On April 19th, 2011 at exactly 20:11, Skynet goes online. Two more days until it starts launching missiles.
Journal
Sleep
I’m starting to notice just how much effect a good night’s sleep has on me. Having had a rough couple of years in which I didn’t want to sleep for reasons I won’t go into, I am what you’d call pretty sleep deprived most of the time. Nowadays, I try to sleep 7 or eight hours, and I notice that getting less than that will start to wear on me if I keep it up for too long. Sometimes it’s out of my hands, like last night, I kept waking up because I was laying on my arms and my arms kept falling asleep (a problem I have a lot the last few years) and I wake up because of the pain in my arms or the inability for me to even move them properly as I change positions.
I find that one of two things start happening to me when I don’t sleep; either I get this crazy burst of nervous energy that propells me through the day and I absolutely crash a few days later, or I get hyper emotional and everything reminds me of my parents or I somehow relate to my parents or is somehow a reflection of all the things I couldn’t do for them before they died.
I kind of like the first one and I can’t say that I’m averse to the second one either, but both sap my energy, my tolerance, my patience and make me a nightmare for the people around me.
Shinya Aoki: Sick BJJ!
Shinya Aoki is widely considered to be one of the best submission artists in Japan. While people are still able to get his number when they can keep him from closing the distance and taking him down in MMA, or even nullifying his BJJ with strong wrestling, his highlight reel is still filled with a plethora of amazing submissions.
Nighttime Sodium Lights
When I first started dating Eva when I was in my teens, I wasn’t allowed to sleep over during the first few months. Since she lived in a different town about twenty kilometers away and I didn’t have my driver’s license yet (only elligble to get them when you turn 18 in the Netherlands), it meant I had to take the bus home quite often. We’d go out to see a film, wander around Amsterdam, and then we’d go back to hers, I’d drop her off and I’d walk to the nearest bus station to catch a bus home. Unfortunately, after midnight, busses hardly ran as often, so sometimes, when the timing was off, I’d have to wait an hour or so for the next bus to take my home. Often it was a big drag, but sometimes, especially in the late Spring, early Summer, it was actually kind of a treat.
Under certain circumstances, when it’s really wind still, and it’s very quiet out on the street, it almost feels as if you’re standing in-doors. It’s eerie to realise how far sound can carry. It always made me feel very alone, though never lonely, and I found it comforting and pleasant. The overhead sodium lights washing everything in yellowy ink also added to the overall feel that I was in a movie — like standing on the set of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I know most people hate those lights, but I love them. I can’t quite explain why.
Anyway, ever since that time I can get so happy and content by just sitting on a street somewhere when it’s dark out, it’s wind still, quiet and there’s sodium lights overhead.