Tuesday, October 12, 2004 |
Ultimatum - 12:27 pm
Okay, song-blogging is generally tedious.
But if you don't think Cross Bones Style by Cat Power is one of the most profoundly moving songs ever created by a human hand, you're dead to me. I'm sorry, you just are.
consider | 2 considerations
There is nothing funnier than this. Nothing. - 5:53 pm
If, like me, you at one time were a Metallica fan (A random sample suggests that the Metallica fan is now completely extinct. And yes, I stopped being a fan well before Lars decided to shiv their fans in order to. . well. . God knows why he did that) and have, at times, enjoyed Beatles songs, you will be happy to know that no longer will you have to look in two different places for your Beatles and Metallica songs!
For Beatallica mashes it all together, including the legendary Hetfield yeeeeaaaghh.
Do yourself a favor and enjoy Hey Dude.
consider | 3 considerations
Thursday, September 30, 2004 |
Fall before my softness, human! - 9:25 pm
So Frost, my three-year-old son, is currently in a robot-loving phase (also loving construction vehicles and monster trucks. I had nothing to do with this, I swear). I used to play a lot of Battletech/Mechwarrior, which was this futuristic tabletop/roleplaying game wherein people would climb inside big lumbering mechs (or robots, as far as Frost is concerned) and shoot at each other, and I still have the sourcebooks. Frost adores these and demands that Shannon I read them like storybooks. Except they aren't storybooks, they're just repetitive lists of mech types and their armaments. So we have to make up stories, like 'Gladiator was playing in the park and then he saw his friend Marauder. They played Frisbee, until Marauder's mom, Mauler, called them home to dinner' and so on. This happens a lot.
Tonight I found an unopened pack of cards for the ill-fated Mechwarrior CCG, and I opened it and gave them to Frost. He demanded to know all of the names and then he carried them around for the rest of the night. And he's just gone to bed snuggling them to his chest. Kind of disturbing, and yet adorable.
It occured to me that perhaps he would like a plush, stuffed robot. He has an Iron Giant and a few MegaMen and what not, but nothing he could sleep comfortably with. Sadly, googling has revealed nothing! In fact, all I found were comments from other people saying 'why can't I find any plush robots?'.
So if anyone has any leads on how to get a hold of a bear-sized stuffed robot. . preferably in the 50's Iron Giant style, that would be greatly appreciated.
consider | 7 considerations
Wednesday, September 29, 2004 |
But how do you say 'Vodka'? - 6:03 pm
First day of Russian class this morning. Misha! Kak dela?!
Actually my third go at Russian. I took the same Russian 101 class for a couple of weeks about 5 years ago, then had to withdraw for the quarter. Then I worked through some Pimsleur CDs over the last year or so. I could pretty comfortably embarass myself and insult someone at this point, which is always the sweet spot of language learning.
The instructor (I'm fairly sure he's not a professor) is a classic. He's kind of a small, stocky guy that could fit in just as well as a high school PE teacher. And when he gives Russian phrases for the class to repeat, he doesn't speak them, he un-self-consciously belts them out. . as if Misha were his most bosom friend, and seeing him again was his greatest joy. Good fun.
As a sort of quick self-test, I tried to mentally translate all of the phrases we worked on into the other Languages of Interest(tm): Welsh, French, Japanese, and Arabic. I have confirmed that I am despicably rusty, and will be remedying that forthwith.
Next up: Mandarin.
consider
Extended thoughts on the patina - 3:56 pm
Notes:
There is in modern consumer society a fundamental dischord between the apparent, or advertised, self and the actual self. The apparent self is the abstraction of one's personality that one maintains and advertises in order to participate fully in modern civil life. It requires oversimplifying aspects and tendencies, rejecting internal contradiction, and selecting modes of being from a limited menu. Living this way is more helpful to social thinkers, marketers, employers, fellow city-dwellers, and anyone else who must deal with large numbers of people every day. The alternative. . to be fully real, present, and individual .. overwhelms their abstractions, is resented, and does not allow you to participate in the apparent rewards of that life.
There are three ways of resolving this dichotomy. The large majority attempt to balance it in perpetuity, resulting in confusion, spiritual unrest, and mental sickness. Because the healthy human mind cannot maintain two selves, we either select the advertised self as real, in which case all examples of the true self are seen as a failure or abomination, resulting in self-loathing or surrender to failure; or we select the true self as real, but continue to maintain the advertised self in a state of constant resentment and fear of exposure.
The second solution is to attempt to eliminate the real self in favor of the advertised self. This requires constant mental distraction and total immersion in the advertised self. Gluttonous interaction with social and societal tropes that reinforce the existence of the advertised self. Because the advertised self is false, convincing oneself of its trueness requires building structures around it that give it strength, as well as numbing the critical facilities with alcohol or entertaiment. And the recent advent of anti-depressents to regulate emotional faculties is a large step towards chemically eliminating the true self completely.
The third solution. . one that in modern western culture is almost totally abandoned (largely due to the absence of accepted spiritual paths and particularly the absense of monastic lifestyles). . is to embrace the true self and abandon the advertised self. It requires eliminating the cultural and social struts of the false self. . evaluating them instead purely on their inherent merits. . not their ability to maintain the structures of falsity. It requires dealing honestly with all questions of the self. . abandoning vanity, competition, and reflexive self-deprecation for an evolving self-awareness.
consider | 8 considerations
- 12:25 am
The wayfarer, Perceiving the pathway to truth, Was struck with astonishment. It was thickly grown with weeds. "Ha," he said, "I see that none has passed here In a long time." Later he saw that each weed Was a singular knife. "Well," he mumbled at last, "Doubtless there are other roads." - Stephen Crane
consider
From - 11:45 pm
From a distance a face in makeup is smooth and clean. . flat. But if you look closely you see the cracks in the patina and the skin underneath. Up close, the queen's gardens house slugs and twisted stumps. It's the same with any sort of beautification. . it only works from a distance. And because as human beings we want to find beauty, and we want to agree about what beauty is, we train ourselves to never come that close. Never to break that illusion.
There is also a patina that covers our every day. It's there to make your life and that of everyone around you a flat, happy narrative. . clean and organized. We know it isn't true, but we can't acknowledge the flaws in that illusion, because we don't know how to live without it.
Poetry is what lives in the cracks you see if you look at life up close. And that's why I like it. Buddhism is what prepares you to look closely and steadies you through it. And that why I like it, too.
consider
Frost's first poem - 12:01 am
As dictated to obsidian
It’s about broken monster trucks. This is a broken excavator. And this is a broken shark, because somebody ate it. And this is a broken pirate ship, because somebody sailed it Away and it sank
This is a broken bird with no wings, because there was A strong wind and its wings blew off because Somebody didn’t glue them on And it is the sky And this is my name
consider | 3 considerations
- 11:30 pm
Astronomers call it V838 Monocerotis. But we know it is a celestial dragon, eater of worlds.

consider | 4 considerations
Friday, February 20, 2004 |
One day - 1:14 am
One day the Buddha was sitting in the wood with thirty or forty monks. They had an excellent lunch and they were enjoying the company of each other. There was a farmer passing by and the farmer was very unhappy. He asked the Buddha and the monks whether they had seen his cows passing by. The Buddha said they had not seen any cows passing by. The farmer said, "Monks, I'm so unhappy. I have twelve cows and I don't know why they all ran away. I have also a few acres of a sesame seed plantation and the insects have eaten up everything. I suffer so much I think I am going to kill myself. The Buddha said, "My friend, we have not seen any cows passing by here. You might like to look for them in the other direction." So the farmer thanked him and ran away, and the Buddha turned to his monks and said, "My dear friends, you are the happiest people in the world. You don't have any cows to lose. If you have too many cows to take care of, you will be very busy. "That is why, in order to be happy, you have to learn the art of cow releasing (laughter). You release the cows one by one. In the beginning you thought that those cows were essential to your happiness, and you tried to get more and more cows. But now you realize that cows are not really conditions for your happiness; they constitute an obstacle for your happiness. That is why you are determined to release your cows."
consider | 1 consideration
Tuesday, February 17, 2004 |
Disney acquires Muppets - 2:56 pm
Story here
Now if only they could acquire The Dark Crystal and relaunch that franchise. . .
consider | 1 consideration
Friday, February 13, 2004 |
I am CDBaby's bitch - 11:35 pm
Tonight he's into me for
It's a sweet torture.
consider | 2 considerations
Thursday, February 12, 2004 |
In honor of Valentine's Day, love poetry that I never write - 12:44 am
I etch with such butchery into paper and stone (Fingernails splintered by the desperate effort) A safehouse for these images That even now fall away from two smudged eyes Leaving only smoky trails like silk wings:
The greens and whites and mint wind Of bare moonlight through the leafen ceiling Creates a wall of shadow Between: I Fumbling for context in an evening needing none And you Draped between grass and red wool in Languid curves Of such mathematical and holy purity That they can only be the word in flesh for God
A time for candleflame vows and Stillnesses More perfect for being more rare
consider
Tuesday, February 10, 2004 |
Old School, Part the Deux - 5:59 pm
I have re-enlisted for another tour at the University of Washington, having left my previous tour half-complete due to certain. . favorable. . market conditions in the technology sector that manifested themselves thusly:
"Degree schmegree! Can you programmate a computator? You can?! Take this money! Swim in it!! Swim in this pile of money!"
I might be overstating things. Regardless, given a choice between slogging through the rest of my degree. . an experience I wasn't particularly enjoying at the time. . with the hope of acquiring a stable position with my Bachelors in Linguistics (teehee), or taking a nice job working on things I like to do anyway. . well. . I took the money and ran.
But now I want to run back. I'd like to have my degree. I'd like to go to Law School. I'd like to get an advanced CS degree. I'd like to get access to the archery range at the IMA.
So I re-applied today, with the hope of doing 10 credits a quarter or so year round via online courses and early-morning late-night classes.
But ye gods. I went to the registration office today, and they're all CHILDREN. I was never that young.
consider | 5 considerations
Thursday, December 11, 2003 |
philosophage - 12:59 am
Had an interesting revelation/event on the bus on the way home yesterday, which in my own stiflingly analytical way, I broke down like this:
Revelation 1) There exists an archetype of behavior or a certain personality that I perceive as an ideal form. Interestingly, this archetype is not a natural extension of a majority of my typical personality, which is what you'd expect if you thought ideals were simply projections of current states. In fact, I expect for most people that their ideal is more a counter than a consequent of their current behavior. Thus all the self-loathing. Shame, that.
My personal ideal personality has strong overtones of behavior usually associated with religious figures (I mean clerics, monks, etc, not gods). . humility, non-attachment, generosity, sense of humor, etc.
There's further evidence for the existance of this independent ideal in that I can triangulate to it from multiple directions. For one, I recognize it in interactions with or stories about others with those traits. . a fundamental understanding and attraction. For another, I can inferentially determine that those behaviors lead to happiness. I observe conditions that lead to happiness, consequences that lead to those conditions, behaviors that lead to those consequences, and thus states of mind that lead to those behaviors.
2) I am very much a creature of moods, as I suspect all people are. In times of deep contemplation I have certain plans for improvements to my life. . progress towards this ideal I've considered. . in other times I just want to play video games and eat pecan pie. In the contemplative moods I am disappointed in my progress, due in large part to the frequency of pecan pie moods.
2a) Is it fair or consistent to strive towards the ideal if I only want it in certain moods? I believe so, even if those moods are in the minority, because in all cases I recognize the preference for that state. . the difference is that in the lazy moods it seems like too much work, or not a significant goal.
Most of this is actually backstory. I've dwelled along similar ideas for a while. . for years. Possibly my major hangup.
But I think I've found a way out of being completely subject to my own meandering moods.
3) In some senses it is useful to consider multiple moods as being multiple independent aspects within the same mind (this is actually more in tune with modern cognitive science than you'd expect). Exaggerating that representation for the sake of this insight, let's consider them completely different actors. . call them HolyJosh and LazyJosh. Both HolyJosh and LazyJosh recognize that being a good person and taking care of self and family and spending less time on garbage is better, but LazyJosh just can't bring himself to do it. . too easy to veg out. When two actual people are in this state, the HolyJosh type has a few typical responses, in decreasing order of effectiveness: force, emotional manipulation, repetition, setting a good example, and asking for favors
Force involves taking the keys away, throwing the cigarettes away, locking the doors. Whatever. Bodily preventing a person from engaging in bad behaviors. Internally, that means, when I'm in resentful mood, deleting all the games off of the hard drive, selling the TV. . that sort. I think nearly everyone tries to resolve inner conflict this way. . throwing the booze away, and so on. I think it almost always fails, for the reasons you expect. LazyJosh doesn't give a fuck. LazyJosh will download more games and buy more cigarettes. And resent HolyJosh for being such a dick.
Emotional manipulation is mostly yelling. PersonGood trying to berate PersonBad into being good with insults and screams. Obviously would rarely work. Most of the rest of internal resolution tries to go this way. This is the heart of self-loathing and all good neuroses.
Repetition, in an external situation, is the constant reminder of the potential of good behavior, via overt appeals. Mothers are good at this. You should get out more. Obviously healthier than the previous. Internally, this would be something like hanging inspirational sayings all over your house, commiting yourself to reading a bible and attending church regularly, and so on. LazySelf isn't as resentful, because you're not saying stop this or stop that. . you're saying just read this stuff and listen to good words regularly and you'll figure it out.
See where I'm going with the inner/outer analogy? Neat, huh?
Setting a good example is very effective externally. Being surrounded by good people makes it so easy to be a good person. Internally, this means doing things when you're in a productive mood. Clean the house, buy something useful, go out with your wife. Do things that leave a lasting image, so when you get in a lazy mood you have a reminder of your potential. I try to write poetry.
Asking for favors is vastly underestimated when you're trying to help someone. Giving someone else an opportunity to be a nice person is golden. They're setting an example for themself, rather than you setting it for them. This is where the metaphor gets a bit weird, but stick with me. The internal version is actually asking yourself to do very minor things all of the time. Nothing big. My example is wearing this necklace made out of obsidian we found in the backyard. In my contemplative moods I like this obsidian very much. In my lazy moods I don't really care. But I've asked myself, as a favor, to always wear it, even when I don't care. And in my lazy moods I do it, as a favor to my better moods, and it feels good.
I believe nearly all dogma and ritual is fundamentally a way to get around the fracturing of moods. . but I don't believe in the underlying backstory. . the brimstone and the karmic reincarnation. My lazy self is too clever for that armtwisting. But now I've found my out.
My lazy self can do good work as a favor to my better self.
Navelgazing complete. As you were.
consider | 8 considerations
Wednesday, September 3, 2003 |
Surveys for science - 3:54 pm
Harvard's doing a questionnaire on morality http://moral.wjh.harvard.edu/
Enjoy
consider | 3 considerations
- 12:30 am

consider
Ungoliant lives - 3:05 am
Weekend plans: Purchase used computer system for FreeBSD server (check) Attend Songfight Live Featuring MCFrontalot (nocheck. pre-empted by following plan) Barbeque in Auburn (check) Install FreeBSD (currently checking) Install Webcam (todo) Install new computer speakers (todo) Stain arbor (maybe) Game of Crisco Twister (made that one up)
That is all
consider | 3 considerations
Full disclosure - 11:29 pm
I like both football and elves.
Strangely, I've never had a good time with Blood Bowl. I can't account for this. It may be a case of not having a good social environment for it. The pack I run with is sufficiently obsessed with roleplaying games, but has never really gotten onto the board game schtick, which I find a little disappointing. A few stray games of Munchkin and Guillotine aside, it's pretty much the endless notebooks and florid narrative of RPGs. I love them dearly, mind you, but there's something compelling about knowing your game is going to be done in half an hour, or in the case of Rise and Decline of the Third Reich, a couple of months. Allows for more variety. But alack, my bookshelves are littered with exciting board games that have been played 0-1 times by people aged 13-adult. Like Risk 2210 AD. Played one time. Or Titan. Classic game. Played to completion 0 times.
I sigh.
consider | 3 considerations
- 11:29 pm
Here's my idea for a lj-companion site:
It's a book-journal wherein you enter what you're reading currently, indicating the date you started and the date you finished, so you have a nice timeline and a log of what you've read. You can enter running comments and a final review when you're done. You can link through to your LJ-friends book journals. For you see, some of the crackpots on my friends list might be reading something worthwhile.
Bring me my wishing cap! I'll call the Winged Web Monkeys to code me them slippers!
consider
Peoplecontrol - 10:41 pm
Say you're an unethical person or corporation (which is kind of like a person, in America) and you want someone to do something (give you money, for example).
The easiest and most direct way is to make them do it. With force and coersion and such (a robbery, for example). However, this is untenable in the long run as you will be castigated and despised and eventually overcome.
A more successful technique is to make them want to do it by associating the action with something they inherently desire, like sex or fame (advertising, for example). This keeps you from getting run out of town on a rail while still harvesting your crop of cash. However, people will still eventually grow wise to your tricks and resent you for failing to satisfy them.
The next iteration, of course, is to make them want to want to do it by associating the very act of wanting with happiness. I'll let you work out the concrete examples of this on your own (hint: it involves Prozac and W Bush's response to September 11th).
Current Book: Dhalgren, by Delany
consider | 3 considerations
- 11:56 pm
Shannon and I are working on a puzzle. This is me-argot for 'I was suddenly obsessed with the idea of getting a puzzle and got one and worked on it for about half an hour and now Shannon is doing the rest' It's an interesting picture, though. Lots of people with spears. Apparently it's a painting of one of Alexander's battles near (in?) Constantinople. Lots of spears. And people dressed in brightly-colored renaissance clothing, which is an ugly quirk apparently common among renaissance painters. Sort of like painting the Pieta with Jesus in ghetto-fabulous bell bottoms.
Anyway, my point was that in purchasing this puzzle of 2,000 pieces, I had to fight to hold my hand from purchasing the Alpha Puzzle. A puzzle of such catastrophic girth and fortitude that it would have crushed me mere seconds from leaving the store.
I bring you Four Historical World Maps, an 18,000 piece puzzle measuring roughly 3 meters by 2 meters. I said METERS! Kiss its ring. We are not worthy.
Oh, here's our puzzle. Lots of spears. And grass. Current Mood: asymptotic
Current Music: MC Frontalot. He fronts the most. It's the amount
consider
- 11:29 pm
I'm a O90-C6-E2-A32-N18 Big Five!!
I leave it up to your googling skills, should you choose to accept it, to figure out what the hell I'm talking about. Pretty straight up with what I think, and compatible with ye auld Myers Briggs, but the A32 is a bit of a surprise. I thought I was nice, but I'm an ASSHOLE. The test told me so.
consider | 4 considerations
plastic landscapes - 7:05 pm
obsidian picked up a racetrack set for Frost today. It was one of those 'normally 120$ now only 10$!' deals that somehow requires you to partake. Like on our deathbeds we'll get bonus points for how much money we saved, even if we didn't want the stuff in the first place.
But in this case, the stuff is pretty cool. Lots of flat plastic strips and little jiggers to connect them, and curves and loops and such. Plus the cars you wiggle back and forth to build up lots of energy, which will likely be spent shooting off your track at some unnoticed crack and smacking the cat. This one even comes with little plastic girders and joins so you can make a doozer-like lattice to support ever more brazen loops.
But it also means that another few kilos of toy-mass have come in, and none gone out. Soon we will reach critical mass and some sort of toy singularity will erupt in his room, sucking the entire universe into it while giggling and counting to 3.
Please, take toys from us. For your own sake.
consider | 4 considerations
Immanentizing the pedantic - 10:27 pm
I'm going to wallow in complete geekery this post.
The computer game market is at rock bottom right now. The only games getting any funding are derivative and inevitably disasterous MMORPGs, and derivative and bland licensed games. It's a typical business cycle. As any industry enters rapid growth, old white men put a ton of money into it, and play it very conservative to protect their investment. ROI is guaranteed with marketing, not with quality, which is hard to plan for. The only game I've so much as arched an eyebrow at in the last 6 months has been Tropico 2 (It's pirates! YARRRRR), and it was disappointing.
Gentoo Linux sweetly salves my wounds, though. It's the sex appeal of a lightweight Linux distro merged with the smooth FreeBSD ports system (any more adjectives and it'd be a full-fledged wine review. The nutty aroma of Gentoo only hints at the cascade of plum and cinnamon flavors to follow). I'd probably be better off just running straight FreeBSD, but something about Linux calls me back. . . that early lover you pretend to be over, but with whom you make eye contact far too many times for happenstance.
Let's see. . more geeking. . . Oh, Spirited Away is another Miyazaki classic. Beautiful and a half. I'd rate it just under Mononoke. Current Music: somafm - Groove Salad
consider | 4 considerations
found highway - 12:15 pm
this time it was the headlights frozen and the deer were in control
consider
First new verse in. . a long time - 4:11 am
the sleep-sighs of the firebreathers the sword swallower's delight where the comrades sleep in canvas below the night's nictitating calculus
Far removed from the machine-crafted who drown in their revulsion for skin and soil Well away from the glasschasm and its infinite mundane
every night they stitch this pattern drawing smoke and moss into the weave until the sun demarcates the next moment of their preternatural freefall
consider
My sweater collection goes unused - 12:46 pm
It should never. . ever. . ever. . be 90 degrees in Seattle.
Someone will hang for this.
- 3:27 pm
So this Howard Dean fellow. . . I like the cut of his jib.
consider | 3 considerations
Nietszche schmietszche - 12:42 am
That which doesn't fill you makes you hunger Current Mood: ultraviolet
Current Music: kexp
consider
|