This year I’ve lost the drive to create anything at all. It isn’t that I can’t. I just don’t want to. I see no point.

I’m burned out and used up in every area of my life. There isn’t much of me to give any more. There is just a little bit left. I feel faded.

I have no idea what batteries I once ran on, but they need to be replaced. Or the power system needs to be upgraded.

This is his site: http://icutfilm.com/

Work on the ship continues apace. The command center and galley receive most of our attention and it is generally agreed that the day these rooms become a place of respite rather than labor will be sweet indeed.

My constitution continues its decline, constantly embattled from all sides by the heavy vapors enclosing us. The breathing apparatus and the seltzers have proven ineffective. I spend most days on the other side of the thick acrylic bubbles, overseeing the work, sparing an occasional glance out at the oppressive topography. But I have begun to feel it even in my cabin, lying on my bunk. Some spectre leeches my strength, so that I waken not refreshed, but burdened.

The daily job manifests from the investors blur together. Each site survey has become an iteration of the previous one, permutations of some ur-site unfolding through time and space, like hundreds of incrementally flawed daisies. I send the drones their orders, instructions sets I know by heart. I fear for the day when I see a colleague insert the control cards and my own legs lurch forward, watching helpless as my hands reach for the drill.

When I go to a convention, especially one in the realm of geekiness, I usually find myself fending off an encroaching wave of depression and estrangement. I think it is most prevalent at conventions because I feel like, of all social groups, I should find resonance with this one. But I don’t. It doesn’t happen with any group, anywhere, ever. I have no people.

In the past I attributed this feeling to something flawed in me or something inherently misaligned in the interface between myself and social groups. But, at PAX, I realized what was actually happening. I looked at all the people hanging out with their friends, eating together, showing each other cool games, etc. I thought, “I don’t want to do this alone. This isn’t fun by myself.” And then I realized that I wasn’t just talking about PAX, I was talking about my life.

I’ve been wanting companionship for a long time now, but I didn’t realize what its lack was doing in my life. I naturally want to be loved and to love someone else. But I’ve been getting by without that. Except that I’m not really getting by. In every social interaction there is an unconscious expectation that whomever I’m speaking to will somehow fulfill my need for love. It could be my friends, someone I’m playing a board game with, a meetup group I go to, the waitress at the restaurant… And they fail to give me what I need. Because it is unfair to expect it and I didn’t even know that I was asking for anything. And so I have been constantly disappointed and estranged and puzzled about why I am so discontented with other people.

Having identified this does not make me feel any better. But it does give me hope that some day I will have fulfillment in my life and I won’t leave every table still feeling hungry.

Have an idea for a story game. Might sketch it out so it stops scratching my brain. But that would just be a stopgap.

The line to Stubb’s stretched from Red River down to I-35, but, being Stubb’s, we all got in. While there is a lot of overlap between a TRS and digg crowd, I got the impression that, like the actual site, diggnation had a broader appeal. The whole scene was more rock star 2.0 than a panel at a tech conference.

The whole show was really fun. Local celebrity Brian Brushwood warmed up the audience with magic tricks, Scam School style. We participated in a Twitter hoax, broadcasting the news that Conan O’Brien was joining Revision 3. The digg CEO came out and talked about some new features coming to the site. Then Alex and Kevin did the show, which was really funny and alcohol fueled. Leo Laporte showed up with his mobile webcasting rig and ended up crowdsurfing (while webcasting the whole experience). Surprise guest Robert Rodriguez came on stage to talk about Predators. And then Alex and Kevin did some crowdsurfing.