Over the next couple of hours I will have to monitor this blog and chebs fairly closely. The challenge ends at midnight tonight, and, after my cunning strategy of lulling cheb into a false sense of security by keeping him up most of the month and then powering through right at the end. Sort of an underdog story, there. I wonder who shall play me in the movie? Steve Buscemi, maybe, he'll have to put some weight on though.
Looking over some of my older blogs from this year, I remembered that I had started off the year talking about vague new years resolutions and I followed through with that for about as long as I figured I probably would, about three and a half weeks. Not that I was really being all that good with them, anyway.
Now it is time to start 2010 and again time to make resolutions, though I think I will skip that this year, since it isn't something that I ever follow through with. I don't think you can really change your life just because the calender skips to the next year. Its sort of like saying that regardless of what happened Monday, starting at 12:01 Tuesday morning everything is going to start going better for you. Even if your family was murdered. By you. At 11:59. That might be an exaggeration.
I am writing this on Paul's crappy as keyboard with his crappy ass mouse. Damn him and his sub par electronics.
There really isn't much that I am planning on doing tonight. Everyone here is shouting about trying to find a movie with some titties in it. Now they are arguing that the movies that have tits in them aren't that great, and seer claims he can get tits on his phone now, so theres no reason to watch a movie with titties. It is a riveting conversation, and certainly it was meaningful enough for me to transcribe the conversation. Or it wasn't, I don't know,it's hard to concentrate when people are shouting about titties.
I am at a point in my life where I realize that my memory is about as powerful as that of a goldfishes. Or people fuck with me and tell me they remember me when they don't. I don't know, there are several possibilities there that need to be explored. I was thinking last night that when I am an old man and someone says "you should write a memoir about your awesome life" I will say, "so be it, summon to be a biographer, an investigative reporter, and an archivist and we shall begin." And then I would write, through committee, my own life story. Just with all the gaps filled in through researchers. I imagine that many of my additions to the book would look something along the lines of:
"Although there are several eye witness reports that claim I did in fact strap the bear to the hood of my car and drive it through the mall, all I remember doing that day was leaving the house to go on my first date with the presidents daughter. Many people claim I never dated the presidents daughter, and they were probably right about that as well."
Right now I believe that I am done with this blog. Because I can't really think of anything to add to that.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Saviour Of The Universe
Note: if you came looking for Wed-Da Sci-Non Ext-Ga pt. 2! And are perturbed to find some rambly post instead, I suggest you scroll down. Then scroll back up and read this post. Or read them in whatever order you want. Or not at all. I don't give a fuck.
I threw on some Queen and "Don't Stop Me Now" came on and I realized that, although I have sung along many times, I have no fucking clue who the hell this "Lady Godiva" is that he is "passing by like". And yes, that sentence ended in a preposition. So I looked her up on el Wikipedia and realized she was a smoking hottie that rode through town naked to protest taxes, well, supposedly at least. I was going to say something along the lines of "why don't tax protesters do that now?" then I realized they probably had, then I remembered they were fucking crazy:
All this got me thinking, though, that the metaphors in "Don't Stop Me Now" don't make any sort of sense. Let's examine a couple of them, shall we?
Lyric #1: I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky like a tiger, defying the laws of gravity.
It's sort of like he sort of crammed two metaphors in there and hoped no one would give a shit. And, largely, no one did. But at the same time, shooting stars are just small hunks of space debris burning up in the atmosphere, as they are falling, to the surface, due to gravity. And, as far as I know, aside from certain Crouching Tigers, no tiger can actually defy gravity either. Of course, everything is subject to gravity. Everything but Penelope Cruz's cleavage .
I get it, I mean, what he's going for with that line, but you don't get to be a shooting star and a tiger in the same line. Unless its some sort of crazy PSA.
I threw on some Queen and "Don't Stop Me Now" came on and I realized that, although I have sung along many times, I have no fucking clue who the hell this "Lady Godiva" is that he is "passing by like". And yes, that sentence ended in a preposition. So I looked her up on el Wikipedia and realized she was a smoking hottie that rode through town naked to protest taxes, well, supposedly at least. I was going to say something along the lines of "why don't tax protesters do that now?" then I realized they probably had, then I remembered they were fucking crazy:
Pictured: Fucking Crazy
All this got me thinking, though, that the metaphors in "Don't Stop Me Now" don't make any sort of sense. Let's examine a couple of them, shall we?
Lyric #1: I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky like a tiger, defying the laws of gravity.
It's sort of like he sort of crammed two metaphors in there and hoped no one would give a shit. And, largely, no one did. But at the same time, shooting stars are just small hunks of space debris burning up in the atmosphere, as they are falling, to the surface, due to gravity. And, as far as I know, aside from certain Crouching Tigers, no tiger can actually defy gravity either. Of course, everything is subject to gravity. Everything but Penelope Cruz's cleavage .
I get it, I mean, what he's going for with that line, but you don't get to be a shooting star and a tiger in the same line. Unless its some sort of crazy PSA.
Monkey's and Tigers have lived peacefully for all of time. Except for all those times Tigers have eaten monkeys.
Lyric #2: I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars On a collision course, I am a satellite I'm out of control, I am a sex machine ready to reload, Like an atom bomb about to, Oh oh oh oh oh explode
I shall skip the pointless comments I could make about this and go straight to the visual: 
Yes, I took time to actually photoshop that. You're welcome.
Look, I think the song fucking rocks, and it will probably long outlive me. All I'm saying is that if you actually think about all the things he claims to be in that 3:32 minute rock-opera, you will realize one of two things: (1) Freddy Mercury has a personality disorder, or (2)He is the rockingest, fucking awesomeist, King of All Mankind. I'm going with number two. He taught us all how to be awesomer, and he will live forever for that achievement.
Wed-Da Sci-Non Ext-Ga pt.2!
Welcome, one and all, to Wed-Da Sci-Non Ext-Ga, pt. 2!
There is surprisingly little evidence for what the universe is really made up of, of what is really out there, of what we are seeing. Why is it that both sides of the universe look the same, even though they never could have touched, nor been close enough for light to reach from one side to the other, even in the first moments of the big bang? If, as the big bang theory suggests, matter and anti-matter were produced in equal parts during the first moments of the universe, then why can’t we find any anti-matter? Or dark matter? OR negative matter? Or any other type of matter that has a fucking awesome name? Why?! And why can’t we call regular matter something awesome, like Indefatigable Matter? Or something even more rad that I can’t come up with because thesaurus.com is taking too long to load? What’s with all the questions? Who are you working for? What the fuck is the point I’m trying to get at?
Since we don’t really know what the hell is going on with, you know, anything, an insane amount of theories have been explored. My pick of the week: The Universe is a Hologram. Yes, like a special edition trading card.
What is most impressive about this idea, aside from the fact that we are living in a universe sized Matrix, is that the person that came up with this theory is clearly the son of Freddy Mercury and Dolph Lungrund, although probably sent back in time, possibly by the the Matrix itself.
Okay, so I am severely lacking in the ability to explain this in any way that could make sense to the common person (i.e. myself), but I have taken the morning to go over this theory and this is the summary I have come up with:
1. The universe is not in the shape of a Pringle, a doughnut, a Bugle or any other food (scientists either thing humans only recognize shapes that are also foods or they need to make a goddamn sammach) but is actually a regular, boring old sphere.
2. Surrounding that sphere is a layer of tiny ass protons about 10-16 meters in size. However, those are fucking huge because the regular size of those protons is 10-35 meters. If you don’t understand what that means (and I only pretend to know what that means), a meter is about 3.28 feet (or, the way Paul remembers it, a DV (Darth Vader) is equal to exactly two meters) So imagine something that is .00000000000000000000000000000000001 the size of 3 ¼ feet. Now imagine if you were to more than double that size. That is how big we are talking about the layer of protons surrounding the universe. Only, like, eighteen quadrillion billion zillion10 of them.
3. Those bigger protons on the edge are there, in theory, because that is where the picture starts to get blurry. Yes, like when you zoom in to far on a photo or try to watch a Girls Gone Wild Video on TV.
That is essentially where the image ends. The theory is that we are inside the massive hologram and that those protons are where the image starts to get all blurry. The idea is to somehow prove there is a blurriness, somehow measure it, and, then, somehow, prove the hypothesis. I guess.
Frankly I don’t possibly see how that plan could fail.
Still, if you decide to believe that we are all living in a holographic projection (and some philosophers think we are), it does beg the question as to who made the projection. I believe that I have narrowed it down to three possible candidates:
1. The Time Traveling Bird that sabotaged the Large Hadron Collider
2. A Zombie Creature that is using humans for some evil, self serving plot; or:
3. Raptor Jesus
The fact that we could be living in a holographic projection doesn’t seem to me to be enough to prove that we are in science fiction novel. And neither do any of these other crazy ass theories. And even the fact that the German’s have teamed up with the British have teamed up on a project called “GEO600” that seems to inadvertently be measuring the universe pixilation may still be too much of a stretch to prove we are in Sci-Fi.
edit: apparently if you copy and paste html from Word into blogger it can get all fucky-uppy. All the links were broken, you hear me?! ALL OF THEM! Now they should be fixed though.
There is surprisingly little evidence for what the universe is really made up of, of what is really out there, of what we are seeing. Why is it that both sides of the universe look the same, even though they never could have touched, nor been close enough for light to reach from one side to the other, even in the first moments of the big bang? If, as the big bang theory suggests, matter and anti-matter were produced in equal parts during the first moments of the universe, then why can’t we find any anti-matter? Or dark matter? OR negative matter? Or any other type of matter that has a fucking awesome name? Why?! And why can’t we call regular matter something awesome, like Indefatigable Matter? Or something even more rad that I can’t come up with because thesaurus.com is taking too long to load? What’s with all the questions? Who are you working for? What the fuck is the point I’m trying to get at?
Since we don’t really know what the hell is going on with, you know, anything, an insane amount of theories have been explored. My pick of the week: The Universe is a Hologram. Yes, like a special edition trading card.
Pictured: The Universe
What is most impressive about this idea, aside from the fact that we are living in a universe sized Matrix, is that the person that came up with this theory is clearly the son of Freddy Mercury and Dolph Lungrund, although probably sent back in time, possibly by the the Matrix itself.
Okay, so I am severely lacking in the ability to explain this in any way that could make sense to the common person (i.e. myself), but I have taken the morning to go over this theory and this is the summary I have come up with:
1. The universe is not in the shape of a Pringle, a doughnut, a Bugle or any other food (scientists either thing humans only recognize shapes that are also foods or they need to make a goddamn sammach) but is actually a regular, boring old sphere.
2. Surrounding that sphere is a layer of tiny ass protons about 10-16 meters in size. However, those are fucking huge because the regular size of those protons is 10-35 meters. If you don’t understand what that means (and I only pretend to know what that means), a meter is about 3.28 feet (or, the way Paul remembers it, a DV (Darth Vader) is equal to exactly two meters) So imagine something that is .00000000000000000000000000000000001 the size of 3 ¼ feet. Now imagine if you were to more than double that size. That is how big we are talking about the layer of protons surrounding the universe. Only, like, eighteen quadrillion billion zillion10 of them.
3. Those bigger protons on the edge are there, in theory, because that is where the picture starts to get blurry. Yes, like when you zoom in to far on a photo or try to watch a Girls Gone Wild Video on TV.
That is essentially where the image ends. The theory is that we are inside the massive hologram and that those protons are where the image starts to get all blurry. The idea is to somehow prove there is a blurriness, somehow measure it, and, then, somehow, prove the hypothesis. I guess.
Frankly I don’t possibly see how that plan could fail.
Still, if you decide to believe that we are all living in a holographic projection (and some philosophers think we are), it does beg the question as to who made the projection. I believe that I have narrowed it down to three possible candidates:
1. The Time Traveling Bird that sabotaged the Large Hadron Collider
2. A Zombie Creature that is using humans for some evil, self serving plot; or:
3. Raptor Jesus
The fact that we could be living in a holographic projection doesn’t seem to me to be enough to prove that we are in science fiction novel. And neither do any of these other crazy ass theories. And even the fact that the German’s have teamed up with the British have teamed up on a project called “GEO600” that seems to inadvertently be measuring the universe pixilation may still be too much of a stretch to prove we are in Sci-Fi.
edit: apparently if you copy and paste html from Word into blogger it can get all fucky-uppy. All the links were broken, you hear me?! ALL OF THEM! Now they should be fixed though.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Battlefield Girth
There is an art to finding a new bar. Bars are a dime a dozen, and there are probably quite a few in your area (check local listings!). But you can't just go to a bar. I know that TV would have us believe that if you are totally cool you can just wander into any bar and be the hit of that shit. However, it takes a little patience and perseverance. First you must find a bar close enough that you can walk home from, and then you must find one that caters to your needs, whatever those might be.
Once you find the right place, it is a matter of going there on a regular basis. It has to be at least once a week at first, and that is if you are going on the same night each week. It helps if you wear basically the same thing, as well, and order the same (or basically the same) drinks every time you go in as well. You are trying to reinforce yourself to the other people there and especially to the bartender.
That is why you have to go in on the same nights. Once you are in with the bartender you are in with the bar. This takes time, as most bartenders, in my experience, are somewhat evasive about talking to people they don't recognize. The stereotype is that all bartenders are there to chat with as many customers as possible, but that just isn't how it works. They chat with the people they know, they avoid the first timers that could very well be there because of some trauma they just suffered and want to find a place they can drink and talk about their issues. Bartenders don't really care any more than anyone else about your problems. I'm sorry, but its true. If you are truly a social person you can get in with the bartender on the first visit, but it could be a fairly tenuous In. They might be being nice to you, but they don't really know you, and they don't honestly give a fuck if you come back in. Trying to establish yourself at a new bar is like starting any new relationship. You can't just throw yourself into it, people need time to adjust to you being there.
My technique is to say very little on the first visit. Just sit and try not to look too pissed off for a little while. On the next trip, the bartender will recognize you and start warming up. On the third, they realize you might become a regular and they will be fairly nice to you. After that it can be a crap shoot, but if you keep going you will find yourself on friendly terms with the bartender and, subsequently, everyone else in the bar.
There is great fun to be had once you are part of a particular bars community. Once you start to get to know the people that come in, you will start to get to know everyone. And once you do that, you will find that you have more friends than you can handle whenever you go in.
I think that a lot of people think that people that go to the same bar over and over are either just alcoholics or are desperate to get laid. That isn't always the case, though. Sometimes they are looking for a sense of community with people that live relatively close to where they live. In a city like Reno that is hard to find. It's big enough that we don't bother to get to know our neighbors because they aren't really important to our lives. If you aren't religious a bar is really the only place you can go to meet people and socialize in a friendly environment. But they don't just welcome you right away. You have to earn it. Otherwise you are just a random dude that wandered in that once time.
The reason I bring this up is because there is a bar I've been to a couple of times now that I think I might want to try to make my regular tavern ("You said Tavern! I'm going to Moe's!"). I think that it could work out, but I need to follow my own rules and take it slow and get myself incorporated there. Everyone else seemed to know each other, so I figure that it is a strong community spot. And the bartender was hot enough to look at but not smoking hot, which means that I'll be nice to her but I probably won't start hitting on her after two beers. That is another important part to the whole integration scheme. You have to like the bartender, but you can't like-like the bartender, because then shit gets weird quick.
Once you find the right place, it is a matter of going there on a regular basis. It has to be at least once a week at first, and that is if you are going on the same night each week. It helps if you wear basically the same thing, as well, and order the same (or basically the same) drinks every time you go in as well. You are trying to reinforce yourself to the other people there and especially to the bartender.
That is why you have to go in on the same nights. Once you are in with the bartender you are in with the bar. This takes time, as most bartenders, in my experience, are somewhat evasive about talking to people they don't recognize. The stereotype is that all bartenders are there to chat with as many customers as possible, but that just isn't how it works. They chat with the people they know, they avoid the first timers that could very well be there because of some trauma they just suffered and want to find a place they can drink and talk about their issues. Bartenders don't really care any more than anyone else about your problems. I'm sorry, but its true. If you are truly a social person you can get in with the bartender on the first visit, but it could be a fairly tenuous In. They might be being nice to you, but they don't really know you, and they don't honestly give a fuck if you come back in. Trying to establish yourself at a new bar is like starting any new relationship. You can't just throw yourself into it, people need time to adjust to you being there.
My technique is to say very little on the first visit. Just sit and try not to look too pissed off for a little while. On the next trip, the bartender will recognize you and start warming up. On the third, they realize you might become a regular and they will be fairly nice to you. After that it can be a crap shoot, but if you keep going you will find yourself on friendly terms with the bartender and, subsequently, everyone else in the bar.
There is great fun to be had once you are part of a particular bars community. Once you start to get to know the people that come in, you will start to get to know everyone. And once you do that, you will find that you have more friends than you can handle whenever you go in.
I think that a lot of people think that people that go to the same bar over and over are either just alcoholics or are desperate to get laid. That isn't always the case, though. Sometimes they are looking for a sense of community with people that live relatively close to where they live. In a city like Reno that is hard to find. It's big enough that we don't bother to get to know our neighbors because they aren't really important to our lives. If you aren't religious a bar is really the only place you can go to meet people and socialize in a friendly environment. But they don't just welcome you right away. You have to earn it. Otherwise you are just a random dude that wandered in that once time.
The reason I bring this up is because there is a bar I've been to a couple of times now that I think I might want to try to make my regular tavern ("You said Tavern! I'm going to Moe's!"). I think that it could work out, but I need to follow my own rules and take it slow and get myself incorporated there. Everyone else seemed to know each other, so I figure that it is a strong community spot. And the bartender was hot enough to look at but not smoking hot, which means that I'll be nice to her but I probably won't start hitting on her after two beers. That is another important part to the whole integration scheme. You have to like the bartender, but you can't like-like the bartender, because then shit gets weird quick.
Magical Mystery Tour
So I suppose I had a fairly good Christmas. It is amazing to me how far removed I feel from the Christmases of my youth, though. We used to have to go to church and do all the religious baloney. And I was super excited about everything. The food, the candy, the presents. This year, though, I was looking forward more to going out drinking Saturday night with the Group more than anything else. I guess priorities change.
I have to be at work in an hour. Which is fine except that at the most I probably only have about an hour worth of work that needs to get done today. It's amazing how little is required of me at that place. I thought I was going to be super busy all the time, but I could probably show up two days a week and get about as much done as I do showing up five days a week. I remember once I took a personality/professional analysis test thingy and it said I wouldn't do well in an office environment. It was probably right, that environment seems to bring out my worst work habits. At least at a security job, despite there not being real work to be done most of the time, I am always doing something. Even if it is just patrol or sitting in dispatch, I am working my entire shift. I try to keep working there, but sooner or later I just have nothing to do. I know that I probably just seem lazy and I a constant procrastinator, but when I'm working I'm usually quite efficent. I like to get everything done as quickly as possible. Which makes me look lazy, because I'll end up sitting around doing nothing for long periods of time when I am already finished with everything.
I really should go and get ready. I probably don't really have time to blog in the mornings like this, as it always seems to take me longer to get out the door than I think it is going to. Plus my brain isn't really on in the morning, so these blogs are probably mostly filled with useless gibberish (which is different from my other blogs how?).
Some time has passed. Not in an epic sense, it's been about nine hours since that last line. I just got back from work and it turned out that the hour of work I had predicted was about five minutes worth of work. I spent the rest of the day reading articles about this or that on my computer. Probably not the best use of my time, but I couldn't think of anything better to do. People keep asking me about my job and what it is I do and I try to tell them and downplay the whole "helping people" part as I don't know I really am helping anyone just yet. I'd like to be, but it just isn't working out that way yet. I shouldn't be modest. If anything I should be overselling it. I'm not used to trying to push for myself that way, but I think I ought to start doing that. Mostly because when girls ask what I do they seem impressed until they realize that I haven't really done much with it yet. I should work on a sales pitch for it and make it sound like I am some sort of awesome dude that is dying to help humanity. I should also make sure that I have done a good job of shaving before I leave the house, as I got to work and realized that the crappy little razors I bought made me miss about half my face, and what with the mirror in my bathroom being too short for me and the fact that I'm usually half asleep, I tend to get crappy shaves more often than not. Add into there the fact that before having this job, my average amount of shaves per month since I started shaving was somewhere around three. That takes into account the times I grew it all out, but still, I honestly don't have much experience with shaving. Which is weird, as I am 25 now, but whatever. I should just grow out a beard again. I don't think any one at work would be mad about it so long as I kept it trimmed this time.
Only three more days. Not counting today. Or about three and a half otherwise:
Mor - 43
Cheb - 44
I have to be at work in an hour. Which is fine except that at the most I probably only have about an hour worth of work that needs to get done today. It's amazing how little is required of me at that place. I thought I was going to be super busy all the time, but I could probably show up two days a week and get about as much done as I do showing up five days a week. I remember once I took a personality/professional analysis test thingy and it said I wouldn't do well in an office environment. It was probably right, that environment seems to bring out my worst work habits. At least at a security job, despite there not being real work to be done most of the time, I am always doing something. Even if it is just patrol or sitting in dispatch, I am working my entire shift. I try to keep working there, but sooner or later I just have nothing to do. I know that I probably just seem lazy and I a constant procrastinator, but when I'm working I'm usually quite efficent. I like to get everything done as quickly as possible. Which makes me look lazy, because I'll end up sitting around doing nothing for long periods of time when I am already finished with everything.
I really should go and get ready. I probably don't really have time to blog in the mornings like this, as it always seems to take me longer to get out the door than I think it is going to. Plus my brain isn't really on in the morning, so these blogs are probably mostly filled with useless gibberish (which is different from my other blogs how?).
Some time has passed. Not in an epic sense, it's been about nine hours since that last line. I just got back from work and it turned out that the hour of work I had predicted was about five minutes worth of work. I spent the rest of the day reading articles about this or that on my computer. Probably not the best use of my time, but I couldn't think of anything better to do. People keep asking me about my job and what it is I do and I try to tell them and downplay the whole "helping people" part as I don't know I really am helping anyone just yet. I'd like to be, but it just isn't working out that way yet. I shouldn't be modest. If anything I should be overselling it. I'm not used to trying to push for myself that way, but I think I ought to start doing that. Mostly because when girls ask what I do they seem impressed until they realize that I haven't really done much with it yet. I should work on a sales pitch for it and make it sound like I am some sort of awesome dude that is dying to help humanity. I should also make sure that I have done a good job of shaving before I leave the house, as I got to work and realized that the crappy little razors I bought made me miss about half my face, and what with the mirror in my bathroom being too short for me and the fact that I'm usually half asleep, I tend to get crappy shaves more often than not. Add into there the fact that before having this job, my average amount of shaves per month since I started shaving was somewhere around three. That takes into account the times I grew it all out, but still, I honestly don't have much experience with shaving. Which is weird, as I am 25 now, but whatever. I should just grow out a beard again. I don't think any one at work would be mad about it so long as I kept it trimmed this time.
Only three more days. Not counting today. Or about three and a half otherwise:
Mor - 43
Cheb - 44
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Wed-Da Sci-Non Ext-Ga
(Wednesday Science Non-Fiction Extravaganza!)
This week will be an easy going entry into the world of real life science fiction. Not because I think my readers aren't ready for anything else but frankly because I haven't actually had time to dig up other articles today.
So what are you doing in 2023? Feel free to check your calendar. If you don't have anything marked down for June 2023 yet, you might want to keep it clear, as scientist plan to drop a boat onto Titan.
Sometimes I wonder how people go about getting funding for a project like this. After careful thought, I have decided that a meeting might go something like the following*:
CEO: Hi, come in, have a seat.
Man: Call me Ishmael.
CEO: Okay... So, Dr. Patton-
Ishmael: Ishmael.
CEO: Dr. Ishmael-
Ishmael: Just Ishmael.
CEO: Ishmael. I hear you have a project we might be interested in.
Ishmael: It's on the moon.
CEO: Yes, the moon, your email said something about that. You are looking for something on the moon?
Ishmael: Not on our moon, on Saturn's moon. Titan.
CEO: And there was something about a boat?
Ishmael: Not just any boat, but a boat that could explore the great lake, a boat that could change history, a boat and a crew for Ahab.
CEO: Yes, and by Ahab you of course mean Dr. Conners.
Ishmael: He prefers Ahab.
CEO: Right.
Ishmael: He needs a noble craft, but somehow almost melancholy. All noble things are touched with that.
CEO: And he wants this on Saturn's moon? Saturn the planet, right? Not, like, somewhere in Detroit or something.
Ishmael: The quest will finally be over, he can finally rest, once he's captured that Moby Dick, and sent him to a cold death over Saturn.
CEO: And he wants us to pay for this?
Ishmael: Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
CEO: Shit. Fuck it, you'll get yourself a fucking Titan boat, but you better let me eat some of that sweet, sweet white whale meat.
Ishmael: Call me Ishmael.
CEO: I know.
I'll be 39. In June 2023 I will be 39 years old. It seems like a long ass way off, but I figure, realizing that even Hunter S. Thompson had to kill himself because he had lived past fifty, I'll probably be around for that. I mock this little scientific journey, but I am super excited about it. Setting sail on an alien world. Fucking goddamn amazing.
Granted its a moon, and its in our solar system. Still.
I've realized in the last couple of days that the real point of Wed-Da Sci-Non Ext-Ga isn't to try to impress people with scientific achievement. It isn't to prove that we are in a science fiction novel, either. The real point of all this is to just step back for a moment and say "Holy Shit! We can do that?" And just sort of point and wonder for a moment. This may not capture your imagination as it has mine. But I feel its important to point out that life around 2009 is incredibly fucking amazing. And eventually I am going to convince everyone that's true.
*I may have "incorporated" a few Moby Dick quotes into this conversation. I point this out to avoid plagiarism lawsuits. I will now needlessly promote the book to avoid other potential lawsuits: Read "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville!! Buy several copies of that book! They is GOOD!
This week will be an easy going entry into the world of real life science fiction. Not because I think my readers aren't ready for anything else but frankly because I haven't actually had time to dig up other articles today.
So what are you doing in 2023? Feel free to check your calendar. If you don't have anything marked down for June 2023 yet, you might want to keep it clear, as scientist plan to drop a boat onto Titan.
Sometimes I wonder how people go about getting funding for a project like this. After careful thought, I have decided that a meeting might go something like the following*:
CEO: Hi, come in, have a seat.
Man: Call me Ishmael.
CEO: Okay... So, Dr. Patton-
Ishmael: Ishmael.
CEO: Dr. Ishmael-
Ishmael: Just Ishmael.
CEO: Ishmael. I hear you have a project we might be interested in.
Ishmael: It's on the moon.
CEO: Yes, the moon, your email said something about that. You are looking for something on the moon?
Ishmael: Not on our moon, on Saturn's moon. Titan.
CEO: And there was something about a boat?
Ishmael: Not just any boat, but a boat that could explore the great lake, a boat that could change history, a boat and a crew for Ahab.
CEO: Yes, and by Ahab you of course mean Dr. Conners.
Ishmael: He prefers Ahab.
CEO: Right.
Ishmael: He needs a noble craft, but somehow almost melancholy. All noble things are touched with that.
CEO: And he wants this on Saturn's moon? Saturn the planet, right? Not, like, somewhere in Detroit or something.
Ishmael: The quest will finally be over, he can finally rest, once he's captured that Moby Dick, and sent him to a cold death over Saturn.
CEO: And he wants us to pay for this?
Ishmael: Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
CEO: Shit. Fuck it, you'll get yourself a fucking Titan boat, but you better let me eat some of that sweet, sweet white whale meat.
Ishmael: Call me Ishmael.
CEO: I know.
I'll be 39. In June 2023 I will be 39 years old. It seems like a long ass way off, but I figure, realizing that even Hunter S. Thompson had to kill himself because he had lived past fifty, I'll probably be around for that. I mock this little scientific journey, but I am super excited about it. Setting sail on an alien world. Fucking goddamn amazing.
Granted its a moon, and its in our solar system. Still.
I've realized in the last couple of days that the real point of Wed-Da Sci-Non Ext-Ga isn't to try to impress people with scientific achievement. It isn't to prove that we are in a science fiction novel, either. The real point of all this is to just step back for a moment and say "Holy Shit! We can do that?" And just sort of point and wonder for a moment. This may not capture your imagination as it has mine. But I feel its important to point out that life around 2009 is incredibly fucking amazing. And eventually I am going to convince everyone that's true.
*I may have "incorporated" a few Moby Dick quotes into this conversation. I point this out to avoid plagiarism lawsuits. I will now needlessly promote the book to avoid other potential lawsuits: Read "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville!! Buy several copies of that book! They is GOOD!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Chebedia Springfield
I just came up with a new theory on cats. More specifically internet cats and cat memes. Cats have exploded on the internet*. Cats are more often associated with femininity. Cat memes are all about cats making fools of themselves. Therefore, the popularity of cat memes is directly related to how much men want to see women make fools of themselves. This is, once again, a theory I just came up with. I haven't exactly tested this.
I was getting ready for Sci-Non Wed-Da (Science Non-fiction Wednesdays)and came across an article about Super-Earths. I don't think they deserve a place in Sci-Non Wed-Das, as they are mostly theoretical. Still, the idea that the first life we are likely to be able to find will be on a planet the size of Jupiter that can actually have a livable atmosphere causes me a sci-fi erection lasting longer than four hours. That is a poor metaphor, but I think you see my point. Imagine a world filled with people so giant that they measure their planet, relative to their own size, to be the size of earth. Or a planet that large that houses such small intelligent life forms that they can't even conceive of a size larger than the size of their planet. Or anything in between! It's madness, I tell you. Madness.
Cheb surprised me with a 2am double-posting session last night. I've been nipping at his heals since my triple posting session on Friday and now he has put a little distance in there. At least now I know that Cheb is playing for keepsies.
What if Superman had been from a Super-Krypton? What the shit would happen there? Would be be somehow even more invincible?
I am currently in a horribly bad mood and a fairly good mood. I want to beat the shit out of someone then enjoy a burger and watch a football game with them. My mood has been going up and down all day. Like a minor, hopefully temporary, version of bi-polar, but without all that manic-ness. I think. Although it is difficult to diagnose manic behavior in oneself. I guess I am trying to figure out if I should be happy about the way things are going in my life or just pissed off. Logic and irrationality are caught in a mortal battle in my brain at the moment. I just hope I don't ram someone off the side of the road because they are driving two miles per hour too slow before they declare a champion.
Honestly I feel like there is just a lot of anger boiling up. And I'm not sure about what, but it is there. I can't seem to get a grip on it. Generally this feeling goes away, when I do happen to have it, after a day or so, but it still is bugging me. Maybe its just that I don't have a proper enemy right now. I need someone I can really just hate. A politician at least. Some focal point for my anger. I hate to admit it, but I sort of miss Bush. At least with him I had an authority figure I could hate no matter what was going on. I don't know if I have ever mentioned this here, but on 9-11, the first chance I got to get online, I went looking for sites that were mocking Bush as they had been before that day. Most of them had gone offline already by the time I typed in the addresses. I was sort of pissed. If it wasn't cool to mock the President right after a national tragedy, then, in my mind, it was never cool to mock him. Same rules still apply. If it was cool to mock Brittany Murphy last week, it should be okay to mock her now. I honestly have no idea who Brittany Murphy is, and so I don't really care one way or another if SNL pulled the skit, but if it was funny last week then a death shouldn't change what was funny then. Maybe make it more sad, but not just quietly deleted. Still, getting back to Bush, he was the President, and then 9/11, and all of a sudden he was a saint because no one would say bad shit about him. Then Iraq, then Iran-Contra, then Afghanistan (those events may or may not apply to him or be in any sort of chronological order). The point is that if someone is an enemy they need to stay your enemy, no matter what. Unless you win. Then they are still your enemy but a defeated enemy, which makes them more dangerous. I need to feel that again. You can say what you want about my politics, but I hated Bush while he was running in '99 and I hated him when he was waving goodbye from the helicopter in '08. The world just doesn't build enough of those types of people. Constant Bastards with Power.
I really do feel that a man is judged by his enemies. It is way to easy to make friends with people. To actually stand up, to fight against, to prohibit others, that is the true mark of a man. I have no enemies. At least none of any value. By my own standard I am failing. I need to fix that. Perhaps that is the cause of my un-focused anger.
*SEE: The Entire Fucking Internet
I was getting ready for Sci-Non Wed-Da (Science Non-fiction Wednesdays)and came across an article about Super-Earths. I don't think they deserve a place in Sci-Non Wed-Das, as they are mostly theoretical. Still, the idea that the first life we are likely to be able to find will be on a planet the size of Jupiter that can actually have a livable atmosphere causes me a sci-fi erection lasting longer than four hours. That is a poor metaphor, but I think you see my point. Imagine a world filled with people so giant that they measure their planet, relative to their own size, to be the size of earth. Or a planet that large that houses such small intelligent life forms that they can't even conceive of a size larger than the size of their planet. Or anything in between! It's madness, I tell you. Madness.
Cheb surprised me with a 2am double-posting session last night. I've been nipping at his heals since my triple posting session on Friday and now he has put a little distance in there. At least now I know that Cheb is playing for keepsies.
What if Superman had been from a Super-Krypton? What the shit would happen there? Would be be somehow even more invincible?
I am currently in a horribly bad mood and a fairly good mood. I want to beat the shit out of someone then enjoy a burger and watch a football game with them. My mood has been going up and down all day. Like a minor, hopefully temporary, version of bi-polar, but without all that manic-ness. I think. Although it is difficult to diagnose manic behavior in oneself. I guess I am trying to figure out if I should be happy about the way things are going in my life or just pissed off. Logic and irrationality are caught in a mortal battle in my brain at the moment. I just hope I don't ram someone off the side of the road because they are driving two miles per hour too slow before they declare a champion.
Honestly I feel like there is just a lot of anger boiling up. And I'm not sure about what, but it is there. I can't seem to get a grip on it. Generally this feeling goes away, when I do happen to have it, after a day or so, but it still is bugging me. Maybe its just that I don't have a proper enemy right now. I need someone I can really just hate. A politician at least. Some focal point for my anger. I hate to admit it, but I sort of miss Bush. At least with him I had an authority figure I could hate no matter what was going on. I don't know if I have ever mentioned this here, but on 9-11, the first chance I got to get online, I went looking for sites that were mocking Bush as they had been before that day. Most of them had gone offline already by the time I typed in the addresses. I was sort of pissed. If it wasn't cool to mock the President right after a national tragedy, then, in my mind, it was never cool to mock him. Same rules still apply. If it was cool to mock Brittany Murphy last week, it should be okay to mock her now. I honestly have no idea who Brittany Murphy is, and so I don't really care one way or another if SNL pulled the skit, but if it was funny last week then a death shouldn't change what was funny then. Maybe make it more sad, but not just quietly deleted. Still, getting back to Bush, he was the President, and then 9/11, and all of a sudden he was a saint because no one would say bad shit about him. Then Iraq, then Iran-Contra, then Afghanistan (those events may or may not apply to him or be in any sort of chronological order). The point is that if someone is an enemy they need to stay your enemy, no matter what. Unless you win. Then they are still your enemy but a defeated enemy, which makes them more dangerous. I need to feel that again. You can say what you want about my politics, but I hated Bush while he was running in '99 and I hated him when he was waving goodbye from the helicopter in '08. The world just doesn't build enough of those types of people. Constant Bastards with Power.
I really do feel that a man is judged by his enemies. It is way to easy to make friends with people. To actually stand up, to fight against, to prohibit others, that is the true mark of a man. I have no enemies. At least none of any value. By my own standard I am failing. I need to fix that. Perhaps that is the cause of my un-focused anger.
*SEE: The Entire Fucking Internet
Monday, December 21, 2009
Annoyinginging
I overslept yesterday. By about seven hours. Over by seven hours. Fifteen hours total. I didn't mean for that to happen. One minute I was reading a comic and the next I was asleep. I even had one of those annoying little sleep paralysis things happen while I was asleep. I think those happen to me more often when I have fallen asleep for a nap and its gone on far too long. And all day today I've felt like I've been drugged. Like someone slipped me a few uppers and a few downers and was seeing if I could still drive a car. Apparently I can, as I made it home alright.
A little bit ago I got an idea for hanging out with people this weekend as I think a fair amount of people will be in Fallon for the holiday. I realized after I sent it that a couple of guys families have moved away from Fallon since high school and therefore probably won't be around. Whoopsie. Oh well, at least they know that I haven't completely forgotten about them. Just that I've forgotten they've no reason to come to Fallon for christmas.
Christmas is expensive. What with all the traveling and the gifts and everything. I tried to go shopping at the mall, but everything was so damned expensive and there were so many people there and half the shelves had been stripped clean in apparent frenzies. I gave up after a few stores and just went home and ordered the rest of the crap online. Amazon offered free two day shipping with a trial of some new "Amazon Prime" thing they are running, and the discounts you get on stuff through them makes even having to pay for shipping way more economical than going to the mall. And there is the bonus of not having to go to the mall. I realize that this sounds like an ad for Amazon, and in a way it is. Lets call it an endorsement instead. I don't recommend buying a bunch of crap, but if you have to, just get it on the fucking internet and save yourself a headache or two.
My body is still sore from sleeping so much yesterday, but I am also very tired. I wish I could sleep from a sleeping bag mounted on the wall sometimes, the way astronauts do. Not that I would very often, but sometimes lying down is slightly more painful than keeping yourself vertical. Unless you fall out of the bag or something.
This AmeriCorps job is starting to turn out to be fairly good. I was having a few doubts about it, but between all the conferences and meetings and educational opportunities, it won't be nearly as slow as it was looking like it was going to be. I sort of wish that I had more of an interest in Geriatric studies as I am probably going to get to see a fairly wide array of doctors and social workers giving lectures on the topic during the course of the job. And it's all considered part of the job, which is nice. By the time I left UNR I was so sick of classes and books and lectures that I didn't want to deal with anything like that for a while. Now I am super excited about getting to go back to my old Alma Mater for a day or two and get to learn some new shit.
Probably the best part of all that, though, is that it gives me stuff to look forward to. Most jobs you go in, go to lunch, go home, repeat. Always the same thing over and over. At least here there is enough variety to make the days stuck in the office figuring out how to make a decent looking newsletter less boring. Although I say this after a week. After a month, after six, who knows? Maybe going to conferences and lectures will get old after a while, too.
I'm beginning to realize that this entry is fairly dull. Sorry. It sort of happens when I run out of steam. I've sort of acclimatized to the new schedule, but not entirely. And I can't help but try and fight off actually wanting to go to sleep at 10pm. Something about that seems so wrong to me. Yet it is 9:30 now and if it were not for my giant sized fountain drink I probably would have passed out on the keyboard by now.
I think that I am going to designate Wednesdays on this blog to being "Sci-Fi Wednesdays" or something to that effect but with a cooler name. I can't seem to go a day without finding more proof that we are living in a sci-fi novel/bad screenplay. Like this Geologist in Switzerland that was just acquitted for causing earthquakes while drilling for renewable energy. Yes, its the beginning to the fucking plot the 2003's The Core.
Only Hillary Swank wasn't involved. That we know of.
A little bit ago I got an idea for hanging out with people this weekend as I think a fair amount of people will be in Fallon for the holiday. I realized after I sent it that a couple of guys families have moved away from Fallon since high school and therefore probably won't be around. Whoopsie. Oh well, at least they know that I haven't completely forgotten about them. Just that I've forgotten they've no reason to come to Fallon for christmas.
Christmas is expensive. What with all the traveling and the gifts and everything. I tried to go shopping at the mall, but everything was so damned expensive and there were so many people there and half the shelves had been stripped clean in apparent frenzies. I gave up after a few stores and just went home and ordered the rest of the crap online. Amazon offered free two day shipping with a trial of some new "Amazon Prime" thing they are running, and the discounts you get on stuff through them makes even having to pay for shipping way more economical than going to the mall. And there is the bonus of not having to go to the mall. I realize that this sounds like an ad for Amazon, and in a way it is. Lets call it an endorsement instead. I don't recommend buying a bunch of crap, but if you have to, just get it on the fucking internet and save yourself a headache or two.
My body is still sore from sleeping so much yesterday, but I am also very tired. I wish I could sleep from a sleeping bag mounted on the wall sometimes, the way astronauts do. Not that I would very often, but sometimes lying down is slightly more painful than keeping yourself vertical. Unless you fall out of the bag or something.
This AmeriCorps job is starting to turn out to be fairly good. I was having a few doubts about it, but between all the conferences and meetings and educational opportunities, it won't be nearly as slow as it was looking like it was going to be. I sort of wish that I had more of an interest in Geriatric studies as I am probably going to get to see a fairly wide array of doctors and social workers giving lectures on the topic during the course of the job. And it's all considered part of the job, which is nice. By the time I left UNR I was so sick of classes and books and lectures that I didn't want to deal with anything like that for a while. Now I am super excited about getting to go back to my old Alma Mater for a day or two and get to learn some new shit.
Probably the best part of all that, though, is that it gives me stuff to look forward to. Most jobs you go in, go to lunch, go home, repeat. Always the same thing over and over. At least here there is enough variety to make the days stuck in the office figuring out how to make a decent looking newsletter less boring. Although I say this after a week. After a month, after six, who knows? Maybe going to conferences and lectures will get old after a while, too.
I'm beginning to realize that this entry is fairly dull. Sorry. It sort of happens when I run out of steam. I've sort of acclimatized to the new schedule, but not entirely. And I can't help but try and fight off actually wanting to go to sleep at 10pm. Something about that seems so wrong to me. Yet it is 9:30 now and if it were not for my giant sized fountain drink I probably would have passed out on the keyboard by now.
I think that I am going to designate Wednesdays on this blog to being "Sci-Fi Wednesdays" or something to that effect but with a cooler name. I can't seem to go a day without finding more proof that we are living in a sci-fi novel/bad screenplay. Like this Geologist in Switzerland that was just acquitted for causing earthquakes while drilling for renewable energy. Yes, its the beginning to the fucking plot the 2003's The Core.
Only Hillary Swank wasn't involved. That we know of.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Put a Little Mustard on That Mustard
After my triathlon of posting on Friday I completely missed posting anything yesterday. And now that I am finally getting back here I can't think of anything to say.
Paul and I were talking about comics last night and we decided that they need to create some new comic titles for some of the bigger heroes. The new titles would take place in alternate dimensions that started out very similar to the ones the heroes are in now, but they would have more continuity and bigger world changing events. I still like to read Spider-man comics, but they get boring knowing that everything is going to be ultimately the same as it was when Spidey first came out. And when they do change things up, they find a way to reset everything before too long. I get that people want to read comics because they know what to expect from the characters and they can pick them up after a few years of not reading it and know that things are going to be about the same. But that is so restrictive for writers. It makes them have to write all the cool stories in less than five or six books and then make sure the hero wins and everything goes back the way it was. We want to see some comics were major chance happens from time to time. We want to see the heroes actually change and grow as their story is going on. So, alternate universe. Paul and I would be happy to write for them, by the way, in case someone who can make that happen is reading. We would totally kick ass with that job, too, mysterious comic book company executive that for some completely unknowable reason reads this blog.
My keyboard is getting harder and harder to type on. I have to hit the keys as hard as you have to type on a typewriter. Maybe thats good because it will make me slow down a little and think more about what I am saying. But if I really think about what I am saying, then I would never have anything to type onto this blog. I probably wouldn't say half the shit I say here if I was really thinking about it.
I remember when I first got online and I would sometimes spend hours downloading a single song from Napster. The other night, on a whim, I downloaded a complete discography of Electric Six. It took less than an hour to download. And I spent that hour streaming episodes of Dexter from the internet. I know everyone is well aware of how much more awesome broadband is than dial up, but I still think it is something to point out every once in a while. Technology changes fast, yo.
Last night I was reading an article about how we need to work on neuro-security protocols to protect peoples microchip implants that they are putting in their heads so they can control their prosthetic arms/legs. Yes, a serious issue that is coming up in our society is being afraid that hackers will hack into your brain and shut down your limbs. If you didn't think that we were living in a sci-fi novel before, I think this proves my point fairly well.
And if I still haven't convinced you, here are 5 Reasons to Fear Robots from a reputable site. The quick slideshow ends with this low budget movie on how we are all turning into cyborgs.
Paul and I were talking about comics last night and we decided that they need to create some new comic titles for some of the bigger heroes. The new titles would take place in alternate dimensions that started out very similar to the ones the heroes are in now, but they would have more continuity and bigger world changing events. I still like to read Spider-man comics, but they get boring knowing that everything is going to be ultimately the same as it was when Spidey first came out. And when they do change things up, they find a way to reset everything before too long. I get that people want to read comics because they know what to expect from the characters and they can pick them up after a few years of not reading it and know that things are going to be about the same. But that is so restrictive for writers. It makes them have to write all the cool stories in less than five or six books and then make sure the hero wins and everything goes back the way it was. We want to see some comics were major chance happens from time to time. We want to see the heroes actually change and grow as their story is going on. So, alternate universe. Paul and I would be happy to write for them, by the way, in case someone who can make that happen is reading. We would totally kick ass with that job, too, mysterious comic book company executive that for some completely unknowable reason reads this blog.
My keyboard is getting harder and harder to type on. I have to hit the keys as hard as you have to type on a typewriter. Maybe thats good because it will make me slow down a little and think more about what I am saying. But if I really think about what I am saying, then I would never have anything to type onto this blog. I probably wouldn't say half the shit I say here if I was really thinking about it.
I remember when I first got online and I would sometimes spend hours downloading a single song from Napster. The other night, on a whim, I downloaded a complete discography of Electric Six. It took less than an hour to download. And I spent that hour streaming episodes of Dexter from the internet. I know everyone is well aware of how much more awesome broadband is than dial up, but I still think it is something to point out every once in a while. Technology changes fast, yo.
Last night I was reading an article about how we need to work on neuro-security protocols to protect peoples microchip implants that they are putting in their heads so they can control their prosthetic arms/legs. Yes, a serious issue that is coming up in our society is being afraid that hackers will hack into your brain and shut down your limbs. If you didn't think that we were living in a sci-fi novel before, I think this proves my point fairly well.
And if I still haven't convinced you, here are 5 Reasons to Fear Robots from a reputable site. The quick slideshow ends with this low budget movie on how we are all turning into cyborgs.
Friday, December 18, 2009
You are Damn right your Dad Drank it.
There, are you happy blog? I just erased an entire post because it was mindless gibberish. That's right, you win. Good for you, you surely have brought me to me knees. Except for that I have millions of words of mindless gibberish and the internet is a big place my friend.
You haven't been all that cool to me lately. Making me come on here and check my stats against Cheb and making me all like "I need to post something right now even though I have no idea what the hell to talk about." You fucker, I should kick your ass. And I would, if you were not just a computer program. Unless I'm in a computer program, like the Matrix, and I could totally just reprogram you into some sort of Agent and then kick the crap out of you with my mighty Kung Fu.
I wonder, and maybe you know this blog, if the Agents could have materialized out of forms that weren't human. I mean, they can take over any human, but why not a cat? I mean, think about seeing a cat turn into a human with sunglasses, a cheap black suit, and a scowl. That would be totally freaky. And awesome. If that were the case, though, the movies would have been way too impossible for the heros. They would have been all like "I'll just walk into this room to go to the exit and HOLY SHIT there is a motherfucking CAT in here! Run, motherfuckers, run!" Only all the emotion that was contained in that sentence would have been more deadpan and blank faced.
Honestly, blog, I don't know how you deal with all those fucking crazy ass agents running around.
I'm not really mad at you blog, you have been the forum for many of my rants and ramblings. I think I even had a post once called Rants and Ramblings or something like that. I don't know. I can barely remember what I posted up here a couple hours ago. But you can remember, can't you blog? You are like a backup for my memory. I just put shit here and you keep track of it and organize it by month. You are quite a nice friend to have. I wish I could have you follow me around. I could just tell you stuff and you would remember all of it and relate it back to me later if I felt I needed the information. What'd be great is if someone upped your intelligence, blog, they could make it like that little annoying ass paper clip "I see that you are blogging about robotic monkeys and ice cream again, when last you spoke on the topic you came to the conclusion that Chocolate ice cream would one day rise up and fight the monkeys. Is this of any help to your blogging now? []Yes [X]No."
Although I suppose if you came to life and followed me around it could be slightly annoying. I'll make what I think is an original and hilariously witty comment and you would say, like the annoying brat that follows me around everywhere, "I heard you say that before, back in March of '09. No one laughed then either." That is when I would tell you to shut your cake hole, you damn stupid bastard. And you would tell me, "Last time you told me to shut my cake hole I told you that last time you told me to shut my cake hole I asked if you were baking a cake. Is this of any help to your conversation now? []Yes []No [X]God how I hate you."
Actually the more I think about it, having little action boxes come up in real life would be handy. Like if someone you didn't want to talk to came up to you, you could just hit the ignore button. Or if the conversation was quite interesting it would say "Would you like to know more?" On the other hand, having to deal with pop ups in real life wouldn't be pleasant. We'd have to hire body guards to punch people who tried to throw pop ups at us. And although I can't think of a specific example, I am fairly confident I saw that in a commercial once.
Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, Paul hasn't called yet. I was mostly blogging to kill time before Paul called and then I was going to leave and do some drinking or something to that effect. I shouldn't be surprised, as Paul is always late for everything. He has, this time, cost Cheb another point, though. As if he had called I would have stopped blogging and left. Now I am going to post it and there isn't a goddamn thing anyone can do about it.
"It looks like you are complaining about Paul being late for something. You have complained about Paul being late for something 387 times in the last fourteen blog postings. Was this information helpful to you? [X]Yes []No."
You haven't been all that cool to me lately. Making me come on here and check my stats against Cheb and making me all like "I need to post something right now even though I have no idea what the hell to talk about." You fucker, I should kick your ass. And I would, if you were not just a computer program. Unless I'm in a computer program, like the Matrix, and I could totally just reprogram you into some sort of Agent and then kick the crap out of you with my mighty Kung Fu.
I wonder, and maybe you know this blog, if the Agents could have materialized out of forms that weren't human. I mean, they can take over any human, but why not a cat? I mean, think about seeing a cat turn into a human with sunglasses, a cheap black suit, and a scowl. That would be totally freaky. And awesome. If that were the case, though, the movies would have been way too impossible for the heros. They would have been all like "I'll just walk into this room to go to the exit and HOLY SHIT there is a motherfucking CAT in here! Run, motherfuckers, run!" Only all the emotion that was contained in that sentence would have been more deadpan and blank faced.
Honestly, blog, I don't know how you deal with all those fucking crazy ass agents running around.
I'm not really mad at you blog, you have been the forum for many of my rants and ramblings. I think I even had a post once called Rants and Ramblings or something like that. I don't know. I can barely remember what I posted up here a couple hours ago. But you can remember, can't you blog? You are like a backup for my memory. I just put shit here and you keep track of it and organize it by month. You are quite a nice friend to have. I wish I could have you follow me around. I could just tell you stuff and you would remember all of it and relate it back to me later if I felt I needed the information. What'd be great is if someone upped your intelligence, blog, they could make it like that little annoying ass paper clip "I see that you are blogging about robotic monkeys and ice cream again, when last you spoke on the topic you came to the conclusion that Chocolate ice cream would one day rise up and fight the monkeys. Is this of any help to your blogging now? []Yes [X]No."
Although I suppose if you came to life and followed me around it could be slightly annoying. I'll make what I think is an original and hilariously witty comment and you would say, like the annoying brat that follows me around everywhere, "I heard you say that before, back in March of '09. No one laughed then either." That is when I would tell you to shut your cake hole, you damn stupid bastard. And you would tell me, "Last time you told me to shut my cake hole I told you that last time you told me to shut my cake hole I asked if you were baking a cake. Is this of any help to your conversation now? []Yes []No [X]God how I hate you."
Actually the more I think about it, having little action boxes come up in real life would be handy. Like if someone you didn't want to talk to came up to you, you could just hit the ignore button. Or if the conversation was quite interesting it would say "Would you like to know more?" On the other hand, having to deal with pop ups in real life wouldn't be pleasant. We'd have to hire body guards to punch people who tried to throw pop ups at us. And although I can't think of a specific example, I am fairly confident I saw that in a commercial once.
Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, Paul hasn't called yet. I was mostly blogging to kill time before Paul called and then I was going to leave and do some drinking or something to that effect. I shouldn't be surprised, as Paul is always late for everything. He has, this time, cost Cheb another point, though. As if he had called I would have stopped blogging and left. Now I am going to post it and there isn't a goddamn thing anyone can do about it.
"It looks like you are complaining about Paul being late for something. You have complained about Paul being late for something 387 times in the last fourteen blog postings. Was this information helpful to you? [X]Yes []No."
You've been sick, but now you are well, and there's work to be done.
Earlier today I was remembering something my dad said to me when I wanted to quit a job to go off and do something else but was afraid my employer wouldn't be able to get on without me if I quit. He told me, "don't ever let anyone make you think you are irreplaceable."
That wasn't an exact quote, and it wasn't meant to be rude, and was, in fact, quite encouraging in its way. What he meant to say was that I should pursue my own dreams and not to worry about what might happen to the people I left behind when I went. They will always find a way to get through life without me there.
Sometimes I really wonder about what I am doing with my life. I've sort of lived with that philosophy my father dropped on me so casually. I tend to just go my own way and not to worry so much how people are getting by without me. The problem with walking your own path is that there aren't always a lot of other people around that are going the same way. It's like a highway at night. There are a lot of cars on the road still, but the closest one is just a speck of red tail light way off in the distance. And for all you know they are driving the wrong way.
The last few years have left me feeling rather lost. Perhaps I am realizing just how replaceable I am. I plow through life without a care as to what I am really doing. Then I just sort of end up doing something else for a while. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it. My theory on how to live life has often been along the lines of "do whatever you are doing until there is something else to do."
My favorite thing to do is to quit something that I don't like doing anymore. It makes me feel powerful, in control. Then there is the inevitable crash, as there is with all addictions. This is my problem, though, everyone seems to be telling me that life is all about doing shit that you don't really want to do. If that is the game of life then I am not sure I am ready to play.
I am trying to adjust. Trying to play like everyone else. I guess I've sort of been cheating most of my way through. But something that makes me endlessly happy is to sit down and write something with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. And you may wonder how I write like that. The secret is to set one of them down for a few minutes at a time. Right now I am drinking a bottle of diet coke, but it could just as easily be a coffee or a whiskey. I don't think it really matters, so long as I still feel like doing it.
For a long time at night I would imagine myself falling. Falling from an unknowable height to a ground that never got any closer. I would just fall, and it would relax me and let me fall asleep. These days when I want to go to sleep I plot out ridiculous zombie movies in my head. To be fair, though, I've pretty much always fallen asleep to the thought of a ridiculous story. Even when I imagine myself falling I am wondering how I managed to fall out of an aircraft so far off the ground that I will never land. Wonder how it is that all the laws of nature and gravity and physics have broken down to a point where I won't, eventually, hit the ground. But I keep falling. Perhaps that is all I'm really good at. Despite what is going on in my head I feel like I am always falling. Always starting from a point so high up that I'm not sure how I got there and falling but never hitting the ground. I'm sure that if a psychologist read this paragraph they would walk away with a certain idea about what all that falling must mean. But I like the falling. It's the landing the sucks.
My brain is all out of whack today. I'm having all these weird connections being made that I don't mean to make. It's like the neurons are firing an artillery barrage at my memories and the few that make it past the front line are standing around wondering what happened to the rest of their unit.
Sometimes I think that I dream about being a writer not because I want to write amazing pieces of literature but because I like to sit in front of a computer typing while I smoke and think. I like the way that I dress when I am at home doing nothing but writing, I like the idea of only occasionally having to deal with people in suits. I think, in a way, that dream sort of sickens me. Is that all I want to do with my life? Essentially what I am doing now, only getting paid occasionally for it? While other people drag their asses out of bed before dawn and get ready and go to work for a big company, where, if they are very lucky, they will get to be boss of someday and tell other people who have to get up before dawn what to do all day? While other people toil away running a small business with the hopes that one day it will be a big business and instead of getting to be in the store all day working with the customers they've come to think of as an extended family over the years they get to sit in an office going over quarterly reports? And while others are fighting fires, catching robbers, and saving lives? They all put so much into society and here I am jealously wanting to sit around and type up a few words and try to get paid for it. Perhaps if that was just what I was doing I wouldn't think much of it, it's just the way it is, afterall, but to actually aspire to that? But I can't hack it anywhere else. I suppose that is just the way it is. Life is all about some people doing the heavy lifting, some people sitting around being rich, and other people doing shit that doesn't make sense to anyone but themselves and expecting other people to want to see what they are creating. Maybe it isn't fair. But why should I spend years of my life trying to work my way up to something I don't think I'm cut out to be?
Right now this probably just sounds like general complaining. That I am lamenting my lot in life. I'm not, I'm lamenting the way my brain works. When I have time to sit around writing all day I don't bother to do anything with it. When I start to run out of time all of a sudden it becomes more and more important till my head wants to explode. I blame this on the fact that when you have nothing to get up for in the morning you sort of lose faith in everything. I've spent a singular week at this new job and I am already starting to rethink everything. It was only a couple days ago when I couldn't tell which path I would eventually want to go down. The thing is that I know which path I'm more comfortable with.
People always say, in addition to life being about doing a bunch of shit that you don't want to do, that you create your best work when you are hungry. When it just doesn't seem to matter anymore that creative spark seems to go away. My mistake often times has been thinking that that meant that you had to be desperate because you had no money otherwise. That you had nothing else to do and no other options. What I am beginning to see is that the times you are most hungry aren't when you are pinching pennies necessarily, but when you feel stuck in something. When you are doing something that you just weren't cut out to do. Eventually the only way out is to follow the only path that you really care about following. To follow those tail lights in the distance and pray to christ that they know where the hell they are going, and to always, always remember how replaceable you are.
That wasn't an exact quote, and it wasn't meant to be rude, and was, in fact, quite encouraging in its way. What he meant to say was that I should pursue my own dreams and not to worry about what might happen to the people I left behind when I went. They will always find a way to get through life without me there.
Sometimes I really wonder about what I am doing with my life. I've sort of lived with that philosophy my father dropped on me so casually. I tend to just go my own way and not to worry so much how people are getting by without me. The problem with walking your own path is that there aren't always a lot of other people around that are going the same way. It's like a highway at night. There are a lot of cars on the road still, but the closest one is just a speck of red tail light way off in the distance. And for all you know they are driving the wrong way.
The last few years have left me feeling rather lost. Perhaps I am realizing just how replaceable I am. I plow through life without a care as to what I am really doing. Then I just sort of end up doing something else for a while. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it. My theory on how to live life has often been along the lines of "do whatever you are doing until there is something else to do."
My favorite thing to do is to quit something that I don't like doing anymore. It makes me feel powerful, in control. Then there is the inevitable crash, as there is with all addictions. This is my problem, though, everyone seems to be telling me that life is all about doing shit that you don't really want to do. If that is the game of life then I am not sure I am ready to play.
I am trying to adjust. Trying to play like everyone else. I guess I've sort of been cheating most of my way through. But something that makes me endlessly happy is to sit down and write something with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. And you may wonder how I write like that. The secret is to set one of them down for a few minutes at a time. Right now I am drinking a bottle of diet coke, but it could just as easily be a coffee or a whiskey. I don't think it really matters, so long as I still feel like doing it.
For a long time at night I would imagine myself falling. Falling from an unknowable height to a ground that never got any closer. I would just fall, and it would relax me and let me fall asleep. These days when I want to go to sleep I plot out ridiculous zombie movies in my head. To be fair, though, I've pretty much always fallen asleep to the thought of a ridiculous story. Even when I imagine myself falling I am wondering how I managed to fall out of an aircraft so far off the ground that I will never land. Wonder how it is that all the laws of nature and gravity and physics have broken down to a point where I won't, eventually, hit the ground. But I keep falling. Perhaps that is all I'm really good at. Despite what is going on in my head I feel like I am always falling. Always starting from a point so high up that I'm not sure how I got there and falling but never hitting the ground. I'm sure that if a psychologist read this paragraph they would walk away with a certain idea about what all that falling must mean. But I like the falling. It's the landing the sucks.
My brain is all out of whack today. I'm having all these weird connections being made that I don't mean to make. It's like the neurons are firing an artillery barrage at my memories and the few that make it past the front line are standing around wondering what happened to the rest of their unit.
Sometimes I think that I dream about being a writer not because I want to write amazing pieces of literature but because I like to sit in front of a computer typing while I smoke and think. I like the way that I dress when I am at home doing nothing but writing, I like the idea of only occasionally having to deal with people in suits. I think, in a way, that dream sort of sickens me. Is that all I want to do with my life? Essentially what I am doing now, only getting paid occasionally for it? While other people drag their asses out of bed before dawn and get ready and go to work for a big company, where, if they are very lucky, they will get to be boss of someday and tell other people who have to get up before dawn what to do all day? While other people toil away running a small business with the hopes that one day it will be a big business and instead of getting to be in the store all day working with the customers they've come to think of as an extended family over the years they get to sit in an office going over quarterly reports? And while others are fighting fires, catching robbers, and saving lives? They all put so much into society and here I am jealously wanting to sit around and type up a few words and try to get paid for it. Perhaps if that was just what I was doing I wouldn't think much of it, it's just the way it is, afterall, but to actually aspire to that? But I can't hack it anywhere else. I suppose that is just the way it is. Life is all about some people doing the heavy lifting, some people sitting around being rich, and other people doing shit that doesn't make sense to anyone but themselves and expecting other people to want to see what they are creating. Maybe it isn't fair. But why should I spend years of my life trying to work my way up to something I don't think I'm cut out to be?
Right now this probably just sounds like general complaining. That I am lamenting my lot in life. I'm not, I'm lamenting the way my brain works. When I have time to sit around writing all day I don't bother to do anything with it. When I start to run out of time all of a sudden it becomes more and more important till my head wants to explode. I blame this on the fact that when you have nothing to get up for in the morning you sort of lose faith in everything. I've spent a singular week at this new job and I am already starting to rethink everything. It was only a couple days ago when I couldn't tell which path I would eventually want to go down. The thing is that I know which path I'm more comfortable with.
People always say, in addition to life being about doing a bunch of shit that you don't want to do, that you create your best work when you are hungry. When it just doesn't seem to matter anymore that creative spark seems to go away. My mistake often times has been thinking that that meant that you had to be desperate because you had no money otherwise. That you had nothing else to do and no other options. What I am beginning to see is that the times you are most hungry aren't when you are pinching pennies necessarily, but when you feel stuck in something. When you are doing something that you just weren't cut out to do. Eventually the only way out is to follow the only path that you really care about following. To follow those tail lights in the distance and pray to christ that they know where the hell they are going, and to always, always remember how replaceable you are.
Join Death in a Final Dance
I'm falling behind in my blogging here. Mostly because by the time I get home from work I am sick of being on the computer and the last couple of days I haven't got up early enough to do it in the morning. But I fell asleep watching Law and Order around 8:30 last night, so I am wide awake now.
This weekend is going to screw up my sleep schedule, I am quite sure of that. Next week is going to be me trying to get to bed at a reasonable hour all over again.
I was working on a project at work and reading about volunteer retention with AmeriCorps Vista members. These social scientists tried to figure out what sort of factors actually kept the members at their posts for the time the pledged to do. Apparently I have a good 50/50 chance, according to the study, of not leaving before the end of my term. The thing with AmeriCorps is that you don't really sign a contract or anything saying you are going to stay with it. Part of their hypothesis was that people with higher self-esteem (the study was from the nineties by the way) would stay with the job longer because they felt it was more rewarding. They found out, though, that self-esteem actually worked in the other direction for it. The lower yours was the better chance you had to stay with AmeriCorps. That is sort of tricky, because I was driving home from work tonight and thinking about how I could already probably do the jobs of about half the other people there, and I've already started just doing whatever the hell I feel like doing there most of the time. I have fairly high self-esteem when it comes to working. I always feel that I can do whatever other people around me are doing better than they are doing it. However, my social self-esteem is usually fairly low. I don't feel super confident in my ability to go out and pick up chicks, for example.
Whatever, though. I'm going to muddle through. So far my biggest problem is that there are a fair amount of older volunteers that have claimed to have good computer skills that actually don't. I wish that people would make it more clear to people that if all you know how to do on the computer is check email and get on the internet for a few minutes at a time you are not computer literate. I get so damned impatiant with people who can't just sit down and figure out how to work the computer themselves once they say they know what they are doing. When I was a kid I went down to Mexico with my Grandpa and we built a chicken coop for this orphanage for a few days. I would not, however, say that I have excellent construction skills based on that. I think I could help to put up a house, but I wouldn't just show up at a construction site and try to do it all myself then get frustrated when I had no idea how to reinforce the header or use a table saw.
I have a feeling that I am going to have to try to bend that place to my will. The first thing I did when I got home was through on my cut off shorts and a tattered t-shirt and my coat that is falling apart. Then I went out in the freezing cold to go to the store. I realized that I looked like a total bum, and it felt good. I don't dress like a vagrant because I'm too lazy to go about trying to shop for halfway decent clothes, I dress like that because I like to. I apparently locked myself into the grunge look when I was a kid and have never really bothered to update. And why should I? Grunge isn't like most other styles. It's philosophy is all about not trying to look any particular way. It's about saving money on needless excesses of clothes. And, for those same reasons, it is actually the greenest way to dress. Imagine how much less Carbon would be realeased everyone dressed like that. There would be substantially less need to ship clothes and materials from third-world contries back to us.
The hipster look is sort of green, I suppose, as they often appear to have just walked into a thrift store and rolled around in the aisles until enough clothes fell on them. Granted, they look like the "special" kid in your classes growing up that had a color blind mother and a father that worked the late shift so he never saw what they wore to school. To be fair, though, I suppose many parents would prefer a horribly color coordinated outfit to one that was tattered to the point of nearly attaining rag-hood.
Cheb called me disreputable. I pretended to be offended for a moment when I first read that, but he's got a point.
It is closing in on the Winter Solstice, and if my knowledge of seasons is correct this means that the days will start to get a little bit longer past that point. And the snow is finally starting to melt. Hopefully that will be the last of the snow storms 'round these here parts. I doubt it though. My guess is that I am going to have to smack someone before the end of winter because they insist that global warming is a sham because it continues to snow in winter. Man that pisses me off. For fucks sake, learn a small amount about the thing you so completely dismiss as untrue before assuming that the word "Warming" means only that it is getting hotter. You do not get to debunk decades of scientific research because you misunderstand what the hell they are talking about. Not yours.
I have to drive to Fallon in about an hour for a client intake. I wish that I was meeting my partner there instead of picking her up at her house to drive her there. Mostly so that I could go and hang out at the card shop for a while then put up a flyer or two around town and just call it a day. Although, now that I think about it, school might be out for them teenagers by now, and they will likely be all up in my business. Well, Chuck's business.
I guess I'm gonna have to go christmas shopping this weekend. That is going to suck this close to christmas. Stupid people and there want to buy stuff for other stupid people.
Apparently I have been typing for a while as it is about time for me to start getting ready to go, so I bid you ado.
Cheb: 39
Mor: 36
This weekend is going to screw up my sleep schedule, I am quite sure of that. Next week is going to be me trying to get to bed at a reasonable hour all over again.
I was working on a project at work and reading about volunteer retention with AmeriCorps Vista members. These social scientists tried to figure out what sort of factors actually kept the members at their posts for the time the pledged to do. Apparently I have a good 50/50 chance, according to the study, of not leaving before the end of my term. The thing with AmeriCorps is that you don't really sign a contract or anything saying you are going to stay with it. Part of their hypothesis was that people with higher self-esteem (the study was from the nineties by the way) would stay with the job longer because they felt it was more rewarding. They found out, though, that self-esteem actually worked in the other direction for it. The lower yours was the better chance you had to stay with AmeriCorps. That is sort of tricky, because I was driving home from work tonight and thinking about how I could already probably do the jobs of about half the other people there, and I've already started just doing whatever the hell I feel like doing there most of the time. I have fairly high self-esteem when it comes to working. I always feel that I can do whatever other people around me are doing better than they are doing it. However, my social self-esteem is usually fairly low. I don't feel super confident in my ability to go out and pick up chicks, for example.
Whatever, though. I'm going to muddle through. So far my biggest problem is that there are a fair amount of older volunteers that have claimed to have good computer skills that actually don't. I wish that people would make it more clear to people that if all you know how to do on the computer is check email and get on the internet for a few minutes at a time you are not computer literate. I get so damned impatiant with people who can't just sit down and figure out how to work the computer themselves once they say they know what they are doing. When I was a kid I went down to Mexico with my Grandpa and we built a chicken coop for this orphanage for a few days. I would not, however, say that I have excellent construction skills based on that. I think I could help to put up a house, but I wouldn't just show up at a construction site and try to do it all myself then get frustrated when I had no idea how to reinforce the header or use a table saw.
I have a feeling that I am going to have to try to bend that place to my will. The first thing I did when I got home was through on my cut off shorts and a tattered t-shirt and my coat that is falling apart. Then I went out in the freezing cold to go to the store. I realized that I looked like a total bum, and it felt good. I don't dress like a vagrant because I'm too lazy to go about trying to shop for halfway decent clothes, I dress like that because I like to. I apparently locked myself into the grunge look when I was a kid and have never really bothered to update. And why should I? Grunge isn't like most other styles. It's philosophy is all about not trying to look any particular way. It's about saving money on needless excesses of clothes. And, for those same reasons, it is actually the greenest way to dress. Imagine how much less Carbon would be realeased everyone dressed like that. There would be substantially less need to ship clothes and materials from third-world contries back to us.
The hipster look is sort of green, I suppose, as they often appear to have just walked into a thrift store and rolled around in the aisles until enough clothes fell on them. Granted, they look like the "special" kid in your classes growing up that had a color blind mother and a father that worked the late shift so he never saw what they wore to school. To be fair, though, I suppose many parents would prefer a horribly color coordinated outfit to one that was tattered to the point of nearly attaining rag-hood.
Cheb called me disreputable. I pretended to be offended for a moment when I first read that, but he's got a point.
It is closing in on the Winter Solstice, and if my knowledge of seasons is correct this means that the days will start to get a little bit longer past that point. And the snow is finally starting to melt. Hopefully that will be the last of the snow storms 'round these here parts. I doubt it though. My guess is that I am going to have to smack someone before the end of winter because they insist that global warming is a sham because it continues to snow in winter. Man that pisses me off. For fucks sake, learn a small amount about the thing you so completely dismiss as untrue before assuming that the word "Warming" means only that it is getting hotter. You do not get to debunk decades of scientific research because you misunderstand what the hell they are talking about. Not yours.
I have to drive to Fallon in about an hour for a client intake. I wish that I was meeting my partner there instead of picking her up at her house to drive her there. Mostly so that I could go and hang out at the card shop for a while then put up a flyer or two around town and just call it a day. Although, now that I think about it, school might be out for them teenagers by now, and they will likely be all up in my business. Well, Chuck's business.
I guess I'm gonna have to go christmas shopping this weekend. That is going to suck this close to christmas. Stupid people and there want to buy stuff for other stupid people.
Apparently I have been typing for a while as it is about time for me to start getting ready to go, so I bid you ado.
Cheb: 39
Mor: 36
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Grumpy 2: Slightly Grumpier
Nothing sooths me when I am getting frustrated quite like rock and roll. Not that I should be overly frustrated today, it wasn't really a bad day. Still, I am not in the highest of spirits. I thought that my learning curve in going into this job was just going to be pretty straight forward. I thought it was all going to be about learning just how to do stuff. But I realized I already knew how to do pretty much everything. It's straight forward, write a letter, collate some papers, meet with some people, call some other people. But what hit me today after doing my first client intake was that I just didn't stumble hapharzardly into this job. My learning curve is actually coming to terms with feeling really bad for people in shitty situations.
Apparently under my badass attitude I actually have the ability to feel bad for other people. I actually want to help them. Today I met this guy who was almost ninety and he was asking us to get a volunteer to his house to watch his wife a few hours a week while he went out run some errands. I had to make a copy of something and he took me to his office, which was filled from the floor to the ceiling with video editing equipment, computers, and an electronic organ. I asked him about the equipment and he told me that he had been a video editor while he was working, and then he mentioned how much he really missed it. And to top it off, the guy made a joke out of everything, everything. His sense of humor was more dry than my own, so much so that I missed a couple of jokes he made at my own expense before he laughed. I seriously thought that the people we were trying to help would be more or less secondary to what I was doing. They were, in my mind, random people that needed a little assistance. It doesn't matter what I thought of them, I would give them the same consideration, and they would ultimately be numbers. That isn't going to be the case. I can't meet these people and then just as easily dismiss them. My Monkeysphere is going to be going nuts.
The weirdest part of working for a non-profit, I think, is going to come in the terms of people actually giving a shit about you as a worker. I went to a staff Christmas lunch today they do every year. Our boss announced that they had put in for a $95,000 grant to continue their program and that Harry Reid had made sure that we got $195,000. And I got to eat lunch and chat with the first lady of Nevada. Well, actually she is sort of divorced, which only sweetened the pot, as she is sort of a MILF. And she is on the cover of a magazine this month:
Okay, so she isn't step over your own mother hot, but in real life she's got a lot going on.
The point is that she was there, and she cared about this program and I am now part of this program. I never saw any politicians when I was slopping pizza onto warped aluminum trays. Okay, I did, but it was Fallon Mayor Ken Tedford, and he was only there to get drunk with his friends. His pizza could have been served by a monkey in a comical hat and he wouldn't have paid it any real attention. Although he might have at least patted the monkey on the head.
Right now I can see two paths before me. One is where I focus on writing and go to school and blah-de-blah and do something with that. The other is where I work in government/non-profit. Since I am a lowly AmeriCorps member and I can either leave after a year to pursue a life of helping people or I can leave after a year and go back to school seems to leave this whole year in my life as a total Schroedinger's Cat scenario. I am either a caring, helpful person, or I am a self-righteous author (the word author comes from the word Authority, and as a result the only people that write fiction are people that think they are authorities on whatever world they want to invent where characters will do whatever they do to prove their point. It is, quite possibly, the epitome of being self-righteous, as we push our own particular world view on an entire universe of our own creation).
All of that probably had nothing to do with anything.
The thing that sucks about being a human is that we aren't told what we are supposed to do. Did anyone tell Mozart to "be a musician?" I doubt it. He just did it. Did anyone tell Einstein to be a scientist? No, but he totally reinvented physics. And he did it with wacky hair. I have a portrait of Einstein on my wall. He's always so old in his pictures. I guess that is really why I like it. It isn't that he had the audacity to question Newtonian physics, its that when he became popular he was an old man. I guess I've always thought that was the time in my life I would be popular. "Old Man Moore writes Another Wacky Story" might read a headline. Why the word "writes" is the only word not capitalized is anyones guess.
I was thinking about how all writers were always like "I was writing from a very young age" and I, for a long time, thought, "I never wrote shit as a kid." Then I realized I did. It was crap and often it was left completely unfinished, but I wrote it. When I was in first grade I was told that my reading comprehension skills were low for my age group. So I decided to write my own stories so that no one could say I didn't understand them. The joke is that I don't understand most of my own stories.
That is probably all I have to say for now, so enjoy some randomness, which I honestly found by searching the word "random" through Google Image, and it was the sixth hit:
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Apparently under my badass attitude I actually have the ability to feel bad for other people. I actually want to help them. Today I met this guy who was almost ninety and he was asking us to get a volunteer to his house to watch his wife a few hours a week while he went out run some errands. I had to make a copy of something and he took me to his office, which was filled from the floor to the ceiling with video editing equipment, computers, and an electronic organ. I asked him about the equipment and he told me that he had been a video editor while he was working, and then he mentioned how much he really missed it. And to top it off, the guy made a joke out of everything, everything. His sense of humor was more dry than my own, so much so that I missed a couple of jokes he made at my own expense before he laughed. I seriously thought that the people we were trying to help would be more or less secondary to what I was doing. They were, in my mind, random people that needed a little assistance. It doesn't matter what I thought of them, I would give them the same consideration, and they would ultimately be numbers. That isn't going to be the case. I can't meet these people and then just as easily dismiss them. My Monkeysphere is going to be going nuts.
The weirdest part of working for a non-profit, I think, is going to come in the terms of people actually giving a shit about you as a worker. I went to a staff Christmas lunch today they do every year. Our boss announced that they had put in for a $95,000 grant to continue their program and that Harry Reid had made sure that we got $195,000. And I got to eat lunch and chat with the first lady of Nevada. Well, actually she is sort of divorced, which only sweetened the pot, as she is sort of a MILF. And she is on the cover of a magazine this month:
Okay, so she isn't step over your own mother hot, but in real life she's got a lot going on.
The point is that she was there, and she cared about this program and I am now part of this program. I never saw any politicians when I was slopping pizza onto warped aluminum trays. Okay, I did, but it was Fallon Mayor Ken Tedford, and he was only there to get drunk with his friends. His pizza could have been served by a monkey in a comical hat and he wouldn't have paid it any real attention. Although he might have at least patted the monkey on the head.
Right now I can see two paths before me. One is where I focus on writing and go to school and blah-de-blah and do something with that. The other is where I work in government/non-profit. Since I am a lowly AmeriCorps member and I can either leave after a year to pursue a life of helping people or I can leave after a year and go back to school seems to leave this whole year in my life as a total Schroedinger's Cat scenario. I am either a caring, helpful person, or I am a self-righteous author (the word author comes from the word Authority, and as a result the only people that write fiction are people that think they are authorities on whatever world they want to invent where characters will do whatever they do to prove their point. It is, quite possibly, the epitome of being self-righteous, as we push our own particular world view on an entire universe of our own creation).
All of that probably had nothing to do with anything.
The thing that sucks about being a human is that we aren't told what we are supposed to do. Did anyone tell Mozart to "be a musician?" I doubt it. He just did it. Did anyone tell Einstein to be a scientist? No, but he totally reinvented physics. And he did it with wacky hair. I have a portrait of Einstein on my wall. He's always so old in his pictures. I guess that is really why I like it. It isn't that he had the audacity to question Newtonian physics, its that when he became popular he was an old man. I guess I've always thought that was the time in my life I would be popular. "Old Man Moore writes Another Wacky Story" might read a headline. Why the word "writes" is the only word not capitalized is anyones guess.
I was thinking about how all writers were always like "I was writing from a very young age" and I, for a long time, thought, "I never wrote shit as a kid." Then I realized I did. It was crap and often it was left completely unfinished, but I wrote it. When I was in first grade I was told that my reading comprehension skills were low for my age group. So I decided to write my own stories so that no one could say I didn't understand them. The joke is that I don't understand most of my own stories.
That is probably all I have to say for now, so enjoy some randomness, which I honestly found by searching the word "random" through Google Image, and it was the sixth hit:
Why Don't You Put on a Little Make-up
There is a small chance that I am not even awake enough right now to actually complete a sentence. Oh, well, look at that. I totally finished that sentence, and that other one. Good for me.
It is far to easy to hit the snooze button. It should release a small electric shock every time you hit it that grows to a larger and larger shock over time. You ain't getting back to sleep once you've been jolted out of your bed. Unless it knocks you unconscious, but then you can at least have a doctors note as to why you are late to work, "Dear Employer, Matt was trying to be too lazy and his alarm clock tried to kill him. -Doctor"
At least I have coffee. I went to Savers last night and got a new mug. It's says "Zithromax" on it. It's apparently just an antibiotic. Boring. I was hoping it was some sort of super anti-schizophrenic drug that had to be pulled from the market due to causing some sort of Fight Club syndrome.
We have once again been visited by the ice fairy in the night. Extreme weather is lame. I was sort of following that "scandal" about the scientists "faking" "global warming" data. Man there were a lot of air quotes in that last sentence. Anyway, someone stole some emails from them where they were talking about how they presented the data in a way that was meant to convey the results of the data instead of just having a bunch of random numbers that only meant something to a handful of people. So according to conservatives, snow is to no global warming as spreadsheets are to science is fake. It's shit like this that proves America doesn't deserve to be a Super-power. Imagine if Superman had the brain power of this guy:
There is a sever lack of understanding of what science is. For the last time, just because something is a theory it doesn't mean that it is a random guess.
Fortunately I know that I am just being a cynic, and that people will understand the importance of saving the planet before it is too late and we will have reasonable, rational discussions of the topic.
Or maybe not.
By the way, I am totally aware of the irony of me calling Global Warming skeptics Sloth and then immediately saying that its their fault that we can't have a reasonable debate on the topic. But, come on, it's Ralph. With A FUCKING SWASTIKA IN THE CORNER! Because if you can't believe a fascist who likes the Simpsons, who can you trust?
It is far to easy to hit the snooze button. It should release a small electric shock every time you hit it that grows to a larger and larger shock over time. You ain't getting back to sleep once you've been jolted out of your bed. Unless it knocks you unconscious, but then you can at least have a doctors note as to why you are late to work, "Dear Employer, Matt was trying to be too lazy and his alarm clock tried to kill him. -Doctor"
At least I have coffee. I went to Savers last night and got a new mug. It's says "Zithromax" on it. It's apparently just an antibiotic. Boring. I was hoping it was some sort of super anti-schizophrenic drug that had to be pulled from the market due to causing some sort of Fight Club syndrome.
We have once again been visited by the ice fairy in the night. Extreme weather is lame. I was sort of following that "scandal" about the scientists "faking" "global warming" data. Man there were a lot of air quotes in that last sentence. Anyway, someone stole some emails from them where they were talking about how they presented the data in a way that was meant to convey the results of the data instead of just having a bunch of random numbers that only meant something to a handful of people. So according to conservatives, snow is to no global warming as spreadsheets are to science is fake. It's shit like this that proves America doesn't deserve to be a Super-power. Imagine if Superman had the brain power of this guy:
There is a sever lack of understanding of what science is. For the last time, just because something is a theory it doesn't mean that it is a random guess.
Fortunately I know that I am just being a cynic, and that people will understand the importance of saving the planet before it is too late and we will have reasonable, rational discussions of the topic.
Or maybe not.
By the way, I am totally aware of the irony of me calling Global Warming skeptics Sloth and then immediately saying that its their fault that we can't have a reasonable debate on the topic. But, come on, it's Ralph. With A FUCKING SWASTIKA IN THE CORNER! Because if you can't believe a fascist who likes the Simpsons, who can you trust?
Monday, December 14, 2009
She Don't Need No
So there went my first day in AmeriCorp. I thought it was going to take me a few months to get acclimatized. I think the gestation period will be much shorter than that. All in all it is going to be a rather dull job a lot of the time, which is perfect for me, as I have dreamed for a long time now of a nice dull office job. Mostly because I had never had that experience before.
I have to sort of relearn to watch my mouth though. I realized that most of the time I spend talking to other people for longer than a few minutes has been with dudes I've known at least half my life. I can blurt out any damn thing I want most of the time. But when the sort of cute girl at work said something that was every so slightly laced with innuendo I quite literally had to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying what came to mind. I have no idea now what I was going to say, or really what she said, but I knew as it was about to come out of my gapping mouth that it would probably not be appropriate to say. In a way I'm sort of glad that the average age of the people working in the place is around 56, and that is with my and the other slightly younger people averaged in to their ages. It's sort of like learning to crawl in an office environment. Had I ended up somewhere with inexplicably hot women surrounding me I would probably end up going completely mute until I was finally fed up with the job.
The problem isn't that I'm sexist or that I have to try to force myself on every woman that I work with. The problem is that I don't always realize that what I am saying most of the time in public settings is offensive to women. And in an office where there are lots of moments for awkward greetings and weird looks from across the room, it seems as though it would escalate out of control for me.
But that is just my impression on the first day. I'm sure that I can behave myself, at least for a while.
Last night I wrote that story I posted and I was thinking about how incredibly depressing it ended up being. If you haven't read it yet I won't talk too much about it so don't worry (as if you were worried about me spoiling some short story I wrote last night). I didn't mean to make it so depressing. I was just trying to write a Christmas story. And it sort of got away from me. When I write a story it is like my subconscious has already written it out on some level and I go into this sort of trance and it just pours out. I've heard similar tales from almost any one who regularly writes fiction. And when you are done it carries this incredible high. It is quite addictive, it no longer seems strange to me that so many writers are alcoholics/drug addicts/sex addicts. That small feeling of accomplishment and that sense of finally getting that damn story out of your head can be addictive, so it makes sense that people with addictive personalities would, for so many years, spend hours typing and writing and rewriting the same sort of stories over and over again.
Speaking of addictive, I have been hooked on getting giant fountain drinks since this summer. There is this slightly different taste to a fountain drink than to a bottled or canned drink, and it is intoxicating. And yes, I am drinking a large fountain drink right now. This has nothing to do with anything.
I've been debating asking this girl out that I met last week. I had a brief moment of thinking that it would be a good idea when she friended me on facebook tonight, only to realize that I was her 468th friend on facebook. The thing is I probably am going to ask her out, but until I get used to this new schedule I don't want to go on a date during the week. And it's odd to ask someone on a first date on a Monday if you don't want to go out till Friday. I know I am making too much of this, but I think that I need to wait till Wednesday to ask her out for Friday. While I was writing this I stopped to take a long sip from my giant fountain drink and realized that the girl I was thinking about had not just friended me on facebook. It was a different person that I am the 468th friend of, as I just realized, although the first name was the same, the last name was not the same. And I can't actually call her tonight anyway since I simultaneously realized that if I didn't have her on facebook than I had left her number at the office in Carson City. Yes, one day on the job and I am already leaving shit at the office. I also left a bag of pistachios in my desk, but that was totally on purpose. I am going to eat so many nuts tomorrow. And, regardless of the obvious dick jokes that will be made at my expense because of this statement, I am going to love eating those nuts.
Something that I find enjoyable about blogging that I have yet to be able to incorporate into fiction very well is my ability to contradict myself and correct myself in the text. Since I know I won't bother to edit, I just don't fix any mistakes, I just talk over the top of them. Some people might find this annoying, but I feel that it shows that I really am thinking and learning all of this as I am typing it. It's sort of strange to have that real time effect in writing. It's usually so rigid that I can barely get my mouth around it (that is probably the last dick joke) (especially since it doesn't really make much sense).
Before I decided that the world needed more, much, much more of this fantastic blogging I have become so famous for, at least to myself, as I caught myself asking myself for an autograph the other day, I watched some cartoons. Family Guy actually was sort of funny, but only because Hugh Laurie was on the show and he was playing House. Road House. That too. I bring this up because I have noticed that a lot of cartoons seem a lot less funny to me these days. And I wonder if it is because I am simply getting older or if I have lost a chunk of my sense of humor. Granted, I didn't have much of a sense of humor before, so losing even a small part is pretty fucking bad. Penis. See? That's not even a joke, as I clearly said that that last dick joke was the last one. What I really hope, getting back to cartoons, is that they simply aren't as funny as they used to be. Or they aren't meant to be funny for me anymore. They are skewing younger. I remember the first time I outgrew a comedy show that I really liked. I used to listen to a morning radio troupe all the time and then, one day, I turned on their show and it was idiotic and stupid and I never listened to it again. Its not like I ever missed that show, but a part of me missed being able to enjoy it. Ah, the joys of growing up. Everything just constantly gets slightly less enjoyable.
I think my favorite word to say is Potato. This has nothing to do with anything.
My stomach is all full of fountain drink. Why, cruel mistress, do you taunt me so? You make me wish I hadn't even bought you in the first place, yet I am compelled to slurp out every last drop of your deliciousness, foul temptress.
That is probably enough blogging for now. I often wonder what the point in this blog is the point where I just completely lose anyone who bothers to read it. I mean these long rambly blogs, not the awesome ones with pictures and moderately funny jokes I probably stole from Conan O'Brien. My guess is that after about 730 words most people have become over saturated with my thoughts. And after painstakingly have Microsoft Word to a word count for me, I come to the conclusion that at about 730 words I am talking about some girl that added me as a friend on facebook. That sounds about like the time I probably lost most of my readership. But you read it! You can't Un-read it!
I have to sort of relearn to watch my mouth though. I realized that most of the time I spend talking to other people for longer than a few minutes has been with dudes I've known at least half my life. I can blurt out any damn thing I want most of the time. But when the sort of cute girl at work said something that was every so slightly laced with innuendo I quite literally had to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying what came to mind. I have no idea now what I was going to say, or really what she said, but I knew as it was about to come out of my gapping mouth that it would probably not be appropriate to say. In a way I'm sort of glad that the average age of the people working in the place is around 56, and that is with my and the other slightly younger people averaged in to their ages. It's sort of like learning to crawl in an office environment. Had I ended up somewhere with inexplicably hot women surrounding me I would probably end up going completely mute until I was finally fed up with the job.
The problem isn't that I'm sexist or that I have to try to force myself on every woman that I work with. The problem is that I don't always realize that what I am saying most of the time in public settings is offensive to women. And in an office where there are lots of moments for awkward greetings and weird looks from across the room, it seems as though it would escalate out of control for me.
But that is just my impression on the first day. I'm sure that I can behave myself, at least for a while.
Last night I wrote that story I posted and I was thinking about how incredibly depressing it ended up being. If you haven't read it yet I won't talk too much about it so don't worry (as if you were worried about me spoiling some short story I wrote last night). I didn't mean to make it so depressing. I was just trying to write a Christmas story. And it sort of got away from me. When I write a story it is like my subconscious has already written it out on some level and I go into this sort of trance and it just pours out. I've heard similar tales from almost any one who regularly writes fiction. And when you are done it carries this incredible high. It is quite addictive, it no longer seems strange to me that so many writers are alcoholics/drug addicts/sex addicts. That small feeling of accomplishment and that sense of finally getting that damn story out of your head can be addictive, so it makes sense that people with addictive personalities would, for so many years, spend hours typing and writing and rewriting the same sort of stories over and over again.
Speaking of addictive, I have been hooked on getting giant fountain drinks since this summer. There is this slightly different taste to a fountain drink than to a bottled or canned drink, and it is intoxicating. And yes, I am drinking a large fountain drink right now. This has nothing to do with anything.
I've been debating asking this girl out that I met last week. I had a brief moment of thinking that it would be a good idea when she friended me on facebook tonight, only to realize that I was her 468th friend on facebook. The thing is I probably am going to ask her out, but until I get used to this new schedule I don't want to go on a date during the week. And it's odd to ask someone on a first date on a Monday if you don't want to go out till Friday. I know I am making too much of this, but I think that I need to wait till Wednesday to ask her out for Friday. While I was writing this I stopped to take a long sip from my giant fountain drink and realized that the girl I was thinking about had not just friended me on facebook. It was a different person that I am the 468th friend of, as I just realized, although the first name was the same, the last name was not the same. And I can't actually call her tonight anyway since I simultaneously realized that if I didn't have her on facebook than I had left her number at the office in Carson City. Yes, one day on the job and I am already leaving shit at the office. I also left a bag of pistachios in my desk, but that was totally on purpose. I am going to eat so many nuts tomorrow. And, regardless of the obvious dick jokes that will be made at my expense because of this statement, I am going to love eating those nuts.
Something that I find enjoyable about blogging that I have yet to be able to incorporate into fiction very well is my ability to contradict myself and correct myself in the text. Since I know I won't bother to edit, I just don't fix any mistakes, I just talk over the top of them. Some people might find this annoying, but I feel that it shows that I really am thinking and learning all of this as I am typing it. It's sort of strange to have that real time effect in writing. It's usually so rigid that I can barely get my mouth around it (that is probably the last dick joke) (especially since it doesn't really make much sense).
Before I decided that the world needed more, much, much more of this fantastic blogging I have become so famous for, at least to myself, as I caught myself asking myself for an autograph the other day, I watched some cartoons. Family Guy actually was sort of funny, but only because Hugh Laurie was on the show and he was playing House. Road House. That too. I bring this up because I have noticed that a lot of cartoons seem a lot less funny to me these days. And I wonder if it is because I am simply getting older or if I have lost a chunk of my sense of humor. Granted, I didn't have much of a sense of humor before, so losing even a small part is pretty fucking bad. Penis. See? That's not even a joke, as I clearly said that that last dick joke was the last one. What I really hope, getting back to cartoons, is that they simply aren't as funny as they used to be. Or they aren't meant to be funny for me anymore. They are skewing younger. I remember the first time I outgrew a comedy show that I really liked. I used to listen to a morning radio troupe all the time and then, one day, I turned on their show and it was idiotic and stupid and I never listened to it again. Its not like I ever missed that show, but a part of me missed being able to enjoy it. Ah, the joys of growing up. Everything just constantly gets slightly less enjoyable.
I think my favorite word to say is Potato. This has nothing to do with anything.
My stomach is all full of fountain drink. Why, cruel mistress, do you taunt me so? You make me wish I hadn't even bought you in the first place, yet I am compelled to slurp out every last drop of your deliciousness, foul temptress.
That is probably enough blogging for now. I often wonder what the point in this blog is the point where I just completely lose anyone who bothers to read it. I mean these long rambly blogs, not the awesome ones with pictures and moderately funny jokes I probably stole from Conan O'Brien. My guess is that after about 730 words most people have become over saturated with my thoughts. And after painstakingly have Microsoft Word to a word count for me, I come to the conclusion that at about 730 words I am talking about some girl that added me as a friend on facebook. That sounds about like the time I probably lost most of my readership. But you read it! You can't Un-read it!
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Lightning Storm Fiction
prologue: I mentioned Lightning Storm Fiction before, it is what I call the style of writing that lets a story just be written in as little time as possible. What follows is a first draft that I haven't even read over yet. Enjoy!
I remember that Christmas was a time of joy and of giving and togetherness. I remember that while I am walking home in the snow carrying a bottle of Jack and a six pack of PBR. I used to love the idea of Christmas, the toys, the magic of Santa, the thrill of a whole month of music and movies devoted to the one singular holiday. Then I grew up, started to drink, went a little crazy. This Christmas will be a little like any other for me, at least in the last few years. I bought myself a present right after Christmas of last year when I didn't have anything to open up. There is a Christmas tree in my apartment that I never bothered to take down after putting it up three years ago, I wrapped the present and placed it under the tree. It says "From Santa" in big letters. I don't remember what is in there, probably something awesome. I've been waiting all year to open it up. I hope I got myself something nice.
It isn't that I don't have family. And it isn't that I don't have friends. It is more that those family members and those friends don't particularly want to see me at Christmas. I want to fall asleep, pass out actually, tonight and wake to find that I am in a Christmas Carol, or maybe It's A Wonderful Life. Re-learn the real meaning of Christmas. And maybe reconnect with an old girlfriend that I could have married or something like that. I want that to happen, unfortunately it doesn't really seem to work that way in this little world of ours. I will work the graveyard shift on Christmas, I will sit in my chair at the security desk and I will likely not see another living human until the morning when my relief comes in. He will say "Merry Christmas!" I will nod and repeat the sentiment to him. If the 7-11 on the way home is open I will likely say Merry Christmas to the clerk while I purchase my drinks for the day. Then I will get drunk and I will watch whatever movies they are playing on TV and then I will sleep until it is time to go to work again.
This should depress me. It did last year, maybe this year I have such low expectations that I just don't care anymore. Although a part of me still cares. Someone ought to make it a law that you can't get drunk alone on Christmas. I would probably break that law, though. At least in prison I wouldn't be alone. Plenty of people break the law around Christmas. It is the season of giving, it is also the season of breaking into people's homes while they are away at their families homes. Unless it is particularly cold out. Criminals hate the cold, its like their kyrptonite. Well, they hate the heat too, and they hate porch lights, and they hate working, and they often hate themselves. All of those things are also their kyrptonite. In general criminals have a lot of weaknesses.
At least my only weakness is that no one cares about me any more. That isn't a weakness, per say, but it is brought on by the combination of all my weaknesses. Frankly, I think that it is perfectly fair to say that my only weakness is that no one cares about me, because if they did the rest of the weakness could have been worked on by now.
It is Christmas eve today. And I am finally arriving home as I pass by house after house filled with lights and white people in sweaters and children running around getting ready for their day. I have just got off of work. The morning is the only time anyone seems to notice me. My uniform is almost the same as a real police officers. I think that there are a couple of people on this block that think I am a cop. They wave, they smile as they are getting ready to go to work, mentally they thank me for protecting them through the night so that they can wake up with nothing to worry about. I like to think about them thinking those things.
I sit down and turn on the TV and they are playing Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewert wants to kill himself, and by all means he ought to, as he has fucked his life up. Thankfully, for him at least, he is rescued by a sub-par angel trying to get his wings. That would never happen to me, not even an angel would bother to stop me from killing myself.
By the end of the movie I am drunk and some sort of musical Christmas special is coming on. I watch it, not really paying attention, thinking about everything I have ever done wrong in my life and trying to finish the bottle of Jack before noon so that I can get to work on the beer and crash before work. I am thinking of all the women that I have wronged. Not to say that I have done all that much bad to them, I wouldn't call myself a gentleman, but, well, I'm fairly polite. But I would rather be alone than be with them unless we are having sex at that exact moment, and this becomes rather apparent to them after a fairly short period of time. It has been a long time since I've even had the chance to screw up a relationship, though, since I gave up a long time ago when it became apparent that I couldn't get by on boyish good looks anymore. I'm growing whiskers instead of facial hair now, I've got a few wrinkles, my stomach hangs well over my belt. The women I crave have begun to ask me about my Grandchildren. I've never married, I have no children, I am quite alone in this world. There is a sister out there somewhere that I might still be able to call and say hello to if I knew her number. She visited a few months ago. She was worried about me. She saw the evidence of my life in my small apartment and she decided, right then I think, that she need not worry about me anymore. I was called by a life insurance agency shortly after and they said a small policy had been taken out on me by my sister. Just enough to cover funeral costs. Thankfully she is willing to think of these things.
By the time that the music special is over I am fairly hammered, and I have begun to stare more and more at that present. The tree is artificial, the plastic branches decorated with a short string of light bulbs and a half dozen ornaments, a few dozen ornaments lay on the ground around it, having fallen off over the years and never been replaced. The present, however, is very nicely wrapped. I think I must have gone to a store and had them wrap it, I don't remember, I was very likely quite drunk at the time. There is a large bow on it, red with sparkles in it. The wrapping paper is quite shiny as well. I've been staring at it for a year now and it is Christmas eve. Drunkenly I stand from my chair and wander to the tree. I pick it up, I shake it. It's light, really light.
I hesitate, wondering if I shouldn't wait the final day to open it. As a child we always opened up one present Christmas Eve. I see no reason to forsake that tradition now, but I hesitate. I can't open it, my hands are trembling, I'm crying for some reason. I set it back down, delicately, under the tree, and promptly make my way to my bed and pass out.
I wake and go to work. In the morning my relief says "Merry Christmas" and I nod and repeat the sentiment. The 7-11 is open and I say Merry Christmas as I purchase my drinks for the day. I walk home, past white people in sweaters in houses filled with lights and children ripping to shreds the wrapping paper. They are holding presents in their hands and they are all laughing and smiling. I stop for a moment at a house nearby, the father sees me standing out there. He waves to me many mornings, he waves through the window and smiles and I think he is mentally thanking me for keeping him safe through the night. I wave back and I walk to my apartment. I turn on the TV and they are playing a Wonderful Life again. I pour myself a few drinks and then walk to the Christmas tree just as Jimmy Stewert is realizing just how important he really is. This time I am not trembling, I am not worried at all about opening the box. I slide the ribbon off without untieing it. But I rip through the wrapping paper just like the children were doing.
There is just a non-descriptive brown cardboard box. The top has been haphazardly bound together with a few pieces of Scots tape. I pull the lid open and it is filled with tissue paper. I throw the tissue paper out. It appears at first that there is nothing at all in the box, but then I realize that there is a small piece of paper, folded in half, in the corner of the bottom of the box. I pull it out and drop the box to the floor.
I open the piece of paper slowly, not sure what I am expecting it to say, though there is clearly writing on it that I can see through the paper. I have a bit of double vision at this point at it takes me a few tries to actually read what it says, but then it makes sense and suddenly I remember very clearly writing it and putting it in the box. It says;
"If this is still the only present under your tree then it is now time to kill yourself. And don't worry, no bothersome angel is going to try to stop you. Merry Christmas."
I remember that Christmas was a time of joy and of giving and togetherness. I remember that while I am walking home in the snow carrying a bottle of Jack and a six pack of PBR. I used to love the idea of Christmas, the toys, the magic of Santa, the thrill of a whole month of music and movies devoted to the one singular holiday. Then I grew up, started to drink, went a little crazy. This Christmas will be a little like any other for me, at least in the last few years. I bought myself a present right after Christmas of last year when I didn't have anything to open up. There is a Christmas tree in my apartment that I never bothered to take down after putting it up three years ago, I wrapped the present and placed it under the tree. It says "From Santa" in big letters. I don't remember what is in there, probably something awesome. I've been waiting all year to open it up. I hope I got myself something nice.
It isn't that I don't have family. And it isn't that I don't have friends. It is more that those family members and those friends don't particularly want to see me at Christmas. I want to fall asleep, pass out actually, tonight and wake to find that I am in a Christmas Carol, or maybe It's A Wonderful Life. Re-learn the real meaning of Christmas. And maybe reconnect with an old girlfriend that I could have married or something like that. I want that to happen, unfortunately it doesn't really seem to work that way in this little world of ours. I will work the graveyard shift on Christmas, I will sit in my chair at the security desk and I will likely not see another living human until the morning when my relief comes in. He will say "Merry Christmas!" I will nod and repeat the sentiment to him. If the 7-11 on the way home is open I will likely say Merry Christmas to the clerk while I purchase my drinks for the day. Then I will get drunk and I will watch whatever movies they are playing on TV and then I will sleep until it is time to go to work again.
This should depress me. It did last year, maybe this year I have such low expectations that I just don't care anymore. Although a part of me still cares. Someone ought to make it a law that you can't get drunk alone on Christmas. I would probably break that law, though. At least in prison I wouldn't be alone. Plenty of people break the law around Christmas. It is the season of giving, it is also the season of breaking into people's homes while they are away at their families homes. Unless it is particularly cold out. Criminals hate the cold, its like their kyrptonite. Well, they hate the heat too, and they hate porch lights, and they hate working, and they often hate themselves. All of those things are also their kyrptonite. In general criminals have a lot of weaknesses.
At least my only weakness is that no one cares about me any more. That isn't a weakness, per say, but it is brought on by the combination of all my weaknesses. Frankly, I think that it is perfectly fair to say that my only weakness is that no one cares about me, because if they did the rest of the weakness could have been worked on by now.
It is Christmas eve today. And I am finally arriving home as I pass by house after house filled with lights and white people in sweaters and children running around getting ready for their day. I have just got off of work. The morning is the only time anyone seems to notice me. My uniform is almost the same as a real police officers. I think that there are a couple of people on this block that think I am a cop. They wave, they smile as they are getting ready to go to work, mentally they thank me for protecting them through the night so that they can wake up with nothing to worry about. I like to think about them thinking those things.
I sit down and turn on the TV and they are playing Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewert wants to kill himself, and by all means he ought to, as he has fucked his life up. Thankfully, for him at least, he is rescued by a sub-par angel trying to get his wings. That would never happen to me, not even an angel would bother to stop me from killing myself.
By the end of the movie I am drunk and some sort of musical Christmas special is coming on. I watch it, not really paying attention, thinking about everything I have ever done wrong in my life and trying to finish the bottle of Jack before noon so that I can get to work on the beer and crash before work. I am thinking of all the women that I have wronged. Not to say that I have done all that much bad to them, I wouldn't call myself a gentleman, but, well, I'm fairly polite. But I would rather be alone than be with them unless we are having sex at that exact moment, and this becomes rather apparent to them after a fairly short period of time. It has been a long time since I've even had the chance to screw up a relationship, though, since I gave up a long time ago when it became apparent that I couldn't get by on boyish good looks anymore. I'm growing whiskers instead of facial hair now, I've got a few wrinkles, my stomach hangs well over my belt. The women I crave have begun to ask me about my Grandchildren. I've never married, I have no children, I am quite alone in this world. There is a sister out there somewhere that I might still be able to call and say hello to if I knew her number. She visited a few months ago. She was worried about me. She saw the evidence of my life in my small apartment and she decided, right then I think, that she need not worry about me anymore. I was called by a life insurance agency shortly after and they said a small policy had been taken out on me by my sister. Just enough to cover funeral costs. Thankfully she is willing to think of these things.
By the time that the music special is over I am fairly hammered, and I have begun to stare more and more at that present. The tree is artificial, the plastic branches decorated with a short string of light bulbs and a half dozen ornaments, a few dozen ornaments lay on the ground around it, having fallen off over the years and never been replaced. The present, however, is very nicely wrapped. I think I must have gone to a store and had them wrap it, I don't remember, I was very likely quite drunk at the time. There is a large bow on it, red with sparkles in it. The wrapping paper is quite shiny as well. I've been staring at it for a year now and it is Christmas eve. Drunkenly I stand from my chair and wander to the tree. I pick it up, I shake it. It's light, really light.
I hesitate, wondering if I shouldn't wait the final day to open it. As a child we always opened up one present Christmas Eve. I see no reason to forsake that tradition now, but I hesitate. I can't open it, my hands are trembling, I'm crying for some reason. I set it back down, delicately, under the tree, and promptly make my way to my bed and pass out.
I wake and go to work. In the morning my relief says "Merry Christmas" and I nod and repeat the sentiment. The 7-11 is open and I say Merry Christmas as I purchase my drinks for the day. I walk home, past white people in sweaters in houses filled with lights and children ripping to shreds the wrapping paper. They are holding presents in their hands and they are all laughing and smiling. I stop for a moment at a house nearby, the father sees me standing out there. He waves to me many mornings, he waves through the window and smiles and I think he is mentally thanking me for keeping him safe through the night. I wave back and I walk to my apartment. I turn on the TV and they are playing a Wonderful Life again. I pour myself a few drinks and then walk to the Christmas tree just as Jimmy Stewert is realizing just how important he really is. This time I am not trembling, I am not worried at all about opening the box. I slide the ribbon off without untieing it. But I rip through the wrapping paper just like the children were doing.
There is just a non-descriptive brown cardboard box. The top has been haphazardly bound together with a few pieces of Scots tape. I pull the lid open and it is filled with tissue paper. I throw the tissue paper out. It appears at first that there is nothing at all in the box, but then I realize that there is a small piece of paper, folded in half, in the corner of the bottom of the box. I pull it out and drop the box to the floor.
I open the piece of paper slowly, not sure what I am expecting it to say, though there is clearly writing on it that I can see through the paper. I have a bit of double vision at this point at it takes me a few tries to actually read what it says, but then it makes sense and suddenly I remember very clearly writing it and putting it in the box. It says;
"If this is still the only present under your tree then it is now time to kill yourself. And don't worry, no bothersome angel is going to try to stop you. Merry Christmas."
Careers in Science
Lately I've been starting to suspect that I am living in a Science fiction novel. One that was probably written in the fifties. Not in the sense that I am some action hero that has to save the planet, I am probably just some background/support character. But the world, in such a short time, has advanced so far. By 1910, Ford had constructed 12,000 Model T's. Most people alive then hadn't even seen a car, much less ridden in one. That was just one hundred years ago. There are people alive now that were alive back then. Now no one actually knows how many cars/trucks/buses are on the road in the USA. Estimates online range from about 70-300 million. I can get anywhere in the continental US in under three days thanks to cars. Remember the Donner Party? Imagine how different their story would have been if one of them had a Jeep. That is the difference that cars make. That alone should tell us how much a difference cars have been.
What was really making me think that I was in a sci-fi novel, though, was being at the airport. I took a plane between Portland and Seattle and I realized that they called it a shuttle and they had one going out about every half hour most of the day. And there I was, walking down onto the tarmac and climbing on a plane that thousands of other people had ridden and thousands of more will ride and we were going to cut through the sky and land in a new city in less than an hour. And this was so common that they considered it to be just a shuttle. I take shuttles to get to the airport, a shuttle to me is just a people mover. And that is how far we are in aviation. Planes are just people movers. We cram a bunch of people on and we can get them anywhere in the US in under 10 hours. Humans searched for the power of flight pretty much since we figured out how start building shit. We get it and all I can do is bitch about how uncomfortable it is to sit on an airplane.
But more than just transportation, the thing that really makes me question how far into this science fiction I am are iPhones. They are everywhere. People from about the age of 14-80 have them. A woman I met was showing me pictures of her daughter. She just pulled out her iPhone and started flipping through travel pictures. And she could have popped online, sent her daughter a message, ordered a pizza, booked a flight, and about a hundred other things while she was flipping through that phone. And everyone has one. We carry around a piece of technology that can do pretty much anything we can think of that involves any form of communication. And, sure, we think iPhones are cool still, but most people seem mostly numb to the amazing level of technology that is at our fingertips 24 hours a day. Growing up I always told myself when people started wearing wrist bands that had supercomputers fitted into them, then I would certainly be in the future. I was wrong, though, because people carry them in their pockets instead of wearing them on their wrists. Although you could wear an iPhone on your wrist if you fashioned something to hold it in place. All thats left is for the iPhone to be able to analyze soil samples and tell us if the air is safe to breath.
Humans have created a giant device to smash particles into each other so that they can see what the building blocks of the universe are. And if that isn't enough there are actual news stories questioning if the machine is being sabotaged. By mother fucking time travelers.
Doctors are, and have already been, discussing the ethics involved in human cloning. Not in some abstract way, but weather or not we should start doing it, because we totally could start doing it.
Our President is Black.
In 2001, what was thought to just be rain filled with red specks of dust was determined to be blood. And not just human blood, Alien blood. "[T]hese cells, whose origin is suspected as extraterrestrial. This way, the cells may represent an alternate form of life from space."
We are even getting close to synthetic telepathy so that we can communicate, through a computer, from one mind to another.
Just because we all aren't riding around in hover cars doesn't mean that we aren't pretty fucking deep in the sci-fi.
Society is changing, we are changing with it and we barely notice it. Exactly the way you would expect a futuristic society to behave. We have all this crazy shit but we are too busy dealing with life to really notice how insanely magical and wonderful it all is. Humans simply adapt to quickly. We don't have time to sit back and enjoy the new wonders of the world because we are so quick to get to work something even better. The problem with science fiction is that when it becomes science fact we cease to find it important and wonder why we don't have something even better already.
What was really making me think that I was in a sci-fi novel, though, was being at the airport. I took a plane between Portland and Seattle and I realized that they called it a shuttle and they had one going out about every half hour most of the day. And there I was, walking down onto the tarmac and climbing on a plane that thousands of other people had ridden and thousands of more will ride and we were going to cut through the sky and land in a new city in less than an hour. And this was so common that they considered it to be just a shuttle. I take shuttles to get to the airport, a shuttle to me is just a people mover. And that is how far we are in aviation. Planes are just people movers. We cram a bunch of people on and we can get them anywhere in the US in under 10 hours. Humans searched for the power of flight pretty much since we figured out how start building shit. We get it and all I can do is bitch about how uncomfortable it is to sit on an airplane.
But more than just transportation, the thing that really makes me question how far into this science fiction I am are iPhones. They are everywhere. People from about the age of 14-80 have them. A woman I met was showing me pictures of her daughter. She just pulled out her iPhone and started flipping through travel pictures. And she could have popped online, sent her daughter a message, ordered a pizza, booked a flight, and about a hundred other things while she was flipping through that phone. And everyone has one. We carry around a piece of technology that can do pretty much anything we can think of that involves any form of communication. And, sure, we think iPhones are cool still, but most people seem mostly numb to the amazing level of technology that is at our fingertips 24 hours a day. Growing up I always told myself when people started wearing wrist bands that had supercomputers fitted into them, then I would certainly be in the future. I was wrong, though, because people carry them in their pockets instead of wearing them on their wrists. Although you could wear an iPhone on your wrist if you fashioned something to hold it in place. All thats left is for the iPhone to be able to analyze soil samples and tell us if the air is safe to breath.
Humans have created a giant device to smash particles into each other so that they can see what the building blocks of the universe are. And if that isn't enough there are actual news stories questioning if the machine is being sabotaged. By mother fucking time travelers.
Doctors are, and have already been, discussing the ethics involved in human cloning. Not in some abstract way, but weather or not we should start doing it, because we totally could start doing it.
Our President is Black.
In 2001, what was thought to just be rain filled with red specks of dust was determined to be blood. And not just human blood, Alien blood. "[T]hese cells, whose origin is suspected as extraterrestrial. This way, the cells may represent an alternate form of life from space."
We are even getting close to synthetic telepathy so that we can communicate, through a computer, from one mind to another.
Just because we all aren't riding around in hover cars doesn't mean that we aren't pretty fucking deep in the sci-fi.
Society is changing, we are changing with it and we barely notice it. Exactly the way you would expect a futuristic society to behave. We have all this crazy shit but we are too busy dealing with life to really notice how insanely magical and wonderful it all is. Humans simply adapt to quickly. We don't have time to sit back and enjoy the new wonders of the world because we are so quick to get to work something even better. The problem with science fiction is that when it becomes science fact we cease to find it important and wonder why we don't have something even better already.
Nutritional Value
Still half asleep, I've wandered over to my computer once more to blog. This constant blogging is more challenging than I thought it would be. Just about 18 days to go, though, then the challenge is through. 18 days till the end of the first decade of the second millennium since we adopted this calendar. It seems like an amazingly long time. But humans have been around forever. If the first humans had figured they needed a calendar and had been keeping track since then, it is possible that we would be writing out the date as 11³.003*872 or something to that nature (and I shall say to any math geeks that that number is completely made up). Of course we still might have changed it something simpler.
Wouldn't it be mad if everyone could just instantly do a calculation like the one I put up there in there head? If we were all so freaking intelligent that we just automatically could understand the value of almost any equation? I can't even tell you what 11³ is without checking on a calculator. But in a world were everyone was so amazing at math I have to assume that we would be much better at a lot of things. We would know how to reach out with art in ways that we haven't even thought of yet. Our planet could be under our control, with a council of citizens who got together to decide what areas should get snow or rain. With a government that was run so efficiently, so smoothly, that we would have all of our needs met so long as we maintained some sort of involvement in society.
Of course that is just gibberish. Mathematicians who look into the face of infinity calculations often go mad. And I don't believe that there is any time in our future where we won't be just completely idiotic. Paul spent ten minutes in the bathroom waiting for someone to come get him because a card in a game told him to (the game was called Quelf if you are interested). I pretended to be covered in hot lava (well, just lava I suppose, as I believe it is called something else when it cools down. I forget though, I mean, I've heard of lava rocks, but that might just be the layman term for whatever that type of rock is. Anyway, it was hot, damnit.) Brianna spent half the night with a box under her shirt. We are simply designed to be idiotic. If we have to be smart and efficient all the time we end up just wanting to kill everyone. No matter how smart we get, how good our technology gets, how high a level our society achieves, we are still going to need to act like idiots. We still have to make fools of ourselves, get drunk and do stupid things, and stay out partying till dawn even though we have something important to do in the morning. Otherwise we become machines, we become zombies stuck in automated motion. We become nothing. Stupidity is what gives us our humanity.
I don't know anything. Not really, and I'm not talking in some philosophical way, I mean I know nothing. Who won the world series last year? I don't know. Why does it only snow when the temperature is within a certain range and not when it is below it? I don't know. Why am I writing a blog at 2 am instead of going to bed like my body has been trying to get me to do all day? Well, thats because I am an idiot.
When I was younger I thought I knew pretty much everything I'd ever need to know about life. Now, still a fairly young adult, I am realizing that I don't know the tiniest fraction of what I need to know about life. Sometimes I wished I lived in some sort of commune where everyone had the exact same level of knowledge. I mean, some people would have to be better at some things for us to function, but I am talking about living in a little place were we only allow X books and Y movies and Z television shows. We can only read or watch or listen to what is brought in, we all know each other, we all talk to each other, we never bother with trivia questions. And we never really run out of things to talk to each other about. How many times have you been at a party and everyone starts talking about some movie they had all seen and you hadn't? You just sit there and sort of listen but mostly get bored. If everyone you knew had all seen the exact same movies, you could talk endlessly with them all the time on the subject of movies.
Obviously there is a need for diversity. I can't ever see or read everything, but I can bring to the table the information I have and try to combine it with other peoples so we can all enhance our knowledge. This is why I don't think we will really see a commune like that, although, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I've just said that I wanted to go and live in a cult somewhere. Again, let me refer you to the fact that I am an idiot.
There was something somewhere out there on the internet that I was reading that was talking about a writers DNA. Not in the sense of their actual DNA, but in the sense that no matter what you do, what you write, you will always write in a style so specific and unique that it could only have been written by that one person. I think it applies to everyone, not just people who write a lot. It's weird to think about, though there are a handful of authors out there that I am quite confident that if I was presented with an annoynomus short story written by them I would be able to identify their voice within it. I bring this up because I feel like I have probably covered all this ground before. That I've spoken on the subject of stupidity in a positive manner, but I can't remember a time that I've actually done that. Of course when I go back and read some of my older posts or journals I realize that I have almost no recollection of actually writing most of those things. Honestly, I couldn't tell you half of what I had written on this blog in the last week. Maybe that is just part of why all writing by the same author sounds so similar, we just repeat ourselves over and over again until we die, not realizing that we've already said everything we were thinking about.
There is a halfway decent chance that I just nodded off while taking a moment to think about what to say next. To an intelligent person that would be a good indication that it was time to stop writing and go to bed.
I had been planning on talking about the conference in Oregon on this blog, but I can't think of too much to tell about it. It felt like most of the time it was just about having new members get together and meet each other. We were in classes a lot of the time, but the classes involved a lot of arts and crafts and very quickly thrown together presentations we were asked to do. They gave me a tote bag and a t-shirt that say "Vista" on them. I also got some buttons. One day I went on a walk around the town and realized that it felt almost exactly like every other Oregon town I've ever been in. I also realized that I have wandered around, usually on my own, in several Oregon towns, and in those occasions I have occasionally been drunk. I have bought at least ten books from book stores in Oregon. I have never eaten sea food while in Oregon.
There was one day when I had a little free time to hang out and I couldn't go back to my room because they had stuck me at a different hotel than the one the conference was in because I was one of the lucky few that didn't get a room there. I found myself laying on a couch in the lobby reading some Vonnegut (which I have been pronouncing "Vognet" for some time now without realizing I was doing that) and a girl I had barely talked to at before that point was chatting with her dad on the phone a few feet away. That was possibly the most comfortable I'd been in a long time. Everything just felt right, and having a cute girl sitting next to me having an informal conversation that I didn't have to pay any attention to at all made it feel like I was finally at peace with the world. I realized how much I've been missing by not having someone in my life. Normally when I think about getting a girlfriend all I can think about is going on dates and engaging in small talk for a few hours in the hopes that she will eventually want to sleep with me. I forgot about those quiet moments. Normally I figure if I am not doing something with other people there is really no point in being around those people. If we are just sitting around I get bored and want to go home and turn on Netflix or Hulu or read a book or a comic or two. But I'm so damn isolated.
There was no way to know for certain, but I felt like I was a sort of different person in those classes than I had ever been at UNR. It has been a while, and even though I often feel my life has stagnated, I suppose that my personality is changing ever so slightly. In a way its terrifying to realize that you have been living with a different person than you thought you were living with, especially when that person is you. But it wasn't like I was a stranger there, myself. Being forced to have endless small talk with people, to repeat everything that I had already said over and over and over again to a cacophony (I love that word, cacophony, I'm probably using it incorrectly, but I don't care) of people that I would probably not talk to ever again just gave me a chance to focus on the little parts of socializing I often over look. Still, I didn't care so much about what they were saying. There were so many people that told me the whole rundown of who they were and what they were doing with Vista and I lost interest after the second person. Actually, I sort of lost interest before that. But we have to talk to get to know one another. Even if it is inane babble. You talk to someone for five minutes and all of a sudden, even though you really know almost nothing about them, they cease to be a stranger and become this person that has some things to say to you from time to time. And the transformation is instantaneous. From stranger to friend in a heart beat. If I ever meet most of them again, though, I probably won't remember them, won't remember anything about them. We will be passing trains in the night once more. But a quick howdy and we are back to being friends. At least for the moment.
Not that there is a problem with that. Our Monkeysphere can only handle about one hundred and fifty people at a time. Monkey's can only really register a certain number (I think around fifty) of other monkey's as actually being part of their world. Any monkey that they don't know and haven't had contact with gets a completely different treatment than the ones within their Monkeysphere. That isn't to say that who is in the Monkeysphere is a constant, it changes. We can allow others in at the expense of pushing some of the people we haven't seen for a while out. Humans can only register 150 different humans. That means that we only really think of about 150 out of the 6 billion people on earth as actually, living, breathing humans at a time. The rest are just grouped and sorted and we can't tell them from Adam. We don't bother to think or worry about these other people because they are not really real. They don't exist in our world. They aren't even part of our karass. The Monkeysphere theory was written by a comedian whose name I can't remember.
Those people I met were in my Monkeysphere for a few days. They lived, they had issues, they had personalities. When I remember them in a few weeks, though, they will become generic stereotypes in my mind. This isn't because they aren't nice people, or that I don't actually give a shit about any of them, as I feel I give at least some sort of shit about them, but simply because my Monkeysphere can't handle that many people. They will simply fall into the background of my brain, allowing room for others to come in. I wonder who got pushed out already. I wonder how many people have ever had a chance to make it back in. I remember the first time I met Sara I couldn't register her as a person at all. I didn't remember, just days later, that she had even been there, that I had already met this person I thought I was meeting for the first time. My Monkeysphere must have been full that day. She made it in though, my brain must have turned someone else I hadn't seen in a while into a caricature. There are probably thousands of people that have been pushed out of my Monkeysphere. It's enjoyable to realize that its simply because my brain can't handle that many people and not because I am a forgetful ass.
There is so much in these blogs that I want to start weaving into fiction. I've decided that I need to go back to carrying around my little notebooks but instead of just jotting down random ideas I should write full stories in them. Grammatically incorrect with horrible spelling and handwriting, but just write them down. Then strip out the good parts of them later. Flash writing. Lightning stories. Story-storming. I'm sort of stuck on a lightning theme for what to call them, but I think you get my meaning
Cheb blamed me for his wanting to write some fiction over the break from school in his last blog. He blamed me because I convinced him to blog a hell of a lot more, and all that writing was making him want to write more. Funny how that works.
Editors note: I found the link to the original Monkeysphere article. The author is David Wong.
Wouldn't it be mad if everyone could just instantly do a calculation like the one I put up there in there head? If we were all so freaking intelligent that we just automatically could understand the value of almost any equation? I can't even tell you what 11³ is without checking on a calculator. But in a world were everyone was so amazing at math I have to assume that we would be much better at a lot of things. We would know how to reach out with art in ways that we haven't even thought of yet. Our planet could be under our control, with a council of citizens who got together to decide what areas should get snow or rain. With a government that was run so efficiently, so smoothly, that we would have all of our needs met so long as we maintained some sort of involvement in society.
Of course that is just gibberish. Mathematicians who look into the face of infinity calculations often go mad. And I don't believe that there is any time in our future where we won't be just completely idiotic. Paul spent ten minutes in the bathroom waiting for someone to come get him because a card in a game told him to (the game was called Quelf if you are interested). I pretended to be covered in hot lava (well, just lava I suppose, as I believe it is called something else when it cools down. I forget though, I mean, I've heard of lava rocks, but that might just be the layman term for whatever that type of rock is. Anyway, it was hot, damnit.) Brianna spent half the night with a box under her shirt. We are simply designed to be idiotic. If we have to be smart and efficient all the time we end up just wanting to kill everyone. No matter how smart we get, how good our technology gets, how high a level our society achieves, we are still going to need to act like idiots. We still have to make fools of ourselves, get drunk and do stupid things, and stay out partying till dawn even though we have something important to do in the morning. Otherwise we become machines, we become zombies stuck in automated motion. We become nothing. Stupidity is what gives us our humanity.
I don't know anything. Not really, and I'm not talking in some philosophical way, I mean I know nothing. Who won the world series last year? I don't know. Why does it only snow when the temperature is within a certain range and not when it is below it? I don't know. Why am I writing a blog at 2 am instead of going to bed like my body has been trying to get me to do all day? Well, thats because I am an idiot.
When I was younger I thought I knew pretty much everything I'd ever need to know about life. Now, still a fairly young adult, I am realizing that I don't know the tiniest fraction of what I need to know about life. Sometimes I wished I lived in some sort of commune where everyone had the exact same level of knowledge. I mean, some people would have to be better at some things for us to function, but I am talking about living in a little place were we only allow X books and Y movies and Z television shows. We can only read or watch or listen to what is brought in, we all know each other, we all talk to each other, we never bother with trivia questions. And we never really run out of things to talk to each other about. How many times have you been at a party and everyone starts talking about some movie they had all seen and you hadn't? You just sit there and sort of listen but mostly get bored. If everyone you knew had all seen the exact same movies, you could talk endlessly with them all the time on the subject of movies.
Obviously there is a need for diversity. I can't ever see or read everything, but I can bring to the table the information I have and try to combine it with other peoples so we can all enhance our knowledge. This is why I don't think we will really see a commune like that, although, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I've just said that I wanted to go and live in a cult somewhere. Again, let me refer you to the fact that I am an idiot.
There was something somewhere out there on the internet that I was reading that was talking about a writers DNA. Not in the sense of their actual DNA, but in the sense that no matter what you do, what you write, you will always write in a style so specific and unique that it could only have been written by that one person. I think it applies to everyone, not just people who write a lot. It's weird to think about, though there are a handful of authors out there that I am quite confident that if I was presented with an annoynomus short story written by them I would be able to identify their voice within it. I bring this up because I feel like I have probably covered all this ground before. That I've spoken on the subject of stupidity in a positive manner, but I can't remember a time that I've actually done that. Of course when I go back and read some of my older posts or journals I realize that I have almost no recollection of actually writing most of those things. Honestly, I couldn't tell you half of what I had written on this blog in the last week. Maybe that is just part of why all writing by the same author sounds so similar, we just repeat ourselves over and over again until we die, not realizing that we've already said everything we were thinking about.
There is a halfway decent chance that I just nodded off while taking a moment to think about what to say next. To an intelligent person that would be a good indication that it was time to stop writing and go to bed.
I had been planning on talking about the conference in Oregon on this blog, but I can't think of too much to tell about it. It felt like most of the time it was just about having new members get together and meet each other. We were in classes a lot of the time, but the classes involved a lot of arts and crafts and very quickly thrown together presentations we were asked to do. They gave me a tote bag and a t-shirt that say "Vista" on them. I also got some buttons. One day I went on a walk around the town and realized that it felt almost exactly like every other Oregon town I've ever been in. I also realized that I have wandered around, usually on my own, in several Oregon towns, and in those occasions I have occasionally been drunk. I have bought at least ten books from book stores in Oregon. I have never eaten sea food while in Oregon.
There was one day when I had a little free time to hang out and I couldn't go back to my room because they had stuck me at a different hotel than the one the conference was in because I was one of the lucky few that didn't get a room there. I found myself laying on a couch in the lobby reading some Vonnegut (which I have been pronouncing "Vognet" for some time now without realizing I was doing that) and a girl I had barely talked to at before that point was chatting with her dad on the phone a few feet away. That was possibly the most comfortable I'd been in a long time. Everything just felt right, and having a cute girl sitting next to me having an informal conversation that I didn't have to pay any attention to at all made it feel like I was finally at peace with the world. I realized how much I've been missing by not having someone in my life. Normally when I think about getting a girlfriend all I can think about is going on dates and engaging in small talk for a few hours in the hopes that she will eventually want to sleep with me. I forgot about those quiet moments. Normally I figure if I am not doing something with other people there is really no point in being around those people. If we are just sitting around I get bored and want to go home and turn on Netflix or Hulu or read a book or a comic or two. But I'm so damn isolated.
There was no way to know for certain, but I felt like I was a sort of different person in those classes than I had ever been at UNR. It has been a while, and even though I often feel my life has stagnated, I suppose that my personality is changing ever so slightly. In a way its terrifying to realize that you have been living with a different person than you thought you were living with, especially when that person is you. But it wasn't like I was a stranger there, myself. Being forced to have endless small talk with people, to repeat everything that I had already said over and over and over again to a cacophony (I love that word, cacophony, I'm probably using it incorrectly, but I don't care) of people that I would probably not talk to ever again just gave me a chance to focus on the little parts of socializing I often over look. Still, I didn't care so much about what they were saying. There were so many people that told me the whole rundown of who they were and what they were doing with Vista and I lost interest after the second person. Actually, I sort of lost interest before that. But we have to talk to get to know one another. Even if it is inane babble. You talk to someone for five minutes and all of a sudden, even though you really know almost nothing about them, they cease to be a stranger and become this person that has some things to say to you from time to time. And the transformation is instantaneous. From stranger to friend in a heart beat. If I ever meet most of them again, though, I probably won't remember them, won't remember anything about them. We will be passing trains in the night once more. But a quick howdy and we are back to being friends. At least for the moment.
Not that there is a problem with that. Our Monkeysphere can only handle about one hundred and fifty people at a time. Monkey's can only really register a certain number (I think around fifty) of other monkey's as actually being part of their world. Any monkey that they don't know and haven't had contact with gets a completely different treatment than the ones within their Monkeysphere. That isn't to say that who is in the Monkeysphere is a constant, it changes. We can allow others in at the expense of pushing some of the people we haven't seen for a while out. Humans can only register 150 different humans. That means that we only really think of about 150 out of the 6 billion people on earth as actually, living, breathing humans at a time. The rest are just grouped and sorted and we can't tell them from Adam. We don't bother to think or worry about these other people because they are not really real. They don't exist in our world. They aren't even part of our karass. The Monkeysphere theory was written by a comedian whose name I can't remember.
Those people I met were in my Monkeysphere for a few days. They lived, they had issues, they had personalities. When I remember them in a few weeks, though, they will become generic stereotypes in my mind. This isn't because they aren't nice people, or that I don't actually give a shit about any of them, as I feel I give at least some sort of shit about them, but simply because my Monkeysphere can't handle that many people. They will simply fall into the background of my brain, allowing room for others to come in. I wonder who got pushed out already. I wonder how many people have ever had a chance to make it back in. I remember the first time I met Sara I couldn't register her as a person at all. I didn't remember, just days later, that she had even been there, that I had already met this person I thought I was meeting for the first time. My Monkeysphere must have been full that day. She made it in though, my brain must have turned someone else I hadn't seen in a while into a caricature. There are probably thousands of people that have been pushed out of my Monkeysphere. It's enjoyable to realize that its simply because my brain can't handle that many people and not because I am a forgetful ass.
There is so much in these blogs that I want to start weaving into fiction. I've decided that I need to go back to carrying around my little notebooks but instead of just jotting down random ideas I should write full stories in them. Grammatically incorrect with horrible spelling and handwriting, but just write them down. Then strip out the good parts of them later. Flash writing. Lightning stories. Story-storming. I'm sort of stuck on a lightning theme for what to call them, but I think you get my meaning
Cheb blamed me for his wanting to write some fiction over the break from school in his last blog. He blamed me because I convinced him to blog a hell of a lot more, and all that writing was making him want to write more. Funny how that works.
Editors note: I found the link to the original Monkeysphere article. The author is David Wong.
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