just Beth

My fascination with this “playground of anachronism” started when I was looking for a shirt with wings on it on ThinkGeek.com. I found one that said “Steampunk Angel” with really cool mechanical wings complete with a pressure gauge. Not wanting to purposefully invite abuse to myself by either having an insult printed on my chest (some people do those kinds of things), or by not being able to answer should someone actually read my shirt and probe me as to what it meant, I looked it up.

According to the Urban Dictionary, which everyone who is anyone knows is where to go to find the real meanings of things and maybe also the definition of life itself,

Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where STEAM POWER is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date.

OK.   Cool.

Today I found a blog that calls itself The Steampunk Home, which is pretty much just showing off the “style” derived from too many visits to the aforementioned playground.

I’m beginning to really like SOME of this stuff.

Nice room. Kinda makes my brain hurt, even though I'm not thinking anything.

$18K for a TABLE???? Do want. Looks like it may allow for more interesting activities than your normal everyday dining room table.

What is this? Looks a little scary. Probably goes with the table.

Cool light... I mean, lights. :p

Computers, since that is what life always has been and always will be about. Interesting concept since an oil lamp is necessary for lighting at this point. Glossy or matte?

Steampunk? Maybe. Creepy? Definitely.

Well, as long as I’m not being graded on them.

There is something about being able to get an answer through a series of yes or no questions.   I like making things simple, especially lately.  You can even throw a maybe in there occasionally.   I like testing for infinite loops too.  There’s something appealing about never dying after all.  But then again, that brings back memories of killing processors.  Let’s hope our brains won’t overheat as quickly, and some of us can’t process things too fast anyway.

/random_saturday_morning_thoughts

I was just posting on a MacRumors forum about what I would want on my tombstone (the brick, not the pizza) when I died, and it got me to thinking.  (Yes, we geeks talk about all sorts of fun and uplifting things.)

Strange though it may be, some people actually enjoy wandering through graveyards (I like that word better than cemetery) and mausoleums and reading the epitaphs. My parents go to cemeteries everywhere they travel, and far be it for me to want to deny such an enlightening and useful pleasure to them.  (just kidding around Mom and Dad!)  Also, there are many other living people who want to have a specific location to “visit” the resting places of their dearly departed. Because of all this, I would prefer that, if I were to be cremated, which I won’t be.  (Or, if I am, I won’t know about it, which is fine too.), I would not want my ashes on anyone’s mantle (kind of gross) or scattered or anything like that. I don’t really care where I’m planted, and I don’t even care about a casket or a vault – dust to dust and all that. For health reasons (of the living), however, these are necessary.

Now, I’ve never really been big on words (but that seems to be changing lately), so I would prefer to just have the dates of my birth and death, my name I guess, although I think “Red” would be better, and it would be nice to have Excalibur stuck somewhere in it too.

One person said that he was going to donate his body to the Bodyworks exhibit, which I had not thought of before.  Being stuffed or mummified might be fun, live on in a pyramid or something.  I have always wanted to live in a mansion.  (Of course, God promises me one of those, so that will happen for sure.)  I have considered the options of donating my body to science and/or organ donation, but I don’t think my parents would like that. I’ll wait until I bury them before I decide with any finality.

This has been fun.