DJ_Bonebraker

If I ever own a smart phone, it will be some kind of Raspberry Pi or similar DIY project like the one I linked above, but put into the housing of one of the old "Brick" cell phones from the 1980's that look like this: but with the keypad replaced by a touch-screen.

Occasionally. I mean I think I made history by serving my entire 6 years in the navy without getting drunk once. I tend to prefer sweet wines, mead & other drinks that taste good to me, which oddly enough, includes straight Jack Daniels & Jägermeister. Still, moderation is the word with me: I bought a bottle of Jäger the day after the election in 2016 & didn't finish it until the middle of last year, which shows how infrequently I drink.

Well, for most of my early formative years, my parents were anti-religious. Not to say they didn't believe in God: My mom still believed in God, despite years of abuse by the Catholic Church, but she no longer trusted organized religion, and my dad was more of a general Theist: he believed that all the different religions in the world were just different aspects of the true creator god, but were mostly just excuses for rich & powerful people to control and/or kill other people, so he didn't trust organized religion either (my one uncle still believes that way). However, about the same time as my own spiritual journey, which started when I had an epiphany when I declared to this kind, elderly Mennonite woman (who passed away not all that long ago in her mid-90's) that I wasn't "one of those self-righteous hypocrites who go to church" only to immediately realize that I was being self-righteous about not following any organized religions and therefore, was a hypocrite as well. This same Mennonite lady also helped renew my mom's faith, and my brother ended up becoming a Christian not long after I did, and long story short, by the time both my brother & I graduated high school, my dad converted as well (after doing pretty much what I did)... So I guess you could say that I was in a rather unique situation growing up, particularly since I didn't have anyone trying to force any kind of religious beliefs on me. Of course, this is also why I don't trust blind faith (of any kind: I have an atheist friend who is a strong atheist who agrees with me on the point of not trusting anyone who is at either a 1 or 7 on the Dawkins Scale, since people who are that adamantly sure that god(s) exist or don't exist is likely to be very closed-minded and/or extremist), and try to keep a hawk-like eye on established religious institutions. Heck, the main reason I chose & stick with the church I joined is because it's about as decentralized & dogma-free as an established religion can get... My dad even has gone so far as to point out that, aside from not being atheist (for obvious reasons), the way our church is structured is about as close to a working version of Marx's ideal communist society as you're going to find in real life...

I agree, but there is a bit of a silver lining in the cloud of iClones going around: Thanks to the Raspberry Pi (a reasonably powerful computer that fits inside an Altoids tin), you can MAKE your own smartphone (and customize the case for it however you want), if you're ambitious & skilled enough (or at least know someone who has the skills to build it to your design specs): https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/piphone-home-made-raspberry-pi-smartphone/

I am a Christian. I'm also openly & unashamedly bi-gender & bisexual (but with a definite preferance for women). Needless to say this is not an easy path to walk, but I walk it because I believe it to be the truth, and that part of the purpose God has for me here is to get out the work that He does not, in fact, hate gays & that most of the bile that people who claim to follow him is being taken out of historical & social context (I discovered this as part of the process of finally coming to terms with being bi-gender & very rarely attracted to guys, which involved a lot of historical & anthropological research into the contemporary cultures of the middle east & Mediterranean areas at the times both the old & new testaments were written). Part of the reason why I didn't just abandon my faith was because I know it's ultimately true, even if certain people pervert it beyond belief, due to the fact that God directly intervened to stop me from killing myself some 16 years ago, so if He didn't exist, I wouldn't either right now. I can understand why some people would be skeptical or dismissive of my reasons, and I respect that, nor will I judge anyone else or try to force my beliefs on them: First of all, one of Jesus' direct commandments says that we are not to judge, because only God is worthy to do so, and secondly, you have to believe in your heart as well as confess with your mouth that Jesus is the savior to be saved, and you can't accomplish the first part by coercion, so it's pointless to even try... I also personally believe that Biblical Literal-ism, which is unfortunately widespread these days, particularly among the more fundamentalist denominations, is not only the wrong approach in certain cases (such as the whole creation story in Genesis, which if looked at from an allegorical perspective, actually checks out with the current model for how the universe came into existence, right up to following the general order in which life evolved), and is downright dangerous if done at all without studying the historical & contemporary cultural contexts in which the Bible was written. I mean I had a guy I know at work trying to claim that the world is actually flat, based on a hyper-literal interpretation of a few verses, which were obviously meant to be taken figuratively, based on the context, and even using a hyper-literal interpretation to come to the conclusion that the earth is flat (despite all the scientific evidence) is pushing it.... @Thuja: I tend to agree with you on the whole "at least learning about many different faiths" thing: I actually came to my own beliefs at around the age of 13 after studying everything from ancient Greek/Roman polytheism to Buddhism (or at least what materials were available where I live) & concluded that Christianity, absent of all the ritualistic stuff that various churches added onto it over the years, made the most sense of all of them (although Buddhism came in as a fairly close second, but certain aspects of it just didn't jive with me). I've since had many interesting and even enlightening conversations with practicing Buddhists of various sects (I actually ran into a Buddhist Nun in Virginia who was surprised that I recognized who Kannon/Guanyin was), Hindus, and even Japanese Shinto priests, and many times, the extra perspective I gained by discussing matters of faith with them helped me understand aspects of my own better. Hell, the regular gaming crew I hung out with when I was stationed in Virginia was a pretty mixed bag, religion-wise: We had two Christians (including one who was an ex-Satanist), a Wiccan, a Druid and an Agnostic.

It would be far easier for me to list my least favorite genres than to pick a favorite. Namely, I can't stand about 75% of Rap & Country music, but even those have their gems. I mean just listening to my MP3 playlist for about an hour, you'll be likely to hear Rock 'n' Roll (like '50s stuff), Classic Rock (Beatles, BTO, Styx, Tom Petty, etc), '80s Heavy Metal (mostly Metallica), new metal (Eluveitie, Nightwish, Sabaton, Alestorm), J-pop, modernized Middle Eastern music (including the fight song of the Kurdish YPG), various types of EDM/Techno, including remixes of all of the above. To put it simply, this (fake) group sounds like it would be right up my alley:

For me the East & West questions are kind of moot due to the fact that I've entered the Phineas Gage club (that is to say that I've made a complete circuit of the entire planet in less than 80 days) not once but twice when I was in the Navy: First time was Dec 2001-Jan 2002 when I went from Yokosuka, Japan back home in PA for leave & then back to Japan: On the way from Japan to PA, I went the long route, which was Narita - LAX - Houston - Dulles, but on the way back to Yokosuka, I got a non-stop flight that went East from Dulles, over Europe & Asia, landing in Narita. The second one was when I got temporarily reassigned to a ship in San Diego after the ship I was permanently attached to was halfway to the Persian Gulf. Long story short was that the ship in San Diego lost its only technician for the system that I worked on right before a MAJOR inspection that had top-ranking brass involved (all ships have these inspections like once every 5 years or so, I had the bad luck of going through 3 of them in the 6 years I was in, which was one contributing factor of why I'd never reenlist for any amount of money, but I digress), and on top of that the system was broke so the captain was pulling her hair out & requesting help from any ship who had a tech to spare, which my ship did & I got volunteered for that. So as for the route for the second circumnavigation, once the ship passed the inspection, after being in San Diego for a month, I got flown back to my actual ship, and the route that went was thus: San Diego - Milwaukee - Amsterdam - Dubai - Bahrain. From Bahrain, I got flown in a heavy cargo helicopter to my ship, and after spending another month & a half in the gulf, with additional stops in Bahrain & the UAE, the ship headed back to San Diego, with stops in Singapore & Pearl Harbor, arriving about a month later. As for the North & South points, those are fairly easy, since I haven't done any polar circumnavigations: Furthest North I've been is Amsterdam, believe it or not, since it's actually further north than Ottowa, Montreal & Quebec City, which are the farthest north I've been in North America. Furthest South I've been is Brisbane, Australia, when my first ship stopped there during a joint training exercise with the Royal Australian Navy back in 2003.

Being assigned male at birth, but identifying as bi-gender (which means that roughly half the time my gender identity flips to female whether I want it to or not), I wish that the "curse" from the Spring of the Drowned Girl from Ranma 1/2 was real: Being able to change my physical sex to match my current gender identity at will would be a huge blessing, but since I can't do that, I'm taking some steps to make myself a bit more androgynous so that I can pass as female easier when I'm identifying & presenting as such. I also want to get voice feminization training for this reason as well....

I haven't eaten anything at McDonalds in over 13 years, and I don't miss it one bit, particularly since I can get better food that's considerably healthier for about the same amount at the local Chinese restaurants.

As someone who is non-binary & non-conforming when I do identify as the gender I was assigned at birth, I can say that gender stereotypes are complete & utter BS & need to be retired to the history books where they belong....

What has I got in my pocketses? Oh, just my wallet, some loose change & some interesting bits of rock that I've found.

Yeah, my one cat does that all the friggin' time too, and I really hate it! But I still love his cute fuzzy little butt.

I think it should be a fair playing field.

You know, all this talk about relationships reminded me of something else I hate about the gender I was assigned at birth: Who the fucking HELL made the rule that the guy always has to ask the girl out?! That is THE most BULLSHIT rule when it comes to relationships I can think of, and looking at it from my relatively recently-awakened non-binary perspective, it's even more bullshit, and just reinforces the whole "damsel in distress waiting on her prince" role that society still seems to be bent on forcing onto women...

Since I generally despise texting (not to mention it really eats up minutes fast on my Trac-Phone), and prefer to actually use the phone to actually talk to people, I still do. Hell, I even tend to use my land-line that comes with my internet service because not only does it still work, even when the power is out, I get free, unlimited long-distance calls within the US. The way I see it is that if I want to send some kind of text message, that's what email is for.

Well, as someone who got deployed there twice (& was involved in combat operations both times: 9/11 happened right in the middle of the first deployment), and while it was interesting getting to visit Dubai & Bahrain, you could not pay me enough to actually live there, particularly since I came out.

I've finally finished an animation project I've been working on for the past month or so. Namely an animation for this idea I've had for a story involving a young woman who gains super powers from some alien artifact, which gives her the standard "flying brick" package (i.e. super strength, flight, nigh invulnerability). The catch is that not only does she have to consciously activate her powers in order to actually use them (which initiates a transformation sequence), and can only maintain her super-powered form for a few days at most before automatically reverting to her un-powered form, but the transformation also turns her into a super-powered MALE version of herself. On the upside, it's not like anyone would be able to guess that "Captain Singh" is actually Amanda Patel, ordinary college student....

I've been to 13 different countries so far: In rough chronological order: USA (born & live here) Canada (eh) Mexico Japan (was stationed on a ship based there for over 3 years) South Korea Australia Singapore Thailand Bahrain United Arab Emirates India People's Republic of China (Hong Kong) The Netherlands (it was an 8-hour layover on a series of flights for my second trip to Bahrain to meet up with my ship after being temporarily assigned to a different ship for over a month, but I was on the ground in Amsterdam, so it technically counts) I'd love to go on a proper trip to Europe, especially since I have a friend from the first ship I was on who got married to an Irish lady & is living in Dublin now, but finding the kind of money for that & jumping through all the hoops needed to get a passport in the US has proven to be a bit daunting....

Does this count? If so, then yes, I use my MIDI controller & DAW to make music. Other than that, I don't really play any "real" instruments due to being a klutz who might as well be named "Fumble-Fingers McGee" when it comes to trying to hit the right guitar frets or keyholes & such like that... Thankfully, due to being able to use VST Instruments with my DAW, I can virtually play just about anything under the sun using my program & MIDI controller.

So, After several weeks of music theory class, I decided to take a crack at doing an electronic re-make I'd been wanting to do of a traditional piece called The Sailor's Hornpipe, The College Hornpipe or Jack's the Lad. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out overall, and one of the more interesting surprises I had when making it was that, when I decided to go with the lead-in being entirely traditional instruments, but at 150 BPM, I went with a standard jig/hornpipe drum beat on an old-timey drum, and when I went through my loop libraries for some techno/house beats I could use, I found a set of related loops in this old CakeWalk loop library I have that uses the exact same drum pattern for the kicks, so I decided to use that as a way to show how modern music is related to & can be mixed with traditional music. The photo montage I used for making the video are all photos I've taken from 2000 - 2013, both when I was in the Navy & of museum ships at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, MD. The ships featured, in order of appearance are: USS Constellation Sloop of War (museum ship, Historic Ships of Baltimore) USS O'Brien DD-975 (first ship I was stationed on, decommissioned Sep, 2004) USS Carl Vinson CVN-70 (lead ship in the battle group the USS O'Brien was part of during Operation Enduring Freedom, Still in active service) USCGC Taney WHEC-37 (museum ship, Historic Ships of Baltimore) USS Torsk SS-423 (museum ship, Historic Ships of Baltimore) USS Belleau Wood LHA-3 (last ship I was stationed on, decommissioned Oct, 2005) USS Missouri BB-63 (museum ship, Pearl Harbor, HI)

Yeah, the Soul Calibur series: Soul Calibur V pretty much killed it dead with it's half-baked release that had almost zero content. On a related note, add Duke Nukem to the list, especially since, after living up to its name by taking forever to be released, Duke Nukem Forever flopped hard....

BTW, here's an article that appeared on one of the LEGO forums I used to frequent several years ago that explains what I was talking about earlier, and I'm willing to bet eventually bit them in the ass: https://gizmodo.com/is-the-toys-r-us-lego-mark-up-ripping-us-off-1665737841 (And it wasn't just LEGO that they'd mark up like this either).....

I've had the Sailor's Hornpipe (also known as the College Hornpipe or Jack's the Lad) stuck in my head for several days now... Of course the fact that I'm working on doing an EDM remix of it might have something to do with that, but it is a rather catchy tune: