musterbation

That's the term to use when I say something like, "We must live like the Native American." or "I must break the Star Castle world record." or "I must not use more than one cup of water to brush my teeth."

it's musterbation, according to Wayne Dyer.

If you look up musterbation in the dictionary there will be a picture of me washing my dishes in the ocean. I must change my ways.

also, it snowed for the first time today. For a Californian like myself this was a spiritual event. But I'm already sick of it. When's spring training?

calender

who needs an iphone organizer when you have the meals on wheels calender from the senior center across the street.
I may have found work assembling heat sinks (navigation component for drone fighters). more prison labor, basically, but at least I'll be part of the working poor and not just the poor. It involves a drug test which I pray I will fail. who doesn't love wax beans and capri rice? makes me look forward to being too frail to drive to the McDonalds for my meals. Pork Riblets. MMMM.



in other news, the christmas decorations went up at riverbank rooms. I lugged some dusty boxes from the basement and kicked some mouse carcasses under the furnace.
Mary said, where's the fucking singing christmas tree?
laughs aplenty.
the fake tree broke in half. and then we all got drunk.

Funspot 1981

Take a tour with Oggy. Funspot. I should point out that the high score of venture appears to be 350K. My initial feeling is probably what most Winky addicts think, which is, that's a bullshit score on a rigged system. No way does someone score 350K when it is nearly impossible to score 90K. But that's what I used to say about building circuit boards. No way is this going to work. But little by little I got faster until I made no mistakes. That same approach can work to this game. Until then, that 350K is totally suspect. we'll see.




here's an in action video of me playing venture. this would be better with a dual camera and edited with some nice soundtracks in the background. but for now we have low tech.



Star Castle is a hard game to beat. I'm almost at 20K and the world record is 30K. so there are some points to be shaved. just pick it apart. it doesn't help that half the screen goes blank periodically but that is the nature of old games.






the totals for December 3rd are as follows:
Star Castle: 16,170
Venture: 64,320
Venture: 93,710

There were some tense moments with the hall monsters.

Max

I did not know his last name and I didn't even get a picture. He was living at the departamentos de Chata in La Paz On Madero near Juarez. I did not recognize the apartments as the place one goes to die but more than once I felt myself melting into the mattress and wondered if I had the strength to get back up. It was a daily struggle even with a fan and air conditioning.

Max was British. He liked cats. He had driven from Santa Rosa in an old Festiva kind of car that was falling apart. He also liked to bicycle to the beer store. My buddy Mike and I estimated he was between 75 and 80. Maybe 83. But he was frail and would say things like, "These scabs just keep getting worse. What do you think that might be." As he picked the large scabs off his skinny legs.
My first thought was ill health combined with zero hygiene. Oh, Max. He was falling apart and Mike did everything for him and Max would forget to pay him. I didn't want to get involved because I am a selfish coward. So while I was steadily pondering my way into oblivion Max would drink several big beers and then start drinking wine and then more beer and then the most evil tasting gasoline/liquor called canya. Horrible stuff. Cane alcohol. the cheapest drunk you can buy. If you can drink that without coughing then you have already burned all the nerves in your tongue and throat. MAx could drink it without coughing.
HE liked shakespeare and we wanted him to get an ipod so he could download the plays and listen to them.
Mike would bicycle to the store to get him a roasted chicken. THat's all Max ate was raosted chicken.
We were not sure if he had escaped from an old age home or what but we both agreed he was out of his element. His brain would work most of the time. He talked about a woman in Mazatlan that he wanted to see. A nurse. We weren't sure if it was a fantasy or a delusion from WWII. HE was in the infantry I think. Talked about liberating France.

Max
You died in a puddle of blood
you died
felled by the Mexican canya god Ixthalapa
you fought in France
in Britain
read poetry
loved women
your family loved you but did not know where you were
we loved you but did not know your family
you were old and old people should die where they want
and we were also getting drunk under the fan
in the hammock
at the bars
you are us in the future
and we want to go to mexico
to die
in peace
with a maid walking in and finding our bodies
say a hail mary for us
say a prayer
then steal our radio
that is the law of the desert
it is not fair but it is done.
God bless you, Max

Tree of Life

I awoke this morning and stared at the tree outside the window. The vision I had was how every event in our lives ends in one little twig. But where are we at any given moment? At the end of which twig? Well, that's how I feel anyway. I see the trunk as early youth and consciousness and then it splits where interests become different and each interest leads to another branch and then the people we meet are at the end of the twigs and each twig keeps growing unless we prune it and we can always direct our attention to that twig but the other twigs keep growing.
So it's my mission to identify every twig. To map out the whole tree. I think this is what the glass bead game is about. The book itself is about the person who learns about life, but the game itself is about the multiple directions life takes. Is it possible to map the whole tree? It would be more useful to map A tree in such a way that it replicates the tree-ness of everyone's life. Mapping the tree is a reminder that life leads to many branches.