The Vineyards

Here we start year two. Second anniversary post - this I did not expect to write, back in January 1st, 2003. On April 1st, 2004, however, the Vineyards got their own domain. At that point I more or less imagined I would be writing this later. Still, I am impressed.

Of course, 2004 saw about half as many posts of 2003, which is regretful. In actuality, however, 2004 saw about half of everything there was in 2003. Very unusual year, starting from the obvious fact it was my first year with a girlfriend.

I did not see much anime in 2004 (Inuyasha, Utena and part of Last Exile come to mind, but nothing else), but I read many, many, many manga. I went to the theater very rarely (sorry, Flines!), played very few games (The Sims 1 & 2 and Neopets are exceptions). Forgot if I read any books other than the one I am about to publish (no, no, it is not mine). Now I know why there are so few otakus and geeks in general with girlfriends: it is nearly impossible to have both things.

School was also particularly unusual, starting with the long strike at the end of the first term (I will spit on the face of each and every unionist I see in Hell on my way to the Seventh Circle), which resulted in three months of having one or two classes a week (which is very stressing, in spite of all "you are nearly on vacation" comments), no mid-year vacation (got one week off in September, a week we would have off by default), and second term going non-stop until late February (classes until December 23rd, afternoon; classes again on January 3rd, morning). Other than that, there was the book, which is almost printed (still is not because I need the ISBN, and the people who issue it are on strike); there was choir, which was amazing; there were many old documents to decypher (lots of fun); there still are three very big papers to write, one demanding extensive research. Oh gods I forgot the papers. One is due on the 5th.

There was a mysterious entity governing my actions an thoughts for a couple of months in 2004. I will not talk about it.

There were stupid losses. I will not talk further about it either, because Flines said I was too cruel (to the readers) on my last post. And I do not feel like bringing up the subjects again, anyway.

So, as with most years, 2004 had ups and downs, sucked and was great, and everything that happened before October already seems like 2003 and I do not remember very well. No news there.

Now, because I did not do it yesterday (woke up late, talked to sister too much, solved issues with ruby, forgot), I will do it now: the summary of all quotes, as done last year. It is fun to do, even if it takes forever. Ahead, men!

Jan 1st - "That still only counts as one!"
Obvious. Gimli, son of Gloin, in "Return of the King", which I had watched a week before, when Legolas kills the oliphant after many maneuvers. Because 2003 had been so full of different events that it seemed like more than just one year - but it still was only one, just big.

Feb 13th - "That would be the French."
Captain Jack Sparrow, "Pirates of the Caribbean", explaining to an enemy pirate who had come up with the stupid idea of parlée, the rule in the Code of the Brethren that allowed a captured pirated (if captured by another pirate) to talk with the enemy captain and have his life spared until then. They use this rule a number of times in the movie, even though "it's more like a guideline".
This quote explains where the name "Etienne Suarven Lorneau" came from. And it is a French name. So, that would be the French. He could be as annoying as the rule of parlée, too.

Mar 22nd - "Take it easy!"
Terry Bogard, "King of Fighters 2002" (and "Garou - Mark of the Wolves"). Because I had not written in a long time, but no one should think I had abandoned the Journal - I was actually moving everything to lorneau.net. Fun, no?

Apr 1st - "Aahh, beautiful. I will miss it... when it is gone."
Kosh, "Babylon 5" (you know that already), looking out of a window, seeing the stars, if I remember correctly. Nobody was sure what he meant by that (or by anything else he said throughout the series). It was a good quote to make it seem the Vineyards would end there, but actually would not (notice how he says "I will miss it, when it is gone"?). Woo.

Apr 1st - "Ii tenki desu ne!"
First quote not in English is in Japanese! I should had written it with Japanese characters, but I have no idea how to make those work without screwing up the page encoding. That is a common expression in Japan, used all the time by Shippou, in "Inuyasha". The worldly famous elevator-talk, "Nice weather, isn't it?". He uses it all the time to sound innocent, such as when trying to diverge attention from something he did. Cute, after I made people think the Vineyards were over, no? Yes, some people actually thought so, they never followed the link in the post before this one.

Apr 8th - "Thank you, naive human. Now I can finish taking over the world!"
Purple Tentacle, "Day of the Tentacle", when Bernard frees him and Green Tentacle from Dr. Fred's secret laboratory. "Oh, yeah, now I remember. He's incredibly evil, isn't he?", says Bernard after that. This post is where I thank Justin for many things. I should do that more often, in fact (especially because I did not pay for hosting the last two months). Thanks, Justin. Even though you are not in New Zealand.

Apr 18th - "Three days now. She's been undergoing the Ritual of Purification for three days."
Ephiny, in "The Bitter Suite", one of my favorite Xena episodes (the first musical episode, in fact). An there is a mistake in that quote: it is "Purification Ritual", not "Ritual of Purification". But I will not change it now. Maybe in the printed version. Quote used because I like it, and because I said I would write often but did not, so I needed something to signify "long time". The funny thing is that I never posted about any of the things I mentioned in this post. In fact, I think I never did with any of the other posts. Awful.

Apr 29th - "April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain."
First verse in "The Waste Land", by T. S. Eliot, from which I also borrowed "Go, go, go, said the bird, human kind / cannot bear very much reality.", my e-mail signature for a long time. Because those last ten days of April sucked majorly, and because Waste Land is my place of birth and residence.

May 5th - "Lukion dwells in the saddest prison of all: a prison without walls."
Spoken by Dungeon Master in "Dungeons & Dragons" cartoon, episode "Prison Without Walls". Anyone who read the post understood, even without knowing where it is from.

May 7th - "Nothing. There is nothing after Ragnarok."
That is said by Odin to Hercules in an episode probably called "Ragnarok" in "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys". Used because I could not remember any other quote about Asgaard (except from Saint Seiya, which I was ashamed at the time to admit played a very big part in the naming of the computer). Ragnarok is how I refer to any big problem in the computer, too. The first power supply got that status. The other sixty-three did not.

May 7th - "What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world!"
That is Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure", Act III, scene 1. It was not a maid, but that was the best quote I found. Indeed, what a merit were in death?

June 1st - "I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good."
Bertrand Russel. Credits needed, explanations not.

June 30th - "If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried."
Old tagline from the days of Blue Wave, the most used mailer program in the age of BBS (I already explained what BBS were, use the search box). Taglines were one-liners that most people put at the end of their messages. We would copy other people's, add them to our own files, create some ourselves. It was lots of fun.
I used that tagline for that post because I wrote two posts before, and got rid of them (or rather, wrote two, kept one as draft, posted the other, made it draft an hour later). Interesting fact I only realized now: squidi.net, about which the removed post was, is two years old today as well.
There was a variation to that tagline. "If at first you don't succeed, give up on parachuting."

Jul 10th - "*points to her halo*"
One day, Etienne, Kedian, Chloe, Cliona, Rookerin and... whoever Rookerin was with at the time (there were three throughout history, I dot not remember which) were standing at the first level of the sewers of Piet (Piet? That one just north of Loures... Yes, Piet), where there were anemones and frogs. The anemones brought a direct reference to tentacle rape, while the frogs, which attacked with their long tongues, got a made-up explanation of their origins told by Cliona. Etienne was barely listening, because he was very weak at the time and thus afraid of the animals, and because he was blushing too much from the deliberate actions of Rookerin and his mate to need any more redness on his face from the people's talk. Chloe merely excused herself of everything that got thrown at her, regarding the exposing cut of her gown (standard for all priestesses at the time) and a number of similar things. She did so a bit cynically, but I always believed it was more to cause some giggling - I had faith in Chloe's purity. At one moment, to show how pure and good she was, she "pointed to her halo" in the way Dark Ages characters did: putting the action between asterisks. So, "*points to her halo*" was what she did/said.
Chloe was Courtney's character. It was Courtney's birthday.

Aug 15th - "We just find the heart of the dungeon, the dragon that speaks without walls, and we’re home free! Simple."
Eric the Knight, in the same "Prison without walls" episode of D&D cartoon. The post explains it.

Aug 18th - "You there! Could this little prank be of your doing? Yes!?"
Loom! A quote from Loom in 2004! I did not use them all up in 2003, after all.
That is said by Bishop Mandible when Bobbin twists the final sword ("The Blade of Reckoning", Mandible was so unoriginal) when Edgewise was almost done forging it. Someone, something screwed up my hard drive. I wish I knew who.

Oct 2nd - "Ah, it's our friendly stranger again!"
Loom again! Edgewise himself now, when Bobbin calls at the gate of the Guild of Blacksmiths for the second time. The first time, when asked who he was, Bobbin says he is "a friendly stranger" (which does not get him inside, of course).
One of those "because I was gone for a while" posts. I could never simply write a stupid "I am not dead", now, could I? Oh, really, that is offensive.

Nov 13th - "Go, Planet!"
Captain Planet, of course!

Nov 21st - "Delete SSRI Virtual Reality Set?"
In The Sims (the first), with the moveobjects cheat turned on, it is possible to move and delete cockroaches and flies. When deleting it asks for confirmation, and that is what it asks. I thought it quite interesting to create a story where there is a virtual pest attack to explain that event. Got the idea? Virtual, pest, cockroaches, flies, spammers...

Dec 14th - "He sees his love, and nothing else he sees, / For nothing else with his proud sight agrees."
Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis", same poem from which came the quote used on Nov 16th, 2003.

Dec 30th - "What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world!"
You know this one already. Used again on purpose.

Finally, this post's, just so no one is kept in doubt for a full year (oh, twelve months of insomnia!), is from here.

By the way, in November I started taking German classes.

Alright, that is all! Happy New Year, everyone.

Posted by Etienne at January 1, 2005 10:02 AM