Now, a part of me wants to play (I haven’t even tried the Kinect out yet) to see if I can get a picture of this, but… another part of me is really creeped out and just wants to get the hell outta and move now!

I did a search for this and found that other people have been seeing strange things in their Kinects as well.  In one forum someone posted:

EUREKA!!!! I found out why it does this. The Kinect can detect Thermal images, and as I was searching around, I realized that Paranormal investigators use Thermal imaging infrared devices to detect Ghost/Poltergeist activity in paranormal environments i.e. haunted houses, graveyards. Yep, you heard that right, the kinect is picking up passing semi physical disembodied energy forms. Your own personal Ghost detecting device, at home. Do some research with infrared and thermal imaging for paranormal research and ghost hunting, then look into the details of the Kinects camera technology, thermal, infrared capabilities.

That’s just… great.

So, anyone else out there experience something similar with the Kinect??

But it’s particularly sad for me because I have fond personal memories of the theater, including one of the first dates my husband and I went on together.  (We saw Event Horizon and it was the scariest movie I’d ever seen.) 

In memory, because within in its futuristic sexless scenario, it’s also about nostalgia and drive-ins, I bring you David Bowie’s 1973 “Drive In Saturday:”

I celebrated a birthday on the first and truly had a monumental weekend.  First my husband, daughter, and I went roller skating (for the 2nd weekend in a row) and I re-discovered how magical it was!

There’s something beautiful and wonderful about the speed of bike riding and now I believe the same has to be said about roller skating.  And when it’s summer and the rink’s A/C is running and disco ball spinning, I choose the rink!

I also spent the weekend playing on my new Korg synthesizer (a gift from my sweetie), buying domains for two new blogs that I’m eager to get writing on (TBA), eating fantastic food, and having a great time with friends and family – it was truly heavenly!

Only time will tell if this work of fiction ever makes it to the public, but if you’re sitting on your hands eagerly awaiting it, soon you may be able to whet your appetite with a choose-your-own-adventure style game loosely based on it and already in the works.  (And when I say “in the works” I mean I’ve bought the domain name.)  As for the book, I’m on chapter eight, over 10,000 words in and have hit my first block… the writing was so fast for chapters one through seven, but I’m eking out the words in eight.  I think this means I need to start reading more again.

Pet peeve alert: notice I didn’t say that I would nip the project in the “proverbial bud?”  That’s because I find it incredibly annoying when one feels the need to use the old “proverbial” article.  I believe my three readers will know that I don’t have an actual bud that I’m taking a pair of scissors to; I believe they will get the gist and can do wihout a pretentious “proverbial.”

Now, with a glass of wine, I’m going to commence chapter 2.

Nina Kulagina

After reading up on Nina Kulagina, a Russian woman who had very advanced psychokinetic abilities, I’m even more fascinated by the thought of it but at the same time I’m wondering if trying this on a daily basis is good for one’s health, especially after reading in Wikipedia that “In the late 1970s, a near fatal heart attack forced Kulagina to scale back her activities. According to a report produced by Dr. Zverev, her heartbeat was irregular, she had high blood sugar, and her endocrine system was disturbed. Over the long term, she suffered from pains in her arms and legs, could not coordinate properly, and experienced dizziness. The report said that these symptoms were the result of her paranormal exertions, and limited her ability to demonstrate psychokinesis under controlled conditions.”

Not that I’m ever going to be a Nina Kulagina or anything, but I certainly don’t want a disturbed endocrine system!

Then I did a search on psychokinesis and found more anecdotal stories of people who had been meditating or practicing psychokinesis and had health problems.  On the other hand, it would seem that psychokinesis could also be used in healing… but on the other hand, maybe the energy in our bodies shouldn’t be taken out of balance??  Maybe simply allowing electrical impulses to make our physical bodies move things is the most efficient and best use of them.  Maybe nature shouldn’t be tampered with.

Nonetheless, these questions haven’t stopped me from working on moving my pen for a few minutes each day and as I haven’t had a rise in blood pressure or any of these other symptoms, I’m not terribly worried about the health ramifications at this point.  Not to mention I’ve thus far been completely uneffective and can barely focus on the damn pen for five minutes in the first place.  Look what this culture with its three minute music videos, 30 second ad spots, constant media barrage, and teh internets has done to my attention span!  (Memo to myself, do future experiments relating to a media-free life and whether or not that constitutes a real life.  OK, these would be more along the lines of existential experiments rather than scientific ones, but still may prove interesting).  I said it in the last psychokinesis post and I’ll say it again: if nothing else, at least this is good exercise in focus and has brought some awareness to my lack thereof!

But back to Nina, one note of interest is that this skill came to Kulagina naturally; it was discovered that when she got angry, things around her would move, and it was after that that she was used for telekinetic experiments and demonstrations.  So were the physical problems a result of an already out-of-balance system?  Who’s to know.  And while my brief daily experiments may never amount to anything fascinating, Nina was fascinating – have a look:

Telekinetic kids in Disney's Escape to Witch Mountain

As of yesterday, I have decided to attempt achieving one of my childhood dreams of being like those kids from Escape to Witch Mountain and spend 5 minutes a day trying to move the pen on my desk through telekinesis.  All kidding aside though (okay, maybe I did have the occasional fantasy of being like those kids), I do believe people have a lot of untapped energy and brain usage and I do plan on doing this exercise every day.  However, the more appropriate term for moving objects with your mind’s energy alone is “psychokinesis” so that is the term I will be using.  Some even distinguish the terms as “psychokinesis” being a scientific activity and “telekinesis” being a practice that may involve the occult, which I am not interested in for this exercise; this is a purely scientific endeavor.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines them as:

psychokinesis
/sikokineesiss, sikoki-/

• noun the supposed ability to move objects by mental effort alone.

— DERIVATIVES psychokinetic adjective.

and

telekinesis
/tellikineesiss, telliki-/

• noun the supposed ability to move objects at a distance by mental power or other non-physical means.

— DERIVATIVES telekinetic adjective.

— ORIGIN from Greek kinesis ‘motion’.

I thought I’d give it a try before really reading up on it so I did things like simply imagine it move, then I imagined expelling energy from my body to move it, and I also thought of it as a massive wall I was moving – this was actually very draining!

What I discovered is that I have the focus of a gnat and if nothing else, need to do this daily to hone my focus skills.

So now that I’ve tried a few times in my own way, I think I might do a bit of reading on the matter…

Christine & Natasha in Grandpa's Jaguar

1. Natasha, Natasha, Natasha, Natasha, Natasha; my sweetest of sweets daughter.  I’ve been ‘in love’ with people and even music and other media/art, but having a child is the best of all.  You miss them terribly when they’re away, you get scared by their fragility, and at the same time you love them like nothing else and they truly are the most charming people you will ever know.

2. A great family including sisters that I can act totally crazy and bizarre around and they think it’s just as hilarious as I do!

3. A thoughtful husband who shares so many common interests with me.

4. Fond memories of people I’ve lost.

5. The ability to focus on what I can learn from tragedies and not on the negative (I was blessed with quite the self-preserving personality!).

M Ward

6. Incessant, uncontrollable… well, passion, for lack of more accurate word – I am constantly amazed by some new song, book, personality, color combination, weather, and it goes on and on – like M Ward sings, “God, it’s great to be alive / takes the skin right off my hide / to think I’ll have to give it all up someday.”

7. The fact that I’ve found a church that I actually like (it’s sometimes hard to be a Christian when you don’t like any of the Christian churches that you’ve been to and find some serious flaws in the members as well (and I’m still trying to figure out how much of that is my own problem)) – I recently started going to a small Methodist church and I think I finally feel like I’ve found a church that I feel I can grow in.  I love the social history and focus of the church, they’ve played an active role in American civil rights issues and to this day they are very socially active.  The church I’ve been going to houses our Meals on Wheels kitchen and is very focused on helping the poor in our community.  The are also spiritual without taking the whole of the Bible literally.  (This could be a very very long item and it’s already past midnight so I’ll leave it at that for now).

8 That I was born in the age of air conditioning, pain medication, movie shows, and teh internets! (Though this one could be a blessing and a curse…)

9 That I’ve found a home-based business that has been successful thus far, and that I enjoy (making sites).

10 That I have a nice, relaxed job that lets me wear jeans every day, and hang numerous plants, music posters, child drawings, and various art/craftwork around my desk until the grey walls are almost completely hidden.

Fuji's IJ Roll & Spicy Tuna Roll

11 Fuji’s sushi, particularly their spicy tuna rolls.

12 Iced coffee.

13 Anh Hung Tran.

14 Woody Allen.

15 Michel Gondry.

16 T.S. Eliot.

17 e e cummings.

18 Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

19 Glenn Gould.

Glenn Gould

20 Sergei Rachmaninoff.

21 Frederic Chopin (so in love)!

22 Claude Debussy.

23 My beautiful black Baldwin upright.

24 The joy of playing piano.

25 The feeling of the air moving against your chest while playing the accordion.

26 The Jersey shore and endless summers I got to spend there while visiting family.

27 Tulsa, with the friendliest people, cool architecture, magnificent thunderstorms, Cain’s, and its thick green-ness.

28 The time I got with a truly amazing piano teacher, Claire Jones.

29 Good friends I’ve kept over the years and friends to come.

30 Sonic Route 44 diet Coke with lots of lime.

31 Being born in an era of countless amazing bands & musicians!  

Rainy Fall

32 Rain.

33 Snow.

34 The magic in the perfect speed of riding a bike.

35 Recording devices.

36 Looking out the window of a moving car.

37 The mystical Tahlequah, OK.

38 The dreamy Peggy Lee tune ‘Where or When’ and the perfect snowy December morning I was awoken by that song on the radio.

Peggy Lee

39 The moment that I first heard Paul McCartney’s ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ (in high school right after a breakup with a boyfriend who I had mentioned this song to and who didn’t find anything special about it) and thought that it was so underrated and awesome that I would marry the guy who told me he intimated the same feelings toward the song without knowing my feelings about it (which is a small part of why I’m married to who I am today and whomever reads this first will be the first to learn this)!

Christian Bale!

40 Red wine.

41 Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

42 M Ward.

43 Christian Bale.

44 Leonard Cohen.

45 New Order and They Might Be Giants (and numerous others) for being major players in getting me through high school in one piece!  …But don’t forget the songs
That made you cry
And the songs that saved your life
Yes, you’re older now
And you’re a clever swine
But they were the only ones who ever stood by you…

46 Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, Neutral Milk Hotel, Animal Collective, Wolf Parade, The Fiery Furnaces, and Sufjan Stevens for showing up just when I thought there era of good music of my generation was over.

47 Talking Heads for managing to be so hot and intellectual at the same time.

48 NPR for their ‘driveway moments.’

Carlsbad Caverns + Doll's Theater

49 Caves.

50 National & State Parks.

51 Glorious blank paper and a black pen.

52 Magazine collages.

53 Smalti mosaics.

54 The Golden Number.

55 Hello Kitty.

56 Niagara Falls.

57 Growing up with parents who loved to take road trips.

58 Mojitos.

59 Gardening.

60 The Russian language with which I am enamored but haven’t found the time to get past general greetings.  Strastvitya.

From the Japanese folk tale "The Crane Wife"

61 Folk tales & mythology.

62 Shakespeare (I know, yawn, how quaint) – I like Hamlet and Midsummer’s Night Dream a lot, almost as much as the fact the he varied the spelling of his name.

63 Night swimming and that I was fortunate enough to grow up with a pool with lights and an overview of dreamy, spooky woods.

64 My propensity to daydream.

65 Symbols.

LOST

66 LOST.

67 That I got to major in two subjects that dealt heavily in symbols in mirror opposite ways – Mathematics and English Literature.

68 Dreams (“in dreams, emotions are overwhelming” -Science of Sleep).

69 Gael Garcia Bernal.

Gael Garcia Bernal in The Science of Sleep

70 Motorcycle Diaries (I liked the book and the movie) – even though I don’t agree with everything Che Guevara did in his lifetime, I’ve always admired the humanity of this book and his altruistic spirit – this journey really gives some insight into his life before it the politics (and what led him to that), and his love, respect, and care for the people he met.

71 Dark chocolate with orange.

72 Icicles.

73 Coconut lime verbena body spray from Bath & Body Works which gives me a little extra vigor each and every day.

Arctic Wolf

74 Wolves.

75 Language.

76 Silence.

77 Chinese silk shirts and dresses.

78 A cat who has so much personality that she’s more human than cat.

79 Google Adsense

80 Coffee Shops

Mt Fuji woodblock print by Hiroshige

81 The early Christmas present my husband just gave me – a MacBook – yay!

82 Hobby Lobby so my daughter and I can easily find a new craft project to do any time.

83 Hiroshige.

84 Vladimir Horowitz.

85 Hoodies.

86 Banana Republic.

87 Illuminations Candles.

88 Andrei Tarkovsky.

89 Richard Kelly for making Donnie Darko.

Philbrook's 1st Garden Glow 11-29-08

90 College radio.

91 Starry nights.

92 Connections.

93 Noodle bowls.

94 That I discovered the combination of saltine crackers, plain cream cheese, and green olives.

Creepy Cute Crochet: Zombies, Ninjas, Robots, and More!

95 The city.

96 The country.

97 Holidays and the events they inspire, like warm lingering meals, The Nutcracker ballet, and Philbrook’s Garden Glow.

98 iTunes Genius.

99 Creepy Cute Crochet for getting me back into crocheting and sparking some ideas.

100 WordPress for being the most awesome CMS and making this easier than it could have been.

101 You!

I found I had less ‘extra’ time for playing than I thought I would – I forgot that the WoW Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack came out this week – how on earth can I do anything else with this time when I have Frostyna to work on?!?  (And I’ve always wanted a frosty character!)

My Death Knight Frostyna

As for the health part, I did manage to go all week without eating beef – it was actually quite easy!  I even forgot about it until I almost ordered my Thai noodles with beef and then changed to chicken.  1200 calories a day worked until the weekend where I undid most of the good (though I did lose 2 pounds for the week).

I’ve already got my new 2009 Chococat calendar hanging up at my desk, and I will be getting my planner pages soon.  Here are my goals so far:

• More games & cooking together with the family
• Take more trips with the family
• Play more music
• Plan an internet publishing business model for 2009
• Healthier lifestyle
• Create a family and a business budget and follow them
• Get back into reading more

So, there’s a rough draft – now I have a few weeks to polish things.