| 02.10.2005 ~ 05:46 pm | ||||
Typically, the hero is presented with an incident that leads directly to instability in his life. As such, his initial goal is to return to stability. However, the hero’s stability is, in fact, an unsatisfying state—he just doesn’t know it. He may be in active denial, or he may be blissfully ignorant. One thing’s clear, though. The hero aims low (“Just get my life back to the way it was”) before eventually realizing that this won’t be enough. He needs to exceed the status quo. Once he does that, he becomes the hero..." The rules of adaptation. And we all knew this, but in detail: Hollywood is stupid. |
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| (opine?) |
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| inauguration day | ||||
| 01.21.2005 ~ 04:57 pm | ||||
It's not because I hate this country that I want to leave. It's because of what it's becoming. |
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| (opine?) |
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disappointed| repetitive? | |||
| 01.03.2005 ~ 07:00 pm | |||
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Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again. Andre Gide Let me find notes of myself in the words of another. |
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| (opine?) |
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| to be good | |||
| 01.03.2005 ~ 06:56 pm | |||
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You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good. You are only loitering and sluggard. Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles. In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you. Kahlil Gibran |
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| (opine?) |
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| ... | |||
| 12.28.2004 ~ 04:41 pm | |||
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth--that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way--an honorable way--in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life, I was able to understand the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory." Viktor Frankl |
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| (opine?) |
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| much much better | |||
| 12.17.2004 ~ 06:44 pm | |||
| Capable of feeling hungry now. ^_^ Trying to drag ze Brandon with me to get some Japanese food. (Most of their cooking is very light besides being tasty, and I won't have much sushi today, just to be safe.) | |||
| (opine?) |
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| my precious bodily fluids | ||||
| 12.15.2004 ~ 08:33 pm | ||||
The doctor was a really nice lady — I'm half-considering switching over to her as my family doctor, because I liked her a lot. She wound up sending me over to Harrisburg Hospital's ER for some tests, because she wanted to make sure I didn't have meningits. For those who may not know, bacterial meningitis can get in your spine, and if untreated, will kill you. So they took my blood, they took a urine sample, and as the definitive test I got to go through a neat little procedure called a spinal tap. Brandon got himself all worked up, because, as he put it, if it was him he wouldn't care. But he didn't want to see them sticking needles in me. I was glad he was there anyway. He's been babying me while I've been all miserable. Plus, he stopped home quick to call off work for me, and apparently scared the heck out of my boss! They numbed me up a little, put a needle between my vertebrae, and took some fluid from my spine. I had to lie flat on my back while we waited for the results. Turned out I actually just had a urinary tract infection. Fun! Apparently there's a not neglible (10%) chance of the needle hole in the spinal casing leaking, thus causing a horrendous headache, but mine's been pretty steady about the level it was. I just have this weird-ass little worry about taking off the band-aid they put on my back. For some reason spine fluid seems reaaally yucky. Plus, I would like to be sure the hole in the skin is totally healed before I go bathing or anything. So I'm stinky for now. Oh, and the antibiotics I have to take now make food hard to keep down. Very unpleasant. I felt better before I started taking them. Ah well, guess I better trust the doctors though. They were nice enough to write me a note for being off work. |
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sick| 12.01.2004 ~ 06:05 pm | ||||
Huckabees was just thrilling. The way existentialism should be, it just grabs you and brings you in the moment. You don't have to know philosophy to get it; it's very demonstrative and expressive of the thought-system behind it without getting expository or throwing fancy metaphysical terms at you. Oh, and if you can get a hold of it, the most fun essay I've read in quite some time — perhaps ever — is by Tom Robbins, 'In Defiance of Gravity.' That was in the September issue of Harper's. |
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| (opine?) |
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cheerful| wordplay | ||||
| 12.01.2004 ~ 05:57 pm | ||||
láng, gyöngy, anya, osz, szuz, kard, csók, vér, szív, and sír (flame, peral, mother, autumn, maiden, sword, kiss, blood, heart, and grave). A collection of word oddities. Beautiful words, as collected by same. I like chalice, anemone, thrush, and lullaby. Study on lovely words. Flawed in that meaning has too much influence, but interesting. ^_^ German words &mdash though Habseligkeiten doesn't just mean 'property', but something like 'stuff that is not necessarily viewed as precious by most people, but nonetheless held dear by the owner', like things a child collects in its pockets, the belongings one rescued when the house was destroyed, etc. It combines 'Hab(e)' = 'belongings' and 'Seligkeit' = 'blessedness.' A poem found on the interweb (I know not the author!) Glory be to God for dappled things— For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings; Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough; And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him. |
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| (opine?) |
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| whatnot | |||
| 11.26.2004 ~ 07:39 pm | |||
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The wonder of Photoshop [in chimerical form]. Psychological study shows that all humans are capable of committing torture. Not surprising given the Milgram experiment... now that's a scary peek into the dark corners. The beginings of virtual reality? Human Pacman. The journalist who broke the tape of a Marine shooting a wounded Iraqi explains his decision. |
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| (opine?) |
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| Dear America: | |||
| 11.03.2004 ~ 06:22 pm | |||
| I am deeply disappointed in you. | |||
| (opine?) |
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| rock epistemology | ||||
| 10.24.2004 ~ 12:55 pm | ||||
And unlike people, their self-identity doesn't stretch out to "owned" things, or to "relations," jobs, friends, loves. The lines we draw of "not-me" are very fuzzy. One of the stages of development in very young children is actually the realization that there are "others," things, people, not-me. And there's only this small space of flesh that we utterly reject the "other" in. That we refuse admittance. I don't believe we refuse admittance to the mind and self-image; in fact, I think that's part of what love is. The willingness to let the "other" in part determine who you are and will be. It would be lonely to be a rock, and boring, if you were a being that ought to be a person. But if you were a being who was perfectly happy to be exactly you, you would be content. You would let the universe roll over you, and you wouldn't need will the way people have will, want and wish that stretch and grab. You would contain and be. |
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| (opine?) |
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pensive| How to be cool? | |||
| 10.22.2004 ~ 04:49 pm | |||
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I like this answer: You are a man, so I am talking to you like a man, because an interest in cool is generally inspired by one thing, and that is to be catnip to the members of the sex that gives you those catnip-related feelings. I am also going to respond as though you wanted an answer instead of a hilarious zinger. If I am wrong about these things, my apologies. Young cool guys are a dime a dozen. Cool doesn't age well, either -- at least snarky, pop culture reference-heavy, detached, one upsmanship-type cool. I associate real cool with self-knowledge and lack of fear. An older man who is cool this way is rarer and far more exciting, because he's earned it by living well -- his mind, body, and spirit having grown more sophisticated but unjaded by experience. He's effortless, because he's spent a life exploring in the world, cultivating his tastes, and learning how to engage people without overwhelming them with all his toys of coolness. In his presence, you know you will eat, drink, and talk well, and that you will not be insulted or unappreciated, because he wouldn't bother with you at all if he didn't think well of you. He knows himself, so he is no longer obsessed by himself, and his comfort in his own skin means his interests and relationships are sincere. But you don't get to be this man if you try to be cool. Be adventuresome instead, be sweet, be brave -- be all the things that are so much rarer. Once the question ceases to matter to you, it will have happened. And if really is the point of interest, the ladies will love you, and not in that neurotic way inspired by insecure men thinly shellacked with the right clothes and phrases. They will relax, they will be bright and happy, they will kiss you with abandon, because they won’t be thinking “I wonder if my breath is winterfresh enough for Mr. Cool here”-- they will be too busy abandoning themselves to you for that. It’ll work on men too, if that would be better. It’ll work on anyone. Best of luck. ... more thoughts on this subject. |
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| (opine?) |
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| more lovely | |||
| 10.21.2004 ~ 05:22 pm | |||
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I *heart* wrought iron. Don't tread on me. Swan like folded paper. Yum. Patterns. T-shirts designed by random people. Voted on by random people. Printed for you! Blog recipies! Hands. |
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| (opine?) |
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| fun food facts | |||
| 10.18.2004 ~ 04:30 pm | |||
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There are five known fundamental tastes in the human palate: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. Umami is the proteiny, full-bodied taste of chicken soup, or cured meat, or fish stock, or aged cheese, or mother's milk, or soy sauce, or mushrooms, or seaweed, or cooked tomato. ... from an in-depth and interesting article on ketchup. Why some folks don't like broccoli. |
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| (opine?) |
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| prettyful | |||
| 10.13.2004 ~ 04:57 pm | |||
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You can do that with paper? (Nice 1, 2, 3, 4) And with fruit? Some art that plays with reality. (More, and higher quality images.) Another, same lines. Nice and nice. Lovely woodcuts. ~(more?) |
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| (opine?) |
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| [/doom & gloom mode] | ||||
| 10.13.2004 ~ 04:04 pm | ||||
We're all settled into our apartment, been here about a month I guess, and I love it. We've had a couple of living-together spats, but nothing too serious, and the place itself is wonderful. It's that "just right" of the littlest fit. And cheap. Yay cheap. Job I mentioned quite some time ago that I interviewed for I started on Monday with a nice pay raise, good consistent hours, complete lack of gay uniforms (casual Friday I can wear jeans! woot!) — heck, they're even starting my health insurance this month, so no gap in coverage. And I had Columbus day off. ^_^ Wonkiness with the telephone I worked out yesterday. The previous tenant hadn't bothered to disconnect the line or anything, so I had to get my landlord to call the company before I could get service in my name. If any of you HBG/FL people would like the number send me an email. Going to the Ren Faire and probably this cool little candy shop that carries old small fifties-companies candies later this week/end. That'll be fun. Saw Silver City yesterday at our local independent, the Midtown Cinema. It was excellent, a bit to the left and rather satirical without being too polemic. Monday night I got rather tipsy and blathered to m'love about a certain fanfic alternate-history kind of idea I've been batting around for a while using the Marvel Universe. We're both really enjoying laying out wouldn't-it-be-cools. I think we'll sit down and do some outlining tonight. And we'll write it. And we'll submit it. And if Marvel doesn't want it we'll put it up somewhere on the 'net for interested folks to read. Yes. This is the plan. (So if I don't talk any more about it, those of y'all who are sad to see creative people wasting potential should nag me. ^_~ ) ~ linky-linkies to come! |
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| (opine?) |
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pleased| welcome to the world of Rove | ||||
| 10.12.2004 ~ 04:26 pm | ||||
>_ |
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| (opine?) |
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frustrated
| [UPDATE] in their shoes | |||
| 10.02.2004 ~ 09:44 pm | |||
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If America were Iraq... And just how bad things are in graphic form. |
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| (opine?) |
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| To be more clear: | |||
| 10.02.2004 ~ 07:25 pm | |||
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Is this what a democracy is supposed to look like? In Florida, ex-convicts (who are supposed to have their rights as citizens returned to them!) are barred from voting. Unless, of course, they're Hispanic and more likely to vote Republican. In 2000, many black people whose names are similar to those of these same former convicts were also barred from voting. Several members of the House of Representatives protested this at the hearings, and were forced to stand down due to arcane procedural rules. In many areas, blacks and other minority voters were required to show both identification and a voter registration card (white folks in suburbia -- have you ever had to do this? When I voted, all we had to do was sign so they could compare that with the signature on file from our registration.) This year, as linked below, an official from one of the major makers of electronic voting machines has promised the election to Bush. You know, the ones with no paper trail. More scary news about electronic voting machines here. And if you think voting absentee is going to do you any better, remember that several states have missed their deadlines for sending out absentee ballots... so good luck to the folks overseas trying to return theirs on time. Yet the military (traditionally more conservative) has a website set up for their use only in the name of a mandate that was supposed to extend to all overseas voters. Some states even allow party officials to handle absentee ballots, and of these many lack a requirement for a witness or notary to also sign. In the same vein, several local-level elections have had court cases come out of the actions of party members in collecting voter registrations... and "mislaying" those likely to vote for the "wrong side." And in Ohio, state election officials are throwing out registrations because they aren't thick enough (also linked below). And y'all already know how I feel about gerrymandering (which the frickin' Supreme Court decided to allow in a case against Pennsylvania brought to them!) and the winner-take-all system. On a lighter note, something interesting: diagram + politics = goodness. |
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| (opine?) |
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bewilderbeast |
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