Sunday, January 18, 2004

Leaving at last
Just when I thought I wasn't going to do it...

Here I go.

My otakuboards password is changed to.. something random. I have it saved, but I'm going to print it out, seal it up, and leave it that way.

Myotaku is next.

There are very few of you I can actually help. For me, that makes this useless. There are so much more useful things I can be doing right now.

But no. Every time I get a little free time by myself it's straight onto the boards or myotaku.com.

This is the end.

Maybe for now, maybe for good.

You can still reach me at the e-mail adress given at the top, or dan@danlucking.velegant.com for the lazy ones.

I really need to do some work on that damn site anyway.

You can probably catch me (infrequently) on AIM too- but that's debatable.

So yeah.

Solo- I'll keep in touch
Mitch- keep plodding
Sara- Hang in there
Shinji- You da man! Da godleh man!
Mo- Stay optimistic

I dunno if there's anyone else who actually reads this, so I'll leave it at that.

See you all around.
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Saturday, January 17, 2004

#4
It's 2 in the morning. And I'm doing the week's shopping. at asda.co.uk.

In my pyjamas. It's quite a "different" experience.

And...

Holy crap.

I just went to check if we needed more bog roll, and on the way I saw a mouse run across the kitchen floor.

Thing is, we've already had (and killed) 3 so far this week, so this is number 4.

Which is a little bit worrying.
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The latest randomness from my inbox
Dear guys,
You have just recieved an e-mail from me... even though i am sat in the VERY SAME room as you. Dan, I can't believe you have just gone to check your e-mail right now... but your light bulb has gone so you can't do it.

Greg, speeding is unbiblical... you cheated at the race!

Dan, I also told you to TURN YOUR COMPUTER OFF when not using it.

Pippa, I sure hope you are still going to by me a nice warm blanket for my birthday (April 7th)

Liz, stick at the driving, you'll get it right.

FRANCOPHILE WHACKER is a google whack...

Jude got quite a few, apparently. Pippa had 20 lessons, Chris had about 30 odd and is quite feminine...

This e-mail will self destruct in 10 seconds.
Nicco(",)x
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Friday, January 16, 2004

Meh
Eh

I really feel quite pathetic.

I mean, if I can meet just one girl in the next week without thinking "maybe she's the cure for my loneliness". Then maybe I will have achieved something.

But unfortunately, at the time being that's the way it is.

Damn human-ness.

It's just that so often I find that I doubt anything will actually happen, and that I'll just be stuck as whatever I am now, for however long I live.

There's quite a deep hole there. But..

I know that nothing can fill it. No-one can fill it. That's not to say that there's no one out there for me, but rather, she won't really solve the problem.

It's like money. No matter how much money or what type you have, you never have enough to make you "happy".

I know that it doesn't matter who I end up with. Either way I'm still going to feel this way if I try to make them a solution.

The loneliness thing..

I need to sort that out on my own. With god. With others. But not by praying for someone to be with so I don't get so lonely- that won't work.

It is true that God created man and woman to be together- but he didn't create us to be dependant on each other to the point that God comes second.

Elaboration on the first few lines

Jude had a few friends around tonight. First of all there was Chris and Chris. Then Tom- who I'd only met tonight. Then there was a girl, who I think was called *Name also edited (see in an above post)*.

She seemed really great- just like far too many others...

Ideally I don't particularly want to fill myotaku with stuff like that, but heh.. it's what I really feel. What good does it do to keep it in..?

I don't think I ever really got over what happened in the summer.

Basically from mid-february 2003, til about July, I had feelings for someone in my home church back in Stoke, called Fiona.

At first I rejected them- she seemed way out of my league. She's the youth pastor down there (started there at the time I started having feelings for her- coincedence eh? :p. And no, before that I didn't know her), as well as a few (about 3) years older than me.

After a month or so I started actually paying attention to these feelings and giving them some credit. After all, I was 20. 3 years at that age isn't a huge amount of difference. And being the youth pastor doesn't make her above me to any point which means nothing could happen.

I still had very bad doubts though, the majority of the time. But then whenever someone prayed for me, god strengthened me, which I took as a sign that it was true.

Of course, doubts soon followed.

There were various things I used to support what I believed- the way she behaved around me and such. I at least thought that even if she didn't like me, she must have guessed that I had some feelings for her.

After 6 months or so of this I finally got around to telling her how I felt. Turned out she didn't feel anything, and never suspected that I did.

My whole life just.. I dunno. Ceased to mean very much. For a good week or so. And even after that, it just felt like one big shattered dream.

What's the use in having dreams, when shit like that happens.. pretty much sums up the way I felt.

So recently.. I dunno. I haven't really stuck to having feelings for any one person for much more than a week or two. And my dreams have become far detached from reality, with no remote chance of them happening at all- it's kind of my way of avoiding dissapointment- aiming for things that you know you're never going to reach, rather than believing your dreams will be realised.

This time last year I was feeling pretty damn crap. Life just seemed to trudge along. Then Fiona came, and I knew what I wanted to do. We were supposed to get together over the summer. I was meant to do my final year at uni. Then things would progress from there and life would just be this random adventure. But at least I knew just one thing I wanted.

Later on, I finished uni for good, a year early, and without a degree. Various things were going on which would have meant that it would have just put pressure on Fiona if I told her how I felt. The more time I spent around her, the more I realised that there were people with less time than me, which were spending even more time with her, which really bothered me, because it made me realise how little I knew her.

Still, I knew what I wanted in life- I just needed the opportunity. When that came, I ended up with nothing. Not even a hope or a dream.

So now I'm afraid. I'm afraid that I'll be alone, but I'm also afraid that if I chase a dream it will only shatter. So these days my dreams are fleeting.

Don't worry for me. This is a deep issue in my life. Everyone has deep issues, under the surface. I can still have fun, I can still hope for you guys.. I'm just afraid to have dreams for myself. That's something I need to sort out.
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Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Based partly on an actual event
Walk beside the water, safely, Son,
Come across a mob with hacksaw, run
Caught up with you now, drove your friend away
Son you best be prayin that you're gonna be safe

Now you're in their hands, there's no escape
Just for fun they make you walk the cold knee deep
Tried to fight, for your rights, didn't get far
Boy, in this country you ain't nothing no more

(Didn't want you to see this kind of crap so soon,
The world's an ugly place when you take a look.
There's a good side to everyone but bad side too,
And everyone's a bastard when they're over you)

Don't know where they'll take you, what they'll do,
Could leave you in the water or cut you in two.
But a man is a man, don't let them have power
Look death in the face, screaming Hallelujah
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Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Ergh...

Why is it I feel so much less inspired when I actually come to write something which was in my head earlier. And even what was in my head is now gone other than the vague idea of what it was about.

*kills random, untimely creativity*
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Sunday, January 11, 2004

Hope is Life
Hope is life, despite Death
Happiness, despite sorrow
Peace, despite noise
Never lose it

Hope is knowing of light,
despite the vast darkness
That the smallest of lights
lighten every dark room

Hope knows what is but seems not
And it brings this to fruition

To proclaim hope as useless
Is as if light trips a man over
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Saturday, January 10, 2004

Still with the huge gaps, but only one this time.

Random Stuff- Populations
1- Stoke On Trent
Age Range	Total	Males	Females
0 - 4	13895	7169	6726
5 - 9	14655	7513	7142
10 - 14	16407	8376	8031
15 - 19	16043	8045	7998
20 - 24	16687	8240	8447
25 - 29	15878	7780	8098
30 - 34	18066	8944	9122
35 - 39	18127	9139	8988
40 - 44	16095	7883	8212
45 - 49	14413	7346	7067
50 - 54	16212	8253	7959
55 - 59	13629	6906	6723
60 - 64	11428	5558	5870
65 - 69	10589	4904	5685
70 - 74	10112	4481	5631
75 - 79	8803	3652	5151
80 - 84	5462	1924	3538
85 - 89	2852	771	2081
90 and over	1283	274	1009
Totals	240636	117158	123478
2- Sheffield
Age Range	Total	Males	Females
0 - 4	29232	15074	14158
5 - 9	31487	16156	15331
10 - 14	31352	15977	15375
15 - 19	33226	16735	16491
20 - 24	41347	20996	20351
25 - 29	34556	17413	17143
30 - 34	39542	20004	19538
35 - 39	38744	19539	19205
40 - 44	34096	16951	17145
45 - 49	29885	14974	14911
50 - 54	32281	16160	16121
55 - 59	28249	13849	14400
60 - 64	25181	12353	12828
65 - 69	22609	10693	11916
70 - 74	20325	9135	11190
75 - 79	17614	7221	10393
80 - 84	12869	4564	8305
85 - 89	7206	2084	5122
90 and over	3433	752	2681
Totals	513234	250630	262604

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Friday, January 9, 2004

Even more Randomness
I like the relationship I have with myotaku right now. I come here to report on what happens in the day, and maybe to think. I don't just linger and eventually go to bed.

I forgot to add one thing last night:

We were making a chilli- the meat was frozen. So it needed defrosting. I was washing some dishes so we could actually make the chilli.

The microwave was on behind me. I thought it was defrosting the meat. It finished with a ping, and I shouted "PING" towards the living area (technically not a room since there's no doorway between it and the kitchen) when I noticed two things:

1- the microwave was set on full power, not on defrost.

2- there was a frozen packet of meat, not in the microwave.

Now, we had two packets of meat last night, both frozen so I assumed Someone just decided to use both. I wasn't too appreciative of that, since I thought it was a waste to use so much meat, rather than use more vegetables. So I looked in the freezer...

The other packet was there...

"What the...?"..

I went back to the microwave and opened it to find that Jude had put his cup of tea in there to warm it up (it had gone cold). For a few minutes. On full power.

The cup was intact, but it was quite a mess. There was hot, burnt tea everywhere inside the microwave(Imagine how much bubbling there would have been after that amount of time....)

It was quickly cleaned up- and quite funny to see.

Later on I broke on of Jude's beer glasses while washing up.

Most of them are taken from pubs all around the place. Mostly without permission. This one, however was legitamately purchased.

He jokingly said "You're going to have to get me a replacement", to which I replied "I'll do that when you return all the ones you nicked"... in the kind of manner which, in an IM, would warrant a ":p" on the end.

In Semi-Related Randomness

We had about 6 people from TT around for dinner tonight. Then we spent a good few hours playing games (the type which don't require anything electronic).

It was a great evening.

However, both me and Greg had a niggling problem, to do with Jude. He was trying to be very authoritative. Even more so than usual, and this is one of the things that irritates me about him a lot, though I tend to let it go.

Rather than doing a great deal to help sort things out, he'd delegate people to do it instead. "would you like to do this" or "would you like to do that". And he wouldn't stop talking about his job, and where he thought he was going, and his ambitions, which wasn't so much of a problem except he took them all as definite facts for the future.

Neither of us said anything during the evening. I think that was for the best. But we had quite a long chat with him afterwards. Not being overly negative but adressing some issues that have been building up over time.

I won't go over them all, but I was quite surprised by one thing-

Jude is actually quite a shy, quiet guy. And he has immense difficulty interacting in groups of people.

He just didn't seem like the kind of person with that problem to me. And the reason is that he is incredibly assertive in a deliberate way. He knows a lot about stuff like body language, and he actively pushes ideas to people, as a means to compensate for his own difficulty.

All this masks the fact that he has such problems, to the point that they build up, there's no input from others. And you know what, he thought that this problem was only a minor one, but he was just generally feeling quite crap all evening.

It wasn't until we actually confronted him that he realised the extent to which this is taking over his life.

Accountability in action.

OK, so Greg and I aren't accountable to Jude regularly, but that's pretty much how it works. Jude isn't accountable to anyone at the moment anyway, so if we hadn't stepped in, things would have just carried on.

It's not a matter of nit-picking someone's faults as helping them through their issues. Nothing of our conversation last night will be said to anyone who actually knows Jude.

And this is a pretty common problem. I've been pretty vague, so I'm not letting you in on a lot either.

Day Trip!!!

Tomorrow we're off on a day trip to.. um... BRIDLINGTON! That was it. We're off to the nearest beach. In winter. So I doubt there will be massive amounts of sunbathing.

But yeah. About 10 of us at most are off out for the day tomorrow. Should be fun.

On one more random Side-note

Damn me and my early enthusiasm for all things challenging.

Tonight I randomly ended up agreeing to going without any form of caffiene for a week.

That means Coffe, Tea, Coke, and Chocolate. And anything else found to have a caffiene content which is significant.

...It's not even as though I have a caffiene problem either, so God only knows how I ended up doing that.

The thing is, though I could go without one of these things for a while with little difficulty, the whole lot will be a challenge. It certainly will.
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Thursday, January 8, 2004

ONe last side note
I'm shooting up the popularity list. Started off at something like 2,000. Now I'm at 321. I'm still a long way off anything spectacular, but heh. I'm pleased with my progress :p

.....

Ego signing off,

-Dan
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