Taking suggestions for new Terragen picture. Current ideas I'm considering:
Solar Sea (:o Abstract?!)
Neverland (not likely, my last attempt at a boat model did not work out well)
Above the Clouds (visual rendition this time! Greater than or equal to the musical version!)

Render completed: http://aradon-templar.deviantart.com/art/Banks-of-the-Waterworks-86143584
Number of hours spent rendering: could very well be 666.

Interesting bit of text I was just reading, I thought I'd write something down as it applies to me. I was reading a book about cult activity in Corinth in Late Antiquity (around 600 BC) by Richard M. Rothaus. It was discussing the influence of Christianity for a moment, and said, "As the church slowly assumed the obligations of social relief and even public works, it and its leaders became increasingly important to the people and the city."

This struck me as interesting, because it shows a transfer of responsibility of public care from the government to another institution. I've always thought that public care should be the people's job, to take care of themselves and those around them. Here it's another institution that's taking that job, but it made me think. The US government seems to be fighting for the responsibility of taking care of the public, almost like it's in fear of losing the job that people really care about. If the US government stopped providing social security and welfare programs, would it be devalued in the populace's eyes? Probably.

If the church grew as a result of this and took over social care, would it eventually replace the governmental institution, and give rise to a theocracy? Probably not, I'd bet. But it seems that is how Christianity spread and became so influential. The next thought is one of strange irony. By caring for the populace, you gain access to greater authority, and eventually become exposed to corruption. So through kindness an institution became corrupt.

My curiosity is that if the government stopped welfare programs and people picked up the duty on a local, individual scale (i.e. "My neighbor is sick and can't work, I should make some dinners for them and give them a bit of cash, since I'm doing well"), well, the people can't all rise to power simultaneously. One thought would be that there would be a revolution and that the people would replace the institution with a new institution that would relieve them of the burden of caring for themselves (i.e. what we have now). This outcome would indicate that it would actually be preferable for the current government to continue aiding the populace, because not doing so would merely result in a revolution and a new institution that would help out (i.e. no change).

The other possibility would be that everyone takes on this altruistic nature, which would imply that government is hardly needed. All that would be required of it would be to provide defense from outside forces and an order-keeping system for interior stability (i.e. army and police force). If initiative on a local scale is great enough, then the populace could form local militia, and a loose coalition in the event of a large scale invasion.

This last idea seems kind of ideal and weak, and overall unlikely. It's merely my musings. There would need to be an overarcing governing body declaring unifying laws for commerce between local districts and such, but such a national body would be largely diminished.
Pointless musings, but fairly interesting to consider.

Dude. Portal, in 2D flash. All it's missing (besides a third dimension and sexy graphics) is GLaDOS.
http://armorgames.com/play/107/portal-the-flash-version

Interesting link for those who view lots of images on their browser. It's a plugin that works with several major browsers, and it will allow you to view many images at once. Interesting link to check out, works on dA too: http://www.piclens.com/ (yes, tis free)

Templar is most unhappy now >.>
Computer froze up for no good reason this afternoon. My Terragen render was at almost 160 hours, and I even had it on pause at the time so as to not cause memory issues. I had been periodically freeing up memory as well. But the computer froze, and despite my best efforts, I had to force a reboot. In other words, the uber render will be another week and a half in coming. Sorry to disappoint -.-

Bah. Reading Sinfest (whilst very, very amusing) makes me wish I had friends to do things with.
Or maybe it's that I haven't been playing GW that I realized I don't have fun with friends.
:o Maybe I'm doing that 'growing up' thing that Silvie was talking about.
Scary.

Final Fantasy meets Dead or Alive in choreographed battle :)
(You will probably not enjoy if you're not a fan of FF, but I liked very much, and choreography is good anyways.)

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/115884.html (part 1, 4 minutes)
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/193489.html (part 2, 11 minutes)

Typoed when logging in today. The 'R' and 'E' keys are right next to each other. Almost tried to log in as Aradon Templae. I just wanted to let everyone know that if I'm ever cloned, we'll be referred to as Templae, as that is most definitely my plural form.

Edit: It's like the Bacchae. Except I'm not crazy.

Edit 2: Completely different topic, but same day so same entry. From what I've seen, it's generally not accepted to have a perfect character in a movie, story, or game. I had always attributed this to the fact that nobody's perfect, and therefore a perfect character is unrealistic. However, I think it's also in part because of the impact it has on the viewer/reader/gamer. A perfect character, unless presented very, very carefully, is like a slap in the face to the audience. Even if it isn't intended to be, it can easily make the audience all to aware of their own imperfections. Instead of creating a well-liked person, it creates distaste when it comes to that character's role. Occasionally, at least, and especially if the perfect person is specifically intended to be representative of perfection. Case in point: Aeris in FF VII, perhaps. The whole game she was presented as being unflawed. A bit helpless, perhaps, but Squaresoft gave her no real flaws, and instead made her sacrifice her life to save the world, and connected her with Holy materia in that she was the only one who could use it. Definite intended representation of perfection there. Lots of people may like Aeris, but personally I tend to dislike her theme because she seems to represent a level of perfection that's practically unattainable, which just irritates me >.>
In any case, random thought of the day. Perfect characters are not always lovable, they can instead irritate the audience, so the reason for their general disuse is not due to realism (which is quite unnecessary in video games :D) but due to their interaction with the audience. A good reason to include a perfect character, on the other hand, is for careful foil use.

Went to confession today (finally), hurray.
In other news, I found my keychain. Again. A few years ago when I was visiting Germany, I bought a keychain from a tourist shop just for fun. I decided to hang it from a zipper on my backpack, because my zippers had a tendency to break off, so I'd always be able to use the zipper. Since then, I've kept it with me. It's not exactly a keychain, but it looks like one. The only difference is that instead of having that little ring to loop through, it has a slightly different closing mechanism, and this mechanism has a tendency to become undone somewhat easily. So this thing's falling off my backpack all the time, and I've happened to catch it each time. The number of close calls I've had to losing it are astounding. I recently lost it for good, I had thought, and it's been missing probably for close to a month now. And today I found it :D

A good morning for me:
I woke up and checked Terragen's render progress. Considering it was running since before noon yesterday, I expected it to be complete before I went to bed, but no. It was still 'running' this morning when I woke up. I suspected it froze and crashed, but thankfully, several hours later, I can tell it's just working on water detail. It should be finished before this evening.
I went to class this morning and a friend of mine, before class started, mentioned how she was thirsty but had no money to buy a drink with. So I gave her a dollar. Apparently this is an unusually kind act, at least the way she acted. Well, as she was getting a coke from the vending machine I was still sitting in class, trying to pretend I was still asleep. She came back with a quarter for me and two cokes, and explained that the machine for some reason gave her two. Considering this an act of karma, she gave the second drink to me and we all around agreed it was a very fortunate morning (possibly thanks to the heads-up penny on the floor that we both noticed as we walked in, and which she later picked up).
It was only half-ways through the soda, though, when I remembered it's Lent and I intended to give up soda. So I decided that it wasn't karma after all, but some sort of perverse joke of the universe that such a coincidence might occur. However, upon discussing it, I mentioned that I needed to do a random good deed for someone to make reparations for my accident, when I realized I had already done so and the world was indeed good :D
And then I got home and checked ET. In my list of wikis that were changed, I saw the line "halp iippo! i'm still alive" and laughed. It is a good morning :)

Edit: I forgot to inlcude, I found an uberriffic website: http://planetpixelemporium.com/ . It has all sorts of digital media for me to use for free for planets. I have already downloaded moon lighting and texturing maps to import into Terragen, and I'm still looking at the other planet infos.

I've been here since 2003, almost five years. Since then I've changed tremendously. Whenever I think on the old times, it's with embarrassment at my ridiculous posts, complicated and pointless wikis I didn't even understand, and my overall attitude that I thought I knew what I was doing. At least, that is what comes to mind. I bit off more than I could chew in some cases, and in others I thought my wikis were better than they were.

As opposed to now, when I have no wikis that I run myself, and I do almost absolutely nothing. I think I'm brighter, more intelligent, and more understanding than back then, but I don't do anything. Even outside the wiki, I don't do anything. I play in an orchestra that I don't practice for, I am a music composition major and I haven't written nearly anything at all, and I do no community service at all. It makes me wonder if I've really grown, because if I have, it seems to have gone to waste while I play Guild Wars in my spare time.

But I just don't know what to make. All I can do is tinker around on Terragen (new pic soon, bweee :D). Perhaps I could compose something, but what? I have no idea (taking suggestions :P). I always have the feeling that I should be involved in community service, but have no idea how to get involved (something tells me I should check at the Catholic Center). But see what I mean? All these ideas about what I could do, and I never do anything. I'd say it's frustrating, but I really don't have any room to complain, because I'm the one who can solve all this by just doing something o.O

Anyways, my point of this entry was to note that while I look with something less than approval on my younger self, I have to wonder if I should instead be looking with contempt at myself now for not being brave enough to undertake things larger than me and actually doing something.