Depending on how I look it at, that was either a prety good or a pretty bad trip to Columbus. I could say that it wasn't really what I was expecting, but I'm not really sure what I was expecting. My mental soundtrack for the trip was set some music I've had for a long time that I haven't listened to ever. I recently learned that I've been unduly prejudiced against remix music -- I went to Beborn Beton's website, and downloaded some 30-second samples I liked, which were different versions of songs I have on my "Songs From Another World" CD, and was unhappy that only that CD is available in the United States (yes, I could import, and I've been thinking of getting an account on www.amazon.de to get European music and books that don't make it over here..). Anyhow, while browsing their site, I learned that they were actually official remixes, and some of them are actually already present on the second CD (which I have but have ignored) from that 2-cd set. So.. after I got home, I ripped that CD to OGG, and while a lot of the songs are remixes of the kind I dislike, some of them are quite good. I think for my tastes, a good remix must not mess with the melody nor change the overall song flow too much. On the off chance, dear reader, that you have the CD, the songs that I like from it are:

• Dr Channard (Funker Vogt Remix)
• Peach (DJ Ram Breath Away Mix)
• Too Emotional (DJ Ram Sensuality Edit)
• Another World (Ephemeral Rage) - different, but well done

In almost all of those though, they have an annoying remix intro which is dull. I'm likely to edit them to chop out the intro so when I put them on mix CDs, I won't need to suffer those parts. New music is always a good thing for car trips..

So, the trip there was pretty easy, although a general theme of the trip is that it was ill-planned and kind of lonely. I wasn't able to find anyone to eat dinner with me, so I had Veggie Bento at the former Insomnia site. I wish there were a Bento place around here.. hmm.. maybe there is. Afterwards I swung by Aug's place, and tried to visit with people, but they were busy with organizing stuff.. so I wandered around for awhile and eventually went to Outland.. which was pretty dead. I later found out that it's midterms week at OSU, which probably contributed to the poor turnout, but at least one of my friends, TimW, was there.. we left around 2am to grab some food at HoundDogs pizza. He moved away from Columbus too, so there was much reminiscing. I then spent the night at my sisters' place.. which felt almost like I was back in my parents place in Brecksville -- they're rooming with other Brecksville folk, so their place is all decorated and souped up. I didn't sleep very well -- it was comfortable, but I had bad dreams (in these times, that's not at all surprising..). After I woke up and hung with them for awhile, I went and had lunch with Lorie -- we had a lot to catch up on.. she and her life have gone through a lot of changes, and she's getting ready to depart Columbus.. seems that everyone is.. None of the people I hoped to hang out with were free, so I drove around for awhile and eventually decided to go shopping -- that's one of the high points of Columbus, especially compared to Pittsburgh.. I swung by Computer Success, and was impressed at the variety in machine cases available now.. they had their usual mix of cheap generics and other things, and then visited Micro Centre.. I was very tempted by their very small cases -- I think I might ditch the 'normal desktop' idea, but get another non-laptop system in one of the 'small cube' form factors, hooking it to my TV to play DVDs and other media as well as using it as a download centre (running bittorrent and the like). I might get a new TV first if I do that. I also was tempted by a standalone DVD recorder that promised to write things from VCR to DVD without a computer (my VCR is unreliable).. Instead, I got a cheap but nice paper shredder. I've always wanted one -- I keep getting credit card offers in the mail that are scarily easy to activate, and I don't like just throwing them away. On the way out of that shopping complex, I was going to stop by the pet shelter where I volunteered back when I lived in Columbus (and where, years earlier, Martha and I got Wally), and donate some money.. but the place where it was is now just empty space for rent. It left me feeling kind of sad.

"I'm sorry - I did upset
You didn't get the story
I wrote you love-letters instead
I didn't mean to hurt you
Maybe we are too emotional
Too much heart too hard to handle"

I couldn't remember where the Verizon Store was where I originally got my phone, but I passed another one on the way to the Sawmill area, and while all the signs on the door disagreed on if they were open, there were some people there, the present owner of the store as well as some friends. It didn't really feel very corporate.. and with the rain outside it felt like a tent in nature, people just existing there, watching the outdoors and not really thinking about anything. It was kind of nice. Eventually the guy got off the phone, I asked if he had the means to repair my long-broken phone holster, and he recognized the make of the phone, went back and brought out a big box of things for my phone, and let me scoop out what I wanted. I got a spare battery and a new holster, for free. Nice. I guess that's the nice thing about having an old phone -- it's hard to find parts, but when you do, the owners are generally keen to get rid of them. I went on to Meijer, but didn't buy anything there -- and felt kind of empty for having made the trip. I wonder if I just wanted the comfort of going through the routines of a Meijer trip. I did pass a rare sign on the way back -- a green circle, no slash, with a U-turn arrow in the middle, telling me that, unlike Ohio Traffic law generally, a U-turn is ok there. I wish I had had my camera -- it would've been a cool picture.

I hurried back to the campus area -- wanted to make the SFF social. We went and had chinese food (meaning I had a very small dinner), then went out for pastries, and then went bowling. I had a good time, especially that I got to interact a bit with a certain someone I like (alas, I'm both distant and the feelings arn't as reciprocal as I'd like). It really was nice to have something like a good social circle again.. and I actually got a good amount of hugs and the kind of affection that friends share while with them.. but then I got to thinking about two things.. that I don't have anything like that here in Pgh, and the people there who were proper couples seemed so happy with each other. It says a lot about my life that I've had so little physical or emotional human contact for so long, and having a taste of that only reminds me of what I've been missing for so long. The community really has some great people that know how to make other people feel wanted. More on that later. Anyhow, we went back to the campus area, I got my car, and went to Outland. When I got there, it was quite alive, and I got some dancing in.. Unlike before, I didn't actually seem to tire from dancing -- perhaps the weight loss (I'm down to 155 pounds at last check) and occasional exercise (bike rides to/from work, rock climbing, occasional running in the evening) have paid off. I saw a lot of people I haven't seen for a long time -- Jessica's (ex?) boyfriend (but not her), a girl who was trying to hit on me back when I came there regularly, various staff members, MathAdam, Dawon (who was fairly drunk), Tim (was there again), and eventually Tom, who I went and grabbed a meal with afterwards. Dancing really was a lot of fun, seeing all the types of people.. it was interesting seeing the couples who danced -- there were some of them who really knew how to show a lot of desire in their motions.. There's fresh hints that Outland's days are numbered. *sigh* Again though, this connects back to the earlier theme, which makes it a theme of the weekend. Desire between people, and the connections between them. It's been a very long time since I've really felt (desired by/connected to) anyone for more than fleeting moments. This weekend I saw a lot of desire, of the love, of the sensual kind, and the circle-of-friends type, the last of which I partook of. That's part of what I think is the best stuff in life. Having some of even the friends-type made me feel like I was living someone else's life for a bit. Feeling wanted is just so foreign to my way of life that it's a happiness that hurt. I could heal from wounds I've had so long that I've gotten used to them if I had more access to that kind of feeling.. So yes, I see what's wrong with my life thanks to a wonderful weekend when what's wrong with my life wasn't as wrong as it normally is.

To finish the story (although the interesting insight I have is done), I left Columbus around 5am, drove about halfway home, and determined that I wasn't awake enough to feel safe in driving the rest of the way, slept at a rest stop from 6 to 8, and then sleepily drove the rest of the way home. It's strange, how sleeping upright in a car leads almost universally to a 'different' sleep. I, na klar, had bad dreams, in this case, dreams of driving my car, crashing, and dying, over and over. I had trouble, in the dreams, telling if I was awake, partly because the dreams all started with my driving from where I was at the rest station. When I finally woke up, I really was nervous that I wasn't really awake, and it took awhile to convince myself to actually start to drive. I slept most of today, and to avoid total lameness, went to Coffee Tree from about 19:3 to 23:45. I met with Dmitry, and talked about digital cameras and the dating scene. He suggested I put a profile up on JDate, a Jewish-focusing dating service. I'm not too sure how I'd feel about that -- I'd feel weird, for example, putting a profile up on a black-dating board, even if I happened to find people with that ethnicity to be uniquely attractive, as I'm not black. More to the point, I imagine that the reason people use Jewish-centric dating services, as opposed to non-racial ones, is that they're looking to meet other people of the same race, so I'd be unlikely to be what said people would be looking for. On the other hand, it really couldn't hurt anything. I'll think about it.

Apparently, one of the techno songs I've been hoping to find is by a group called "Levity", and I imagine the song title is something like "Pre-Millenial Tension", although google is powerless against its obscurity. If any of you know, or live in Columbus and can listen for the song at Outland and ask for more info from the DJs, drop me an email. This site has lots of neat data, and is ambitious in what it tries to do with its interface (although to view it, I had to disable all kinds of security things in my browser)..

Finally, Mass has approved of gay marrage (sic). This is a good day for everyone, when conservativism takes another blow. I have other things to blog about, but they'll have to wait -- my sleep patterns are presently really messed up.

I WAS NOT DRUNK! jdate sounds gross. there's no reason for someone like you to resort to a dating service. you should join myspace, meet some more friends around your area, go out, have fun, BE YOUNG.

Nah, don't put up a profile on Jdate... It's meant primary for Jews to find other Jews, and frankly, you're not a Jew.