Cavalary's Little Corner of the Web

I’ve been planning this for a while and thought I’d go all out and see what the whole IMAX 3D business is all about as well. This is something you obviously mainly go to see for the effects, so why cut yourself short? Besides, it’s the first time I’ve been to the movies in five or six years, and this is the first movie I thought was worth seeing in a theater in probably even longer. That said and since the theater allows people to make on-line reservations, I went outside the range the site normally allows you to select and made them some ten days ahead, for yesterday. That and the fact that I picked the noon showing meant I could pick a seat right in the middle. Middle row, center seat. In hindsight, I probably should have picked a seat a couple of rows more towards the front, because at first I had the tendency to want to look up and kept needing to correct myself and look straight ahead or even a little down at times.
Of course, since this actually involved me going to a theater by myself and interacting with someone in order to get the actual ticket, I didn’t exactly think I’d manage. With a card on my hands I could have bought the ticket on-line as well and spare myself all the trouble, but as it was I took advantage of the opportunity to reduce the amount of interaction and thought I’d give it a shot. Then again, on-line reservations seem to be more like a necessity than an opportunity for this one. I mean, it’s the only IMAX in Romania and last month it was saying that no more seats were available even a week ahead for three of the four daily showings of Avatar, only the noon one talking longer to fill. Now you can still find a few on shorter notice, but good seats still go very quickly.

Either way, I got there about one hour and 20 minutes ahead of the time of the showing and gave it a try. It was obviously much easier than it’d have been to actually buy the ticket directly from there, because instead of needing to walk up and say I want a ticket for this and that and pick the seat out of what’s available I just asked what should I do if I made an on-line reservation, was told to give the code and did just that. The guy did ask what movie and what time was the reservation for, probably just to check, but saying something already settled was far less taxing than actually asking myself, if that makes sense… Still, I really felt crushed by that brief exchange and when the guy, probably realizing I was there for the first time, told me how to get to the IMAX hall and that I could get in 15 minutes before the starting time, I felt the need to explain myself, despite my showing up early being obviously explained by the fact that they require on-line reservations to be picked up at least 30 minutes before the starting time and strongly suggest picking them up even earlier to avoid queues. Because of that, I muttered “I have something else to do anyway”. Thinking about it later and since the difference is only a single letter in Romanian, I realize that it could have sounded more like “I don’t have anything else to do anyway”, so that made me feel even worse…

I did actually have something else planned to do that day, because at first I meant to get there some two hours early, giving me enough time to reach a park that’s in that area and where I’ve never been before, take a brief walk through it and then come back by the starting time. But that didn’t work out, because I changed my mind too many times and ended up setting the alarm a bit too late. On top of that, to put it bluntly, I was too tense to be able to take a dump before leaving but also too worried I’ll end up needing to go while there if I don’t to give up too quickly. Still had to give up, so it only delayed me even further and made the idea of going to that park pointless because, as things stood, I would have had probably just enough time to get there and back, adjusting for walking on icy sidewalks…
So I just went out of the mall and walked aimlessly around for a while, getting back 30 minutes before the starting time and getting myself briefly lost on purpose, to make it a little interesting. (As an added note, I think about half the women I saw there, not including employees, were wearing something made of fur. Now of course I can’t know how many were wearing real fur, but it bothered me anyway.) Made my way inside just a little less than 15 minutes before the starting time and, seeing as I wanted to avoid as many potential problems as possible and knowing that I failed to avoid a related one before leaving, I made for the bathroom. Had been out in the cold too, so was feeling a bit of a pressing need anyway.
The problem with that was that I managed to make a fool of myself. At first I accidentally walked into the women’s bathroom, said “woops, sorry” in English, since I was too surprised myself to translate the thought in time, and obviously caused some startled faces… Then went to the men’s, did my business and meant to wash my hands… Only to be unable to figure out how to turn the water on! Just noticed one thing I could press on the sink, pressed it and nothing happened. Moved to the other sink, pressed it there too, but that only turned on the hand dryer. Tried again, which obviously only generated the same result. At that point I meant to give up while I still had a shred of dignity and walked out, but heard water running behind me just as I was going out the door, so I turned around and saw the next person washing their hands well enough. That made me go back in to try again, at first by pressing that thing yet again, which obviously didn’t cause anything new to happen, and then attempting to push and rotate various things that were obviously fixed in place. In the end I had to give up yet again, feeling awfully stupid…

Once the movie started, not having any need for subtitles proved to be extremely useful, seeing as you can’t add anything to an IMAX film and therefore they’re projected over it, without 3D effects, meaning that you see them through the 3D glasses pretty much like you’d see a 3D movie without the glasses, obviously. That explains the people complaining of sickness while watching it and splitting headaches afterwards. There even was a warning before the movie, to remove your glasses and close your eyes for a few seconds if you feel sick.
As for the movie itself… Hell, absolutely impressive. Of course, not much of a story, but you don’t go to see it expecting a brilliant story. The underlying message’s very appropriate though. And, of course, the battle scenes were making me cry again, as such scenes usually do when they’re filmed properly, but I felt too exposed due to being there by myself and kept swallowing back my tears. Some of the others didn’t stop themselves, because I heard some sobbing around me, but I felt too unsafe as it was. Really hated that. I’m normally struggling, and failing, to find something that’d allow me to cry because I need that release but can’t cry when alone, and now when I found something I stopped myself…

As a final note, when walking out, just as I was getting to the place where the trash cans were, I heard someone say “truth is that we are a race that generates a whole lot of trash” behind me. Someone else replied with “species, not race, but that we are”. I glanced around and saw that the exchange took place between two men looking to be past 50. Well, if the mix of the movie and those trash cans could make two men in their fifties think of that, it’s a good step…

It’s been nearly two months since I answered the first part of these questions, so it’s probably about time to continue. At first I meant to answer all of them at once, then to split them into two posts published no more than a week apart, but now this is only part two out of three and who knows when I’ll get around to the third one…

Am I having fun?
Quite the opposite. Then again, I’m not particularly looking to have fun most of the time either. There are plenty of more important things, the problem being that I don’t have any of them.

Am I a funny person?
I don’t exactly think so, unless you count people laughing at me. I have my moments and sometimes it can certainly happen unintentionally, but usually I’m quite serious.

Do I know how to feel good, so I won’t cry when others laugh?
If “others” are around then I’ll be feeling uncomfortable at best, no matter what’s going on. If I’m with only one other person that I’m already close to and things are going well then of course I’ll feel good, but that’s about it. I don’t care what makes “others” feel good and certainly have no intention of mimicking them if it’s not what I need.

Do I spend enough time with my family?
Objectively speaking, no. But any amount of time spent with my birth family is way too much for me, so I do my best not to spend any time with them. Now if this would be asking about my chosen family, mainly meaning my girlfriend, I’d have to say that it’d be very hard for me to ever feel I’m spending enough time with her. But since I don’t have a girlfriend, I’ll file this question under “not applicable” and move on.

Did I travel enough?
More than enough, in the sense that any amount of travel is too much for me. Which shouldn’t mean that I’m happy where I am, because I never wanted to end up back here in the first place and I most definitely want to move somewhere else as soon as possible. But that’s just it: I want to find a nice place and move there, permanently. Traveling is taxing and wasteful.

What’s my biggest fear?
When I first saw this question, I meant to say that there are too many big fears to pick just one, but that’d be a lie. My biggest fear by far is that Andra is going to have or adopt a baby someday, or that she has done so already. Since the issue of overpopulation is the only thing more important to me than my love for Andra, having anything to do with children is the one thing I’ll never tolerate, not even for her. Which means that, were something like this to happen, I’ll no longer even be able to lie to myself that there could still be another chance someday, because it’s the only thing that would make me reject any such chance myself.
So, yes, this thought terrifies me constantly. I love her and need her and, while I don’t completely reject the possibility of being able to love someone else just as much someday, trying something with said other person without Andra also being involved would obviously be completely unfair to everyone concerned, for too many reasons. Plus that I promised I’ll never be with anyone else without her involved and I never broke a promise so far, so I’m not about to start with the most important one I ever made. So, if even the theoretical chance of getting back together would be gone, where would that leave me?

How can I get over that fear?
By being absolutely sure that it’ll never happen. The fact that I haven’t heard anything from or about her in two years is certainly making it a whole lot worse, but I doubt I’d be quite sufficiently convinced that this won’t ever happen even if we’d be together and she’d be proven to be completely infertile and somehow assure me that she doesn’t want to adopt…

Am I an annoying person?
Absolutely. Certain recent conversations just prove it once more, if any more evidence was needed.

Why do I annoy others?
Because I’m very far from the “norm” and can’t tolerate “normal” people perhaps? Also because, as someone just pointed out recently, my primary communication tools are those of debate and confrontation. Most people don’t take kindly to being challenged, plus that I make a point of annoying those who can’t support their ideas with solid and valid arguments, those who aren’t willing to argue in defense of their opinions and those who are indifferent to important issues.
Perhaps I’ll explain it better by saying that I’ll always attack people who do “normal” things, in the sense that society defines the term, just like I’ll attack people who are “different” just for the sake of being different or, perhaps to a lesser extent, those who are “different” in harmful ways. Support ideas and do things that are not harmful but in stark contrast with what’s considered “normal” out of clear and strong convictions and we’ll have interesting things to talk about, however.

What am I dreaming of?
To be with Andra again, in a relationship that’d work out really well, and for both of us to be healthy enough to enjoy it. Neither of us should ever put anyone or anything else above the other, though that relationship could very well be polyamorous. Being equal to another primary partner would be quite all right as long as the pivot in that situation wouldn’t have any other things going on in their life that’d require a significant amount of their time or attention.
Everything else is secondary. But, in brief, it’d involve having a small but nice house, with all necessities and a decently sized yard, at the outskirts of a mountain town, with healthy forests all around and mountain trails starting nearby, and the peace of mind to enjoy it and perhaps work on that major positive change that I wish I’ll someday create in the world, as long as the general public won’t know it was me who did it. I’m also dreaming of a society that’d put the environment first and recognize that other species have rights as well, but otherwise generally go by the rule that everyone is free to do whatever they want as long as their actions don’t harm others who don’t deserve such harm or the environment. Plus an entirely new economic system, which wouldn’t require people to “earn a living” at all since it’s obvious that not all need to work even now, and a world with few enough people and enough technology that you won’t be required to interact with another actual person unless you really want to.

How can I accomplish that dream?
If I knew, I wouldn’t be here now…

Even if you won’t admit it, you asked yourself what happens after death at least once in your life.
This isn’t a question, but yes, I have, many times. Without evidence, I can’t be certain of anything, but I really believe in reincarnation. The details have never been more than hypotheses, so this isn’t the place to get into them.

Does everything happen for a reason?
No. As they say, shit happens. Most of it is caused either by the blind forces of chance or by people who, despite not exactly meaning to do you harm, simply don’t care how their actions affect you.

In a press release that seems to have pretty much been meant to fly under the radar, NASA admits its failure in the attempt to free Spirit from the sand trap she drove into last (Earth) spring, despite the encouraging results of their latest strategy, because Martian winter is quickly approaching and the amount of energy available to the rover is becoming insufficient for further attempts.
In fact, the poor rover’s current tilt and the amount of dust gathered on her solar panels make her unlikely to survive the Martian winter, operations potentially stopping as early as April. So NASA engineers are sacrificing any further extrication attempts in order to attempt improving Spirit’s tilt, possibly by making her dig herself deeper into the sand trap, so she will receive more of the precious winter sunlight, which would allow her to turn on her heaters and perhaps also certain other components as needed in order to withstand the harsh Martian winter, and hopefully also be able to communicate with Earth once every few days for status updates and potential error corrections.

Spirit and Opportunity are real heroes among mankind’s creations and it’s really hard not to anthropomorphize them. (You probably noticed that I keep writing “she” when referring to Spirit. I actually tended to say “he” but I noticed that the team uses “she” and I’m trying to adapt.) I wouldn’t want to be a member of Spirit’s dedicated team when she’ll finally stop working. I wouldn’t want to be one of them right now either, when they know their “baby” is in serious trouble and will certainly “die”, even if no other problems will befall her, because she can’t start moving again and her solar panels will eventually be too covered with dust to be able to generate the required energy anymore. And this will only get worse during the Martian winter, when the very low amount of available sunlight and the freezing temperatures mean that the fatal failure could come any day and they may not even realize it, because Spirit could have too little power to attempt communications even if she would otherwise be surviving.
Still, Spirit is currently on sol 2160 of her mission, which was scheduled to last for only 90 sols. That means it has been operational exactly 24 times longer than initially expected and is still doing the best job she can. This would be the equivalent of a car that’s sold with a warranty of five years still functioning 120 years later, without ever being repaired! And since the rovers were designed to cover less than one kilometer at best, Spirit’s total odometry would be equivalent to that same car, with the warranty covering 100000 kilometers, running for over 773000 kilometers, also without any repairs. And Opportunity would be even better, much better, with the equivalent of nearly two million kilometers! It’d sure be nice to see this kind of reliability here on Earth as well…

If this is to be Spirit’s swan song, I can only hope that it will be a long and breathtakingly beautiful one. That means I hope that Spirit will once again prove more than a match for the challenge ahead, surviving the coming Martian winter and then managing to keep the required components and systems in good enough condition for long enough to provide enough data for this final major task they have assigned to her, which is to find out whether Mars’ core is liquid or solid.
I also hope that Opportunity will survive at least until the next rover will land and take over. (Though I still have serious misgivings about that next rover because of the nuclear power generator it will carry. Eventually leaving nuclear waste in the open seems like an awfully bad idea to me, even if it will be done on what seems to be a dead planet. Plus that there’s no way that power supply will last for significantly longer than the amount of time it’s designed for.) And then, while I’m at it, I also hope that once we’ll colonize Mars, which will preferably only happen after we’d have learned how to properly take care of Earth, these rovers will be recovered and receive all the attention they deserve as treasured exhibits of the most important Martian science museum.
Otherwise, I also truly hope space exploration will receive the full support it needs, including funding, from now on. Especially since it appears that all of NASA’s Mars programs will be reviewed in February in order to determine which can be maintained considering the extremely limited resources that are still available to the agency, after significant and repeated budget cuts over the past several years. I’d really hate to see these rovers being abandoned due to lack of funding before they actually cease to function. But, more than that, it should be obvious that space exploration, at least until we’ll be able to colonize other planets and other interests will unfortunately come into play, is an excellent source of pure and unbiased knowledge. And knowledge is at least the second most important thing money can buy, and often even the most important…

In the end, I’d just like to point out today’s issue of xkcd, called simply “Spirit“. Quite touching, isn’t it? And I very much agree with the underlying message: Spirit didn’t fail us, so we must not fail her either. Even if we’re only talking about a robot…
And there’s one more thing to add, though several have already said it on the official thread for this issue on the xkcd forum: Little Spirit, you are home! We are the ones who need to come over, as soon as we’ll be ready to catch up with you. Though, again, I have to add that I hope we’ll only do that after we’ll finally learn to use our abilities to create and heal instead of harming and destroying. Because these twins prove what we can do when we truly put our hearts and minds into it.

I’ll be brief, mainly because I have several issues to write about and, as usual, don’t feel like writing about any of them, so having two relatively short posts in a row might just make me ignore this one and write two more this week. I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s worth a shot.

I just want to say that I put all the issues of National Geographic that I had in two bags, along with a few other paper, cardboard and plastic items that I gathered in my little trash can over the past week, and took them all to the appropriate recycling bins today. The oldest of the magazines was from the summer of 2008, when my mention of the idea of recycling matched an e-mail he received and convinced dad to gather a lot of such items that were around the house and take them to be recycled, and I haven’t missed any issue, so it wasn’t the lightest of loads.
Either way, I got myself there and was greeted by the sight of piles consisting mainly of aluminium cans and plastic packaging. The reason for the former is obvious: There are no bins for metal under the current recycling system, yet it is the most easily recyclable material. The reason for the latter became obvious once I looked at the plastics bin and noticed that it was overflowing. But the real problem were the people walking nearby, since this place is next to a school, making me want to get out of there immediately.
Still, I managed to get everything out of the bags and shove it in its proper place, though one of the bags I used got pretty torn in the process. So I’m thinking I should also get rid of the issues of FHM that I have in the same manner, and of course keep gathering various other recyclable items instead of just throwing them in the garbage bin. But I don’t know how often this will work because I really feel awfully uncomfortable throwing things away with people around. Not that I ever feel comfortable with people around, regardless of what I’m doing…
Meant to take a walk through a park or at least a longer walk through the city too, since we have all this snow and I just want to take in the sight, not knowing when I’ll next see something quite like it again, but after doing that I just wanted to get back to my room and recover. I’ll leave the walk for another time. Who knows, maybe even for tomorrow, if I’ll feel up for it.

Large snowflakes are gently falling from the sky and everything is covered in a fluffy blanket of pure white… Blissful. And yet I’m sad and angry…
It’s been so many years since the last proper winter that, despite it still not matching the winters of my childhood, it should be a great reason for joy. And in a way it is. But that’s just a certain degree of contentment felt while looking out the window and seeing the snowfall and the whiteness, plus perhaps a little happiness when I go out and see snow everywhere. But this is not something to be enjoyed alone, so in the end it only serves as one more reminder of what I lost.

I just spent quite some time simply looking out the window, taking it all in, after creating a suitable playlist to listen to. At first I tried to sit on the heater, as I usually do when I’m looking at rain, but the very uncomfortable position was made even worse by the fact that it started feeling like it was burning my feet after a while. So I found a better place for myself, sitting on the corner of my desk, with just my feet on the heater, which was much more comfortable and also allowed me to move my feet enough to avoid feeling like they were getting burned.
But all I could do was hug myself, remember old times and perhaps dream a little of a pretty impossible future. Thinking of cuddling while watching the snowfall doesn’t exactly help if there’s nobody to cuddle with, and neither does going on walks through the snow and cold if there’s nobody to walk with, perhaps holding hands without gloves on until we’re all but frozen together or awkwardly trying to hug and kiss despite the clothes we’re wearing. And let’s not even talk about thinking of warming ourselves up with some passionate sex after coming back from such a walk or after simply opening a window…

There is little point in writing more right now. A significant portion of my anger may be caused by issues that affect the world and my sadness may be generally caused by personal problems, but they’re both currently enhanced by a simple fact: Moments of true winter remind me that nice things, happy things, beautiful things, can still happen, yet life reminds me that they don’t.
If nothing else, I’ll try to remember this picture of frozen bliss… It’s a reminder that Nature can still offer some small reasons for happiness, despite all of humankind’s attempts of turning that feeling into nothing more than a distant memory, or perhaps at most into the carrot at the end of the stick. Unfortunately, humans are winning everywhere, so even this may not last for much longer…
And I’ll dream. I’ll dream while I still can. At least in dreams, miracles are still possible, sometimes, both for myself and for the world. So I’ll keep on dreaming and try to force myself to keep on hoping, even when the hope is just a lie.