I want a Tesla Coil Christmas Tree!

I should probably not taunt myself with Airship Ventures in my syndication feed collection on LJ, or by being on their mailing list. It makes me sad when they remind me of all the awesome places they fly, or even the fact that there is an airship, a zeppelin, in the skies above my head, and I can not afford to fly.

I want it.

The temptation to just put a ticket on my credit card, and worry about paying it off later, is great. Just to taste flight in a majestic ship of that sort, even if for only a small while, calls to me. It makes me wish, hope and yern. But the reality is, my job is fucking with me, I can hardly afford day to day life, let alone the things needed to maintain my minimum operational requirements for mental balance, so to think I could get away with spending money on something so indulgent and expensive is out of the scope of reality.

I still want it.

I am in lust.

I remember the first version of Das Keyboard that was $80. Mechanical switches and no markings to eventually wear off, a computer geek's wet dream. I wanted that version of Das Keyboard, even though I knew $80 was more than one really should be paying for a keyboard. Now the price is $129, and they offer a pansy version with markings on it for those who can't type or share their computer with people who can't. If I give in and spend more money than I can really justify on a keyboard, you can bet your ass that I will be getting the nice version without the markings. ^_^ At least they don't charge more for the version without the markings.

My last keyboard, a purple thing that gave me like six or seven years of service before it died from a bad wash job on my part, had easily half the keys worn enough that they no longer had any sort of marking on them, and another third worn to the point it was hard to read. After only a year or two of use, and only a small number of the letter keys worn to the hard to read point, I was intimidating people against using my computer simply because they couldn't read the keyboard and didn't know how to type correctly. Ha.

The keyboard I'm using now, an old IBM thing I'm technically borrowing from my mom's boyfriend...but he's not likely to need/want back since it's for an old Windows machine that was long ago retired and replaces by Apple machines, is starting to show the signs of a year or two of my use. There are keys that are all but completely worn of their marking, and more that are worn just enough to concern some people. The thing that is awesome about this keyboard, and probably the thing that will sell me on Das Keyboard whenever I do finally kill the IBM off, is that it has the mechanical switches in it. The extra depth of the key depressions is nice, the extra click behind each key stroke is a delight, even if it is coming at me through the sounds of Babyland, David Bowie, Heart, Led Zeppeling and whatever the frell else I'm listening to currently. The only thing I dislike about the IBM keyboard is that it's that horrible horrible beige that all computers were in the 90s. Das Keyboard is a nice sexy black.

I did enter a contest on Think Geek to celebrate their being around for 10 years, and if I do win one of the prize levels that include shopping sprees of various dollar amounts, I will have to get myself Das Keyboard. So sexy.

My perception of reality doesn't usually intersect with everyone else's very well. I have a hard time knowing where my paranoia ends, and my justified worries start. I also have a hard time realizing when I'm missing important details I really really should be paying attention. I read things into situations that aren't there, I dismiss things as paranoia when I really shouldn't and I completely miss things I should have been paying better attention.

I also have a tendency to spend too much time worrying about things, and not enough time actually doing them. I worry about how hard it will be to find another job, so I never do any job hunting. I worry about how hard it'll be to learn to drive, and it took me multiple years to get my license where it usually takes most people in my generation only six months, and that's partially because they're obligated to take classes and have a waiting period.

I randomly become aware of these things for the oddest reason. I'm usually completely oblivious to these details, even though I can spout 'em back at people regularly enough that it's become standard for me to tell people I trust "just be painfully blunt with me, sometimes that's the only way I get a clue". However, when I become aware of these things I worry about stuff like how the people I care about see me. I find it hard to understand how anyone can be patient with me despite my failures at human interactions. I also constantly joke that it takes so much out of me working customer service, taking care of my customers, that I don't have any energy or effort left when it comes to dealing with the people who actually do matter.

Right now, I'm mad at myself because I haven't been able to go out and visit drwho4 at his house on my days off within the last few weeks. Between the way my work schedule has been jerked around, all the crap I had to do to my apartment on account of the jackasses with the unit above me being neglectful and destructive of their apartment and it leaking into mine, and my having the attention span of a gnat and being unable to buckle down and do a solid uninterrupted bout of work on anything, I just haven't been able to make it out there. I had been hoping he was going to come out tonight, I could have used the company, but the convention he volunteers for is coming up in about a month and a half, and the deadline for the scheduling crap he has to do is at the end of this month. So he elected to stay home and work on that stuff tonight, instead of coming out here a night early.

In tangently related news, I bought a copy of Watchmen yesterday, as I wanted to read it after enjoying the movie. I really liked Rorschach in the movie, but you get a little deeper into him when you read the graphic novel. Where most people just seem to take him as a curiosity, as bad ass and awesome to watch, or watch with morbid curiosity, I find myself identifying with him. Sure, I haven't been through the extremes he went though, I don't see myself as randomly stalking the streets and kicking ass in order to reach the greater good, but there is a part of me that wishes I could. There is a part of me that understands his logic, that agrees with his choices. All of them.

So, in steamfashion, someone posted about the Art of Manliness website, and their article on How to Give Flowers like a Victorian Gentleman. I'd seen this website and article a while back, so I decided to just skim the comments for amusing bits.

In one of the comments, they talk about other things that have been recommended on the site, and this includes a website that sells very nice leather baggage (luggage, messenger bags, duffles, etc), Saddleback Leather Co. If these bags are anything like the site is trying to pitch, I am absolutely in lust with them. The trouble is, the pretty pretty overnight duffle is nearly $500. Now, good quality leather goods are hard to come by, these are claiming heavy weight, hand stitching and look pretty damn nice in the pictures they have on the site, but even if I had the money to spend, I hesitate to buy such things without getting a chance to fondle the goods first.