Your dream companion.

Few days ago, in the metro newspaper, I have noticed a weird article about some man that everybody keeps seeing in his/her dream. It seemed a weird thing of the kinds that are interesting to me, somehow related to paranormal phenomena also to collective unconscious or it could also be a psychological experiment to see how this spreads and if actually everybody is going to start seeing him in their dreams or even imagining him in their realities. It's kinda scary actually and I like scary and weird stuff like that. I was already reading the contents on a website dedicated to the phenomenon and I thought that I would probably see him because of self-suggestion but it didn't happened yet (if this things goes on the internet like a meme then be sure everybody will be seeing him and it won't be unexplained anymore :).

Actually I had no sleep yesterday. The last time I stay awake till I can see the rise of the sun outside my window was when I was playing civilization in my 386 :). But I think it will be finally a more frequent thing from now on. When I was studying mathematics in Greece, we almost never had assignments and they didn't count anyways. Ok,. mathematics was the only department I think that also didn't required a final project. And you could also fail epically and still take the diploma after 8 years. But now I just got introduced into what means having to finish written assignments (with code too of course, but that's my favorite part anyway :) once per one or two weeks and also go to the lessons (because you want to go to the lessons of an MSc that interests you and you have payed too) and maybe find a timeframe to read what you were actually taught. The funny thing is that I find the assignments doable. I thought they would be harder. Maybe it's because I am already familiar with graphics, programming and maths. But I manage to only do it in haste in the last time because of procrastination. I don't like this :/

Anyway, going back to the thing, yesterday we were doing the math assignment (which was big and required also a lot of matlab code, I haven't used matlab before actually so that's a nice opportunity to get used to it) and it was a bit funny because I was connected with two other people on MSN and all of us didn't sleep and had some chat about the assignment or other non related stuff. This is going to be a regular occurrence in the future for sure :)

Ok,. and going back to the primary idea (because I was lost in other stuff :). Now I was sleeping and maybe I will go back to sleep more because I need sleep. The reason I woke up and started reading this, is because I had a revelation.

First of all, things related to dreams are interesting to me for some reasons I am not sure exactly. It's just the weirdness or strangeness of it (Btw,. I recently watched this movie and I'd like to watch it again). One aspect that I recently defined and is very interesting to me is the idea that someone has a personal dream companion. That thing (person, creature, whatever) is someone you keep seeing frequently in your dreams, yet he is not someone you know in real life, he only exists in your dreams, he is like maybe a friend or a foe or a mysterious being which although you keep seeing in dreams and when you encounter him in another dream that you have seen even years after you instantly identify him and that lucid feeling bumps in that, you know, I have seen him in my past dreams and he is like a living entity in a dreamworld or something. I don't want to put any metaphysics in here, just define a kind of special dream encounter that you know who he is and what are his characteristic like he was a regular resident in a place you frequently visit in your dreams.

Of course, that scary face in the website Ever Dream this Man that people go crazy about is only a dream companion few people have seen. The kinda funny or interesting part is to try to remember on very characteristic dream companion you kept seeing in your dreams. Which one is your personal dream companion? Which are his properties, attitudes or relation to you? Was there maybe a special place that you also kept seeing in your dreams where that companion appeared more frequently? I would like to describe mine in the next paragraph but before doing that I'll just like to point a funny thing. The first two persons the man in the website reminded me are Alfred E. Neuman and then The man from another place (from twin peaks). Funny coincidence. Or maybe people are just watching strange caricatures on their dreams of things they watched on tv or seen in illustrations :)

I also discovered today that my dream companion when I was a kid was actually something I had seen in a video game once in my life (then) and later left it in my unconscious. Although applying my own additional properties to it. I remember a dwarf blonde girl, very tiny in size (maybe in the size of chucky) that I loved and had to care about it's safety. That little creature had a negative property. When for some reasons it got wet, it grew up a little in size (but still being too small), had more scary hair like nails and scary teeth and face, like a monster and created havoc around. Then I had to find her, take her with me and go to a place with very bright sun so that she finally returned to it's regular size because of the light or the heat. Preety charecteristic thing. Most of the times I encountered her in the home at the village of my grandparents, Arnea of Xalchidiki (somewhere in northern Greece) but the place was slightly different (bigger and more interesting) than in reality (this is another thing I like in dreams, that you see a place you know in reality but now it's a more interesting alternative version of it). So there was a special place where I could meet my special friend.

I only got the funny revelation today by refreshing my memories on the formation of this encounter that this dwarf girl was actually two versions of a sprite from a computer game, actually Gianna Sisters on C64. The very "exited" version of it was when you get the bonus to grow stronger in the game. But I hadn't thought then that she was just created in my dreams from my memories of the game. The thing is that during that time I had only seen Gianna Sisters once in a party of some schoolmate who had a C64 and it was the first time I had seen one (Oh,,. it took awfully long to load compared to my CPC experience then!). I played Gianna Sisters much later through emulators but that was years after the frequent dreams. Just one time of watching someone playing this new game was enough though for keeping this in my unconscious and letting it surface in my dreams. On the original game of course you wouldn't transform into the scary version by touching water. That was my imaginary additional construction that I made up on my dreams for reasons I can't think right now :)



So, I just woke up from my sleep (that I really need now!) to tell you this strange, funny or boring story. I am wondering if you ever had a dream companion or a reoccurring dream or characteristic place on your dreams. Of course this question is for anyone bothering thinking about and discussing his/her dreams because the last time I discussed my dreams with some guy and wanted to hear his own weird stuff he probably thought I was weird and avoided the conversation. (and that was so early in elementary school :)

Success / Honor

Yet another piece of information to help me solve the puzzle of myself. Yet another moment of getting the feeling that it fits, that it explains everything I do and I everything I strive for. And another factor that can also make a sense of my frustration in life and might help me see where I should focus on to be happier.

It's like another one of these selfviews, not unique, not better than the rest, just derived from a different focus (interesting word I just thought of, think of the term worldview but now applied on self, it's like different kinds of perspective on yourself, different math trying to fit in the selfmodel (like worldmodel :))

It's nothing new I haven't thought before. I just focused more deeply into the idea and tried to view things under this perspective. Actually it occured to me after my first few weeks here at UCL, thinking about my hopes, the original reasons I wanted to do this, what percentage of it did I got till now, how some things doesn't fit with myself or some things lacking from me to match well with my aspirations. And then that reflected back at every little moment of success or failure I had in real life or the demoscene or even in the most tiny things and I have noticed more how this thing totally affects the little happiness or sorrows I get from life.

For example, I always had this feeling of failure when I was in my previous degree on mathematics. Of course then I wasn't doing something that I entirely wanted, I was just under pressure and all I wanted then was to join the scene and make a good demo which was also another needed source of the personal success feeling. It took me 8 years to finish the degree and it generally was more than the average. Anybody will jump in my monologue and say that I shouldn't be so negative of myself. But I am just realistic and even if I am failing on this, depressive realism is what I think describes me. Or just the exact opposite of this effect.

So, to go on with the story, one of the little aspects that made me happier with the idea of studying the computer graphics module at UCL is the fact that I am already experienced with the subject and so I would feel like home. I wouldn't feel like an average student who doesn't understand a thing and stares in the lectures like a fool. I would feel like knowing what's going on and that feedback effect, an inner feedback effect where I assure myself that my cognition on things is going fine and I feel like a conscious part of the process and not an outsider (Hmm,. now I am thinking it, the lack of it is what pisses off people who are like external observers to our geeky tech talks). Till now it's working fine here of course. There are though some interesting new lessons like machine vision which I understand that I am not supposed to understand everything at first sight because it's genuinly more complex than graphics and that keeps me away from feeling like a fool.

It's only on some of the practicals where I felt a bit the frustration that I am not good, not worth or not successful but that feeling could be avoided by the same logic. Although, when I felt I wasn't successful on one, I thought it wouldn't be the same on the graphics practical. At least there I should do nicely easily. The subject was to change the code of a raytracer and for once I had almost coded one in the past and knew the logic. But spending some time to review the java code and it's classes, half an hour configuring the compiler of a chinese girl, more minutes to get used to the compiler and for some reason more time because I had to use "instance of" to check the type of a class (and I totally understood object oriented programming in java, I just hadn't used one and I think something was wrong with the compiler too or I was doing something wrong), somehow two hours passed and I didn't rendered a single thing!!! I mean, not even normalized a simple vector! When you have that constant feeling "Oh, I suck, I suck, I suck,. at least on the graphics practical it will prove different" and it doesn't, it's the worst feeling ever. You know,. before coming here I was telling this little 'tantrum' and eternal fear to myself: "Ok. I code graphics for a hobby. If I even fail on a master that has totally something to do with graphics which is my main thing, then what can I say? I am for NOTHING!"

Pretty hard stuff to say to oneself. But somehow I feel like I am constantly chased by the ghost of not being good enough or of even be very lame. Of course the more I know it the more prepared I am to fight with it. The thing is not to exclusively seek success but to try to face those emotions because it's easy to fail and I should be prepared for it. It's like when someone tells me that maybe I should do a really really good demo to prove to myself that I can do it and break the negative spell of my eternal demoscene sucking. But then I think, would it prove anything? I know now that if I work hard my ass on anything I can even fly to the moon. So, is there something to prove?

One important thing is that me, myself and people who read my rants might confuse three similar words.

• Fame. A word that everyone hates. Even more than money. It's not exactly the basic thing that I am seeking. Even if it can usually interfere with the rest and at little glimpses of it you might even start liking it. Or hating it.


• Success. More like it. But what is success? What do people mean by this word and how each one understands it through a different perspective? I will split it into two categories.




• Social Success or generally/socially defined success or what most people understand as commonly accepted success. Getting good grades at school, university, having a job career, a respected family. It's the tantra that elderly people might sometimes bust your balls with yet you won't be able to understand what's the fuzz about.


• Inner Success, the feeling that you are successful on something that you totally understand, you totally honor, you totally find important or interesting. Someone might be a dropout from college but create neat stuff in his free time in any discipline. That's the thing I was seeking, that's why I wasted time in the demoscene instead of taking my degree in time and others couldn't grasp the importance.




• Honor. It must be very close to inner success. It could be the same actually. It's the feeling of achieving something that you personally feel it's important. Difference from fame? You are not doing it for the people (that can only come as a bonus), you are doing it for yourself.

Each time I am working on something that I feel it's important and the process flows all nicely, I receive a positive feedback from my brain that makes me happy for a while.

In the graphics practical I was expecting that and didn't got it. Because of unforeseen misfortunes and maybe a lack of clear mind too. But what was the motive? It was just an exercise that wasn't going to be graded. I wasn't going to show the results to my professor to prove something (that I am a graphics god or something :). I could just fail and not care. But I did! Because I had the false view that I was going to finish this easily. It wasn't a fault on my understanding, being not experienced with Java or Eclipse wasn't a reason. There was nothing that I have to ask the lecturers to explain. It was simply my thing and yet I failed. What I was seeking? A reassuring from myself that I am functioning well, that I am successful on doing something well and fast. It just didn't worked because of bad luck. It just happened. Maybe tomorrow I will have a clear mind and it will work. And get my little positive feeling of functioning. I actually need a lot of these little glimpses of happiness at times. I just have to accept it when I bump into a failure. It doesn't prove that I am bad or not. I just need to remember that it makes me feel alive. I should seek for more of these and in different disciplines.

This is definitely going for Part II. Sometime..

Hellos from London!

After finishing with the things that made me anxious (finding a student house, enrolling in the university, paying the fees and other minor stuff) and settling down, I think it's time to start. This is the last weekend before the lessons programme begins. I am really really curious and happy to get started with and I am wondering whether it will be interesting (I think it will be) and whether there will be any pressure or strict deadlines (Well there might be work to do. I have to stop playing Scribblenauts or any other addictive game :).

I haven't visited anything special in London or UK yet. I'd really like to visit the british museum and especially stonehenge oneday. There might be quite more siteseeings that are worth. I just need to find out and plan something (or join some of the clubs that organize tours). What I liked and find interesting here in London is that it's extremely multicultural. I haven't seen such a variety of different kinds of people before. Well, I was in Germany once (in Karlsruhe) but I don't remember such variation, even though it still looked more varied in different nationalities than what I am used in Greece. That's all I can say at the moment. I haven't seen much yet.

I also opened a twitter. Well, that's a lie. I already had the twitter account before but just never used it. It occured when someone asked me why I post a lot of stuff at Pouet and not in my blog (which is also a lie because I post far more text in my blog, only less frequently) and one reason I think I am more easilly tempted to post at Pouet is because I sometimes don't post serious stuff there and the oneliner is for small text. When I plan to post something in this blog it's several times that I cancel it because I need time and I am more obsessed writting with my own pace and also need to plan it more carefully. But in Pouet I sometimes write something that comes in my mind and fits in less than 255 characters. So I thought, it would be fun to write small thoughts, quotes or news in twitter. Now I know why they ironically say it's for ADHD people who are in a hurry or too lazy to write something more than 140 characters. But 140 characters? That's a bit too little. I still had struggle to fit something specific I wanted to post there. I wish there is an option to maybe make it 255 characters or something..

Scribblenauts. It's the best thing since lemmings. I originally read about it from an xkcd strip :). It's so clever and so addictive because you can finish levels with a big variety of different ways and you actually have a big dictionary of things you can use, even the most unimaginable. If you search scribblenauts in youtube you might get an idea. It's only funny when you can summon Cthulhu or LHC and crazy stuff like that. It's crazy summoning god and handing him a bazooka and having him fight with a pterodactylus or something. Who the hell has thought of such an idea for a game?

I think I will write a review about scribblenauts in my Plasmafun blog where stuff like that belongs more. If I don't get busy with my masters programm at least..

09/09/09

I've heard there is a fuzz about today's date. Of course those special numbers where something is supposed to happen, have to be something symmetrical like 09/09/09, 666, 999, 2222, 10:10. I wonder, why not 17/09/09, 256, 9797 or 2321? Does the universe like those specific kinds of numbers? What if we had a different type of calender and 09/09/09 was something boring and random like A4/F2/FF :P

Although it's a slightly important day in my life because today I officially quit my job (Finally, no more picking up the phone!!! Arghh.. I was supposed to be a programmer here but all I do is watching youtube videos and constantly picking up the phone. They frickin work three at a minute! :P) and start preparing for my trip in England. Also, a brand new laptop is about to arrive at home today (I hope). More about it later..

I think that's the most important things that will happen from my side during this funny symmetric date. Except if I get abducted by aliens or stuck in an elevator or something :P

A happy night!

I had a very good time today when I met my friends nuclear and hikiko to discuss about finding a house in London, having also our typical graphics programming discussions and then went to the netcafe to watch the same demo in three screens simultaneously. Somehow I had a rare positive feeling today, maybe it's the fact that we will most probably spent a great time studying together from late September in England.

Maybe it's time to give you my news about this since the time is near and I am in a great mood to speak about it. Me and hikiko applied for an MSc in Computer Graphics, Vision and Imaging at UCL and we are certainly in. Now the only step remaining is to find a good cheap home (university houses might not make it) or anything to have somewhere to stay and the good times start. I hope that nuclear gets his phd offer too and we can stay together. For me it's a positive thing from many views, first of all it will be great to be studying what I like to do in my free time, then it's actually a nice opportunity (or transition way) to stay in England and search for a related job there and I am hoping for many good changes in my life from that point on. I need that transition and I need to see new places and make a new start.

Maybe that happy feeling will fade away tomorrow and for the next three weeks but it's all natural to drop down from a highly positive feeling and when the time comes near it will be all positive for the better again. I can't await for the moment to come, that we settle down in a home and all good things are about to come. Yey!

Blogs again

I somehow need to organize all these blogs and it's a hard work. Right now I exported most old posts from Kodeus Delirius and imported them to the Otinanism blog. When I started the kodeus delirius blog (gates to delirium) it was just a blog of random stupid posts that had to do with just being crazy and writting funny strange posts. But later I transformed this blog into a news blog about my coding projects (from which I am absent the recent days anyway). It wasn't very nice to have kept the insane old posts with the coding news at the same blog. And since I was used to open various different blog with insanities, I will just keep one (otinanism) and put everything there. At first I thought about deleting it but later I said, let's make it as a blog of garbage posts :P

I also tried to add some links, blog archive, label lists, etc in some of my recent ones. There is work to be done.

There is only one more blog I am thinking about opening.

You might wonder why all these blogs? Isn't it more work to have seven of them? Actually no. The different blogs bear with subjects that would be posts on the primary blog. I am just splitting these subjects in different blog. I was write posts about demoscene, normality, hackers, programming, ufos, news, random thoughts, stupid posts, etc in the same blog for a long. Subjects that don't match with each other and don't fit in the same atmosphere of the blog. I have already used labels too but I needed to separate the posts in different blogs.

But if I separate the subjects then what I will be writting in the main Optimus blog? In the past most of the posts here had to do with the normality/personal struggle subject. These are going to the normality blog. Few of them with the demoscene. Plasmafun is about games/demos/various stuff, recently I am writting a lot of demo reviews there. Kodeus Delirius about my coding projects (although I don't think I am in enough mood to work with this blog). Computer Hermit again with computers but with a different perspective (although I am getting too obsessed with the "hackers" subject there, I am still skeptical why I opened this blog but I like the feeling of it right now). I might open one about UFO and paranormal things and my skepticism. I think the main Optimus blog will remain as a center for things, news, not related exactly.

Nah. It needs a lot of work to put it in a satisfactory way that I like. There are some blogs I am tempted to delete or merge with others. But maybe I shouldn't. Too much work and I can't decide..

No more food!

Right now I am getting pissed off with myself. Of course I couldn't avoid a taverna visit with my friends for another night and this time I was so full of food that it became so hard to digest and I have trouble breathing. Of course this incident doesn't happen frequently (I remember only one more time when I was thirteen and I was paniced when I instantly couldn't breath) but it got me pissed. Not that it might change anything (because tomorrow I will be fine and forget it) but I am making thoughts to stop with the food again.

A little problem now is that there are some trips I am making in Crete because of my new job, the only source of food in the evening is a Taverna and when I sit for three hours there then I am getting bored and eat everything. Even if I order nothing, the first dishes (for all) are coming and since the rest of my colleagues don't eat that much, it's all open to my choice. I was two weeks in Crete and now I am thinking it, I was eating in a Taverna every evening. It's preety fucked up! Of course it's all my fault (and we have discussed it) and the next time maybe I should stay in the hotel or something. It's not atm possible to sit in the table with tons of food we order but nobody eats and not be tempted or prompted to empty the tables.

Most people don't understand the problem. They think that fat people like me are lazy assholes who always find excuses to eat. To say that it's not healthy is not enough. We know it. It's like you are saying the smoker is an asshole because he doesn't understand that smoking kills and that it's a silly thing. Of course he does. I am not a smoker (I am even annoyed by smoking in public places) but I wouldn't say to a smoker that it's wrong that he is smoking because the logic says that it's bad. It is an addiction. There are psychological factors. It's the same with food addiction. You don't blame the fat person. He knows something is wrong. You are not helping him by blaming him for the obvious.

The remaining problem is what am I doing now? I know that my focus is to return to my normal weight. I know that it doesn't make sense to loose and then gain weight at the end because it will only make the process longer. But I continue to loose focus from the main plan. Also another think is that we like food. We maybe have to persuade ourselves that we don't like food. This is the point where meaning is lost. Because food does taste good. And I am not the person who can blindly close his eyes and believe something that is a lie. But maybe that's the only way. You can't start losing weight by continuing eating food. I have to drop my old habits. I am trying for a lot of years. I've discussed it with some work colleague and he told me that he managed to quit smoking but not food. Such a great addiction it is.

Another thing is diets. They need a plan. I can't follow a plan. Also they look quite simplistic. Of course if you don't follow my overeating plan but the plan of every diet by rule, you are going to loose weight and follow a different habit. Till you forget it and return to you own regular habits. Also it's not that with the diet I will be hungry and become nervous. Hunger doesn't bother me much. It is the fact that I am not allowed to eat (and overeat) my favorite foods. There are cases where I am eating even if I am not hungry.

Maybe I can't follow the alternative. To just not eat. And I am searching for a more convenient path which favours my addiction, although this isn't possible. It's complicated. Whatever you say it is. But there must be a solution. I always believed that every problem has a solution if you think it hard enough. But this is getting too complicated and maybe I secretly don't want to stop my habit..