it for hours boring everyone but he was so animated and obviously totally absorbed in the music. There was another who went on like that about bassists. Before them I had just never been into music outside of listening to the radio and my Dr. Demento.


Anyway that's what I think he means.

I am certainly not a guitar guy in any sense but I think a wowie bar puts tension (or releases it?) on the strings, so doesn't distort all the sound, just adds an effect. Slides are a way of playing… -John Paul Jones is AMAZING on a lapsteel guitar using a slide doing The Levee Breaks here:
https://soundcloud.com/michael-john-morris/when-the-levee-breaks-john-paul-jones-seattle-1999
Such a beautifully heavy sound.:D
Mainly I think you tend to need fuzz boxes and things setup between the guitar and the amp to distort the signal in just the right way. Though These days I'm sure you could do it all digitally very easily from the amp itself or even from the guitar.

Here is something very interesting!
Did you know that the “heimlich manoeuvre” is totally unscientific bullshit and that Dr Heimlich was a crazy fruitloop?
Yup:
http://www.accreditedfirstaid.com.au/2014/08/22/the-heimlich-manouevre-why-dont-we-use-it/

It's just one of those totally bullshit things that found its way into popculture that we all idiotically believe, like radioactivity glowing green, all unfamiliar meat tasting like chicken, catching a cold from being in the rain, vitamin C being good for a flu, bulls charging red rags, virgins having painful first time sex because they have to break their hymen, goldfish having no memory, people being left or right brained, that sort of thing. :)