Once I was paranoid, in the classical Mel Gibson-in-"Conspiracy Theory" sense of the word, not in the interpersonal sense where I wonder if people really like me or want me in their lives.

It started out when I was a kid. I was always Mr. Science, and as most budding geeks do, I got into science fiction. Of course, I started to watch the blending of the two watching shows like "In Search Of..." and "Project Blue Book".

I remember clearly the day that I was doing an assignment in elementary school on the Constitution, and writing about delineation of powers. My father told me that I shouldn't believe any of that, because The Government can do anything it pleased. They control everything. The echos of Watergate and Vietnam were going on, and I learned that you Can't Trust The Powers That Be (something that I firmly believe to this day).

I kid you not, in my freshman American history class in high school, the teacher brought in a friend of his that just did his graduate thesis on the JFK assassination. He suggested that Nixon had JFK knocked off with the knowledge and complicity of Ford and Johnson. He got a degree for this, from an accredited major university.

Stuff like this has popped up my whole life. It so clear in retrospect, and I wish I hadn't had to have followed it to a natural conclusion. It did one thing: made me paranoid before being paranoid was fashionable.

As an adult, I listened to people like Art Bell and Chuck Harder, read magazines like Paranoia and look for the Secret Agenda� behind every bit of information I gathered and news story I heard, and warning people about paranoid ramblings regarding executive orders, the Bilderburgers, the Council on Foreign Relations and how it tied in to the School of the Americas, the Black Helicopters that the UN had stationed all over the US (along with Soviet tank crews and German ground forces) and the secret Nazi UFO designs we got thanks to Project Paperclip and the pact with aliens during the war that helped us develop the bomb.

And did you know that tin foil hats really do keep out the government's mind control rays? You know that HAARP is really an MKULTRA experiment for mind control, right? That's when NOAA isn't using HAARP as an orgone energy collector for weather control, you see.

"Hey, clear out a rubber room. The science and computer geek fell off the deep end somewhere."

I think it comes from being high-bandwidth. You take in a lot of information, but when you start to try to think about it all and you're depressed, you start to think that maybe there's some deeper reason why you feel the way you do. Maybe They are doing this to you, whoever They are.

"Orpheus" Album: "Secrets of the Beehive", David Sylvian Standing firm on this stony ground The wind blows hard Pulls these clothes around I harbour all the same worries as most The temptations to leave or to give up the ghost I wrestle with an outlook on life That shifts between darkness and shadowy light I struggle with words for fear that they'll hear But Orpheus sleeps on his back still dead to the world Sunlight falls, my wings open wide There's a beauty here I cannot deny And bottles that tumble and crash on the stairs Are just so many people I knew never cared Down below on the wreck of the ship Are a stronghold of pleasures I couldn't regret But the baggage is swallowed up by the tide As Orpheus keeps to his promise and stays by my side Tell me, I've still a lot to learn Understand, these fires never stop Believe me, when this joke is tired of laughing I will hear the promise of my Orpheus sing Sleepers sleep as we row the boat Just you the weather and I gave up hope But all of the hurdles that fell in our laps Were fuel for the fire and straw for our backs Still the voices have stories to tell Of the power struggles in heaven and hell But we feel secure against such mighty dreams As Orpheus sings of the promise tomorrow may bring Tell me, I've still a lot to learn Understand, these fires never stop Please believe, when this joke is tired of laughing I will hear the promise of my Orpheus sing

When you believe things like this, or at least are trying to fit them into your worldview, then you do weird things. You quit going about your daily routine, because it all seems to futile. You start to spend your time trying to figure out what you can do to foil their plans, although almost every conspiracy theorist comes to the same conclusions sometimes, that there's nothing you can do, because obviously those involved in the conspiracy aren't only omnipotent, they're also omniscient, so not only are they thinking three steps ahead of you at all times, they know what you are thinking, so they will adjust their plans accordingly. Of course. Worst of all, you let relationships with friends and family fall apart.

I did all of these things, in part because of my paranoia, and in part because of my general depression, and in part because I just didn't care anymore. I am still paying the price for my indiscretions.

If you let it, it'll drive you crazy. I think maybe it almost did in my case. Thus, I feel really bad for other people who believe in that stuff, and listen to things like that and truly believe what they say. People don't understand that this stuff is all for entertainment, or to push some sort of book or tape or course or magazine subscription, and take it at its word.

I listen from time to time, but mostly for a chuckle, and to remember where I've been so I never go there again.

Y'know what? I'm jealous. Gurugrrl has a life.

She says it's her so-called life, and nobody said it was a great life, but I'm really missing her. We seem to spend less and less time together.

I know she doesn't want it to be that way. In times past, I would get upset and afraid that she was going away or having second thoughts about us. Now I know it's just her schedule, and that I shouldn't be upset, we have time together the next day, or the day after that.

I know she wants us to be together, we reiterate it to each other every day. When we talk, I can hear the caring in her voice, and when I am doing something that upsets or hurts her I can hear the pain.

She's just really busy with work and activities, and she makes a special effort to make herself available for a while most every night, but lately it's been very short, or I have to share her with other tasks.

Also, it's the holiday season. Everybody's busy, and given that it's the holiday season she has all the more keeping her busy, what with the theater production she's a member of right now.

In fact, tonight she appeared online around 9:00 PM my time, having just come in from work (working late, poor thing), and we talked briefly, even though she was doing something. She told me she'd be right back, and disappeared for about an hour. When she came back, she disappeared again, and then when we did get to talk, she was testing some code that she had written for work. Before I knew it, she was out the door to get some sleep for the next day.

Despair set in almost immediately. I was really looking forward to spending some time with her tonight, but away she went.

Nonetheless, I am starting to miss her, and miss us. I think the distance is playing a part, but in not-obvious ways.

When I was with Geegee, we were both very busy with work, school and activities, but we never missed each other when we couldn't spend a lot of time with each other, really. I really think knowing that come the end of the day we would be eating dinner together, spending a few minutes relaxing watching Letterman or tapes of Star Trek or Nova that we'd recorded because we didn't have time to watch them when they were on, and we'd turn out the lights and still be together really made the periods where our time together was brief okay. That's missing here, and it makes it a little harder to bear.

I hope time will change that, however, and I am positive that Gurugrrl does, too (after all, she just out-and-out says so). But for now, even though I'd never ask her to give up anything, I hope that there is a respite soon, and she'll decide to give me some of that time. I hope she would want me to have some of it, too.

Crafty recently went to Comdex with her husband, and graciously offered to pick me up stuff at the convention. Well, I must say, Crafty outdid herself!

She told me she mailed it Friday, so I went to the post office tonight to check my PO Box for a slip to tell me if it was in. I hadn't checked my box in a few weeks (nobody had told me they were sending anything), so it was packed solid with local grocery ads and salepapers and such. Buried in the junk mail was a key to a locker, which seemed strange, because I was really expecting an envelope with two or three items, or a small box. When I opened the locker, there was a fairly hefty box in there.

I blinked a couple times, took it out wondering what all she'd sent to merit this big ol' box, and went back to my car. Every time I got to a light I wanted to open it up and see what was in there; most any other time, I'd have hit every light in town just as it was turning red. As luck would have it, though, I managed to get to them just as they were turning green. (Am I sure They aren't doing this? [smirk])

Once I got home I poked a key through the tape sealing the box and ran it along the seams, breaking it open. It was full of all kinds of stuff:

• CD samplers,
• geek toys,
• mousepads,
• pens,
• Post-It notes and scratchpads,
• buttons,
• Caldera bags,
• keychains (including a tr�s cool one that is a 72-pin SIMM board, that will compliment my Pentium core keychain quite nicely, not to mention my bookmark that was sawed out of a motherboard),
• T-shirts (bless her heart, she even got me one with Tux on it, because she knows I like penguins, not to mention Linux),
• and things I can't figure out their function like a ball on an elastic string and little plastic bits from Cult3D.

(Wow, I miss going to trade shows. Unfortunately, around here all you get are oil and gas related stuff, although I did get a cool keychain with one of those happy little Chevron cars on it.)

She also included a photo of beanie baby beds she paints, and a sketch that she made that is very good. (I've scanned them, but I won't put them up for viewing unless she says it's okay.)

Lastly, there was a note (if you send me something in the mail, I always like a note; when I was first looking in the box, I went, "awww, no note!"). The most humorous thing in it was where she said that Gurugrrl and I should move somewhere near her, which conjured up all sorts of wonderful visions of sharing my life with Gurugrrl with Crafty nearby. [smile]

Crafty's a remarkable sweetie. I wish I knew what I did to deserve people like her and Gurugrrl in my life.

ObFunnyMailStory: I used to work at a local ISP a few years ago. I didn't like it very much, and when your mood is swinging like a pendulum you should not be dealing with customers, especially when they're frustrated and/or upset, because they don't understand what's going on with their computer anyway.

I left by mutual agreement - I was an absolute grouch because of the job, and I hated tech support, the pay sucked and had a new job I started in two days anyway.

Well, now I'm getting mail at home trying to sell me admission to conferences and hardware for ISPs. Some of it is boring, some is somewhat interesting.

Normally, I wouldn't think much of this, but the main perpetrator seems to be IBM. Aren't these the same guys who have an "e-business" commercial with a focus group where a man gets up, looks at the one-way mirror wall and tells the monitors for the group that they are the ones with the databases, and shouldn't they know what the people in the group want?

I guess IBM needs to practice what it preaches. [grin]

I got this story from a friend of mine via email yesterday about a virus that is meant to be distributed via IRC servers. I thought it was somewhat funny. I mean, basically, all you have to do is make sure that you only accept DCC transfers from people you know, right?

Well, this one was particularly interesting, because it accepts plugins. That's right, this is an updatable virus that can carry a custom payload.

Too cool.

I had discussed something like a virus that could be updated remotely over the network about three years ago for purposes of installation of software during one of those "why doesn't this exist?" questions. (Of course, we determined that it was extremely dangerous.)

And then here somebody goes and does something like it.

Just then, I realized that there was this great market (can you tell I've been thinking about product ideas lately?), what with the growth of persistent internet connections in the home. There are firewall products all over the commercial sector, but no $129.95 box that you take home, plug in between your cable modem or xDSL router and your home network, connect to via http connection to answer a few questions, let it examine your network and configure itself accordingly to protect you.

What a cool idea. And something that could be developed on a quasi-small budget. Gurugrrl's interested in computer security, after all...

Imagine my horror when I discovered the same day, and by accident, no less, that these already exist for this market.

It's becoming more than a little annoying to find out that I can't think of anything original anymore, and even if it's not original, it's either been done or I don't have nearly enough lead time to do anything with it.

restlessmind