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Below are 20 journal entries, after skipping by the 20 most recent ones recorded in
Stephen's Blurty:
- Back then, I still lived with Shannon and Nate. I had help moving stuff around, and we even fought the water for a while. Not only did I have no help, but I also had more, heavier furniture to move.
- This flood was worse than the previous. The previous flood dampened the carpet and made its replacement necessary to avoid molding. The water was only visible on the tile and staining the carpet, and in some spots it didn't show unless one walked on it. This flood managed to fill the first floor up to mid-calf (around seven or eight inches of water). It nearly made it to the wall outlets, and the power company turned off the power as a preventative measure.
- The lightning. The previous flood had spare lightning. This one had it everywhere. The lightning was so ubiquitous that I had to abandon an attempt to reach the car.
| Monday, July 27th, 2009 | |
| 9:45 pm | CFPA What would a Consumer Financial Protection Agency do? |
| Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 | |
| 8:12 pm | Permanent Campaign There were a lot of books that came out in the denouement of the Bush administration. I recall former Press Secretary Scott McClellan's book was particularly damning. He had a passage constantly repeated in the media, the idea that the Bush administration was in a "permanent campaign." As McClellan explained, this meant the administration was more concerned with pushing image over substance and molding debates instead of taking decisive action. If you watch some of Obama's press conferences (including the one currently on air), one wonders if "permanent campaign" isn't a fact of life instead of a point to condemn with. To some extent, all political figures manage their image, yes, but one still wonders. |
| Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 | |
| 3:11 pm | Hundred Manly Movies Okay, a hundred movies every man should see. Let's see...I've seen about 25 of these movies. Funny. They count some entries as entire series, and for those I haven't seen completely I didn't include in my tally. |
| Monday, July 20th, 2009 | |
| 2:33 pm | "Some 50 years ago, a close friend and mentor advised me to read War & Peace once every five years. Why, I asked. Because, he said, after each five-year interval, war will be different, peace will be different, and you will be different. I took his advice and was never disappointed." - Frank Cummings |
| Monday, July 13th, 2009 | |
| 5:54 pm | |
| Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 | |
| 9:47 pm | Stone & Flood (written 4/7/09 1:50 am) It is interesting that the world should become so surreal over the past twenty-four hours. For those who don't know or didn't care to know, yesterday (Sunday) was Sean's birthday. To celebrate, he decided to get some weed and smoke his brains out. Robert was there too after a particularly long and hard day at work, and was also looking to unwind. The weed was procured around two in the morning, and not wanting to drive back to Wilmington just yet, I decided to stick around and partake. I had a theory once that people who didn't try or use drugs had a control complex: they were scared of losing control of their behaviors. If the mind can be said to exist in a room with no doors and one window, drugs exist to cloud that window, to make the shapes outside amorphous and intriguing. Some people do not like clouded windows, nor the nightmarish globs of what-may-be that come through them. Some want to retain that clarity. As I have discovered with alcohol, there is a certain amount of "high" one wants to obtain, and to go further than that fogs the window too much. My goal, with drug usage, is to obtain a pleasant clouding. This will allow me to exist in two contrary (not contradictory) states at once: to be able to see the images distorted, and find new meaning in them; and to see clearly through the window what the images are and always have been. These contrary states, placed together, offer a unique perspective that I have found advantageous. It is precisely this state which makes reading so interesting. That night, however, I definitely fogged the window too much. I have a reflex against knowingly becoming too drunk: I become ridiculously paranoid that I'm not in at least partial control anymore. I don't have this reflex with marijuana because I don't have enough experience with it. In a way this was inevitable: someone just getting used to alcohol is bound, sooner or later, to go too far and experience the repercussions. One lives and learns. When I entered the longest, deepest parts of the high, I didn't have a good sense of reality. Things became like a dream, and I began to doubt I was really there. I thought I was asleep, simply having a very boring dream of watching Robert and Amelia play Left 4 Dead. However, periodically I would snap back and realize I wasn't dreaming, and that my perception had become distraught, warped. Paranoia ensued. Eventually I'd again think I was dreaming. This cycle repeated maybe two or three times, after which the dreamlike cycle continued but the paranoid cycle subsided into something more of a bemused state. Unfortunately, I cannot accurately relate how many cycles it was until I stopped being paranoid because, along with losing my sense of reality, I lost my sense of time. The joke, "Everything's so significant," does not lie. I'm convinced everything became so significant that time slowed to a crawl, where every time I thought fifteen minutes had passed only one had. So here you have the combination of circumstances: I didn't know if I was dreaming or awake half the time, and the other half I was very confused as to why time had slowed down. It was at this point I decided to try something, and switched on my mp3 player to listen to some classical music. I put on the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony and laid down on a futon. I heard somewhere that marijuana's enhancement of the senses made music better. It was not a lie: because my sense of time was messed up, the 4th seemed to go on forever, and because I was so concentrated on it... It's really hard to describe. It is analogous to reading when buzzed. There was more to the music. It had always been there, but my interest had never been so focused on it to notice. Anyway, come the morning, I discovered there's an analogue between a hangover and whatever the hell it's called when you've smoked too much weed the night before. It's possible I was still high - I only got maybe four hours of sleep - but I doubt it. Anyway, between the two I prefer weed's hangover. A drinking hangover makes you ill-disposed to do anything, afraid of the sun, everything blurry, and sick in your stomach if you're unlucky. A weed hangover just makes you ill-disposed to move around, not because it's painful but because everything becomes ridiculously laborious. It's like chemically-induced procrastination. Anyway, I drove home to pick up some stuff I had left, and then made it back into Wilmington to get to class. I went to class, and then watched some of Yugioh the Abridged Series. I noticed I was falling asleep, so I took a nap. This was around quarter till one, and I woke up from my nap at half past five almost convinced it was a new day. I goofed off a little while longer and then the flood came. It was a similar situation as the one almost three years ago: lots and lots of rain. The difference this time around was that there was also lots and lots of lightning and thunder. I noticed that the parking lot was flooded and got out to move my car, but I had underestimated how fast it was raining. When I finally manuevered back to my apartment, the water was already getting in and at a chilling rate. I hastened to move my bed and other furniture upstairs, but I couldn't save some of it from getting water damage. The flood three years ago had several differing circumstances to this one which made this one particularly terrible: Coming home after that night of dreams and music to a status quo that doesn't want to stay that way, and rains upon my dreams of continuance: it was a very surreal twenty-four hours. Yes, I obviously failed to be poetic there, but at least I tried. (written now) I woke up for class, went to it, participated in it, came home, and promptly fell asleep until around 4:30. The rest of the day was a long, blurry slog of lifting and moving, moving and lifting. I had to remove as many things from the first floor as I could, since they were going to forcibly remove everything there tomorrow in order to clean up. The water had drained, but the carpet was still mushy with it. They turned the power back on before I woke up, so at least I had that. Unfortunately, there was no cable or Internet access. My father left his wireless modem behind for me to use, but I still didn't have a power cord until very recently. Getting another one set me back by about eighty bucks. The wireless modem uses the cellphone network to access the internet, and I also found out recently that we're on an unlimited plan so I don't have to worry about the amount of time it's logged on. There's the faintest glimmer of hope that the couch can be saved (I managed to move everything else up during the flood) if I cut off parts of the carpet and put the couch on the concrete, but the chance is pretty low. Refrigerator isn't working properly, and I had to run the car for some thirty minutes to clear out all the water that had gotten in the pipes. All in all, a dreary day. Current Mood: tired as hell Current Music: "Starless" ~ King Crimson |
| Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | |
| 11:29 am | Well, 'tis the end. See you on the other side. |
| Monday, June 29th, 2009 | |
| 4:47 pm | Expanding on this, Jesus has an entry on the trope page Deadpan Snarker, which leads to this. Some of my favorite paragraphs from that last link are these:
Current Music: "Take Me With You" ~ Morphine |
| Friday, June 26th, 2009 | |
| 7:22 am | Gravity's Rainbow excerpt SOLD ON SUICIDE Well I don't care-for, th' things I eat, Can't stand that boogie-woogie beat-- But I'm sold, on, suicide! You can keep Der Bingle too, a- And that darn "bu-bu-bu-boo," Cause I'm sold on suicide! Oh! I'm not to keen on ration stamps Or Mothers who used to be baby vamps, But I'm sold, on, suicide! Don't like it either, the Cards or Browns, Piss on the country and piss on the town, But I'm S.O.S., yes well actually this goes on, verse after verse, for quite some time. It its complete version it represents a pretty fair renunciation of the things of the world. The trouble with it is that by Gödel's Theorem there is bound to be some item around that one has omitted from the list, and such an item is not easy to think of off the top of one's head, so that what one does most likely is go back over the whole thing, meantime correcting mistakes and inevitable repetitions, and putting in new items that will surely have occurred to one, and--well, it's easy to see that the "suicide" of the title might have to be postponed indefinitely! |
| Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 | |
| 11:53 pm | A Final Note Something's going on in Iran. Second really big protest to happen recently. First was the 2008 Greek riots. Those early year tea parties don't count for obvious reasons. Edit: Something is happening. (last one's bloody) Edit 2: Video. There's no real way to soften this one. That's someone dying on a street in Tehran. |
| Sunday, June 14th, 2009 | |
| 12:39 pm | Not a long read, and endlessly intriguing. Current Music: "The Poem for Everyone's Souls" ~ Shoji Meguro (Persona 3 OST) |
| 12:35 am | As I lay in bed just now, I experienced an extended moment of perfect darkness which is so rare in this world of light. If I looked to the left, I saw only the pitch; to the right, more, ceaseless, and unending. It was only minutes later, eternities later, that vague shapes began to coalesce in my vision. I identified one of these as the roof, and perhaps another as a nearby window. As I moved my hand into where I thought my field of vision was, I beheld a darkened specter of unknown motives. It came upon me with sickening speed, devouring my sight-that-was-not. Pretty soon, after having glimpsed this bright screen, I'll have to return to that perfect darkness. Maybe if I keep writing, I can keep it at bay... Current Music: "Black Swan" ~ Thom Yorke |
| Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 | |
| 1:22 pm | Is it bipartisanship to select Congressional members of the opposite party for posts in your administration, or is it a plot to thin the legislative opposition? I don't know, but the president's been doing it quite often. Am I the only one who thinks history has caught up with us? It seems the shocking events of the past place a burden on the present and the future to be even more shocking. How else does one explain the jump to obtuse insulting, e.g. accusing Sotomayor (the recent pick for Supreme Court) of being in an Hispanic KKK? Or maybe every era thinks this. We understand some of the social, cultural, and political forces that shape events, but we are unable to think or rationalize them systematically. In other words, we conceive of each in its own field, and fully understand their individual impacts, but we do not seem to be capable of conceiving the whole. According to Alasdair MacIntyre, who was speaking in terms of moral philosophy, we are raised this way by a society which focuses on short-term gratification over long-term well-being. Isn't it weird that these thoughts should come to me while reading this? The following excerpt bothers me:
Here is how it works. When we see, smell, or taste something good, the sensory signals that get into our brain through our eyes, nose, and mouth activate what is known as the cephalic (preparatory) phase of digestion. Our saliva secretion increases; our blood glucose drops; our stomach muscles relax (so we have a larger stomach that needs more food in it to feel full); and our digestion accelerates (so we can put away that food more quickly to get ready for more). And here is another important thing to know: The areas of your brain that are stimulated by the sight and smell of food in your environment are for the most part in the lower unconscious areas where willpower (which by definition is the conscious control of conscious processes) doesn't reach. No wonder so many of us struggle with weight problems." There's this assumption that because the food excites us, we cannot stay away from it. I feel as if there is this drive in modern society to explain the human being mechanistically, and it disturbs me in a profound way. The truth, as I've found, is that one is always in control. That is proper exercise of willpower. That is temperance. No one said it was easy. The more that is explained as a mechanism of nature, the less responsibility there is. Current Music: "The Eraser" ~ Thom Yorke |
| Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | |
| 11:42 pm | If you feel like finding out how symmetrical your face is, there's a website for that. Golden ratio and all that crap. I am a...8.78. That shows you the sort of bullshit behind the golden ratio right there! |
| 9:54 pm | |
| 9:28 pm | Already linked to it, but it was intriguing nonetheless. He cites Steven Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good For You as well. An excerpt I found particularly telling: "The game accommodates this response in two ways. First, what follow after each successful battle are long cut scenes, cinematic intermissions that can advance the plot and project the fictional -- and indeed literary -- qualities of the game. In these scenes, you return to the temple, have a dialogue with Dormin, the disembodied entity, who briefs you on the next beast, and you then carry on, using your sword's magic to guide you toward the next colossus. "In addition to these cut scenes, long periods of riding punctuate your experience of the gameworld. There are no smaller, intermittent enemies (common in adventure games); there is no-one at all besides you and your horse. You ride across vast sepia-toned deserts and rambling plains, valleys full of mist and dense forests that splinter whatever sunlight they allow in. Occasionally, you lift your magic sword to the sun, and a conspicuous convergence of light will indicate that you are moving in the right direction. Then you keep riding. "What does one do when riding alone all that time? You think. You think about the fact that you are about to bring down another one of these awe-inspiring creatures even though you know that they have not wronged you in any way, and they are definitely not expecting you and your sword. All you know -- all you remember -- is that you must kill them in order to complete your quest. "The sense of moral ambiguity evoked by the storyworld is one of the main reasons why Shadow of the Colossus is an aesthetically compelling video game. One reviewer suggests that the reason for these long stretches of riding is that they make 'the player feel the isolation that the story tells the player they should feel' (Sherman 2006: n.p.). The observation speaks to Juul's (2005:15) question of an essential relationship between 'theme' and 'structure' in video game design, and serves as a productive example of story mechanics and game mechanics working in concert. With regard to gameplay and cognition, furthermore, the lengthy cut scenes and long stretches of riding in isolation are both design qualities that allow the player to respond reflectively to the storyworld, a response that calls on the player's own form of narrative memory. In effect, the player not only inherits the task of the wanderer and the tools with which to accomplish that task, but also (potentially and ideally) the psychological baggage that his ordeal entails." Current Music: "Prologue ~To the Ancient Land~" ~ Koh Ohtani (Shadow of the Colossus OST) |
| Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | |
| 7:28 pm | |
| Thursday, May 21st, 2009 | |
| 4:58 pm | |
| Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 | |
| 1:31 pm | The Chaos By Gerald Nolst Trenite Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough- Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give it up!!! |
| Thursday, May 14th, 2009 | |
| 1:28 pm | "Before the Law" ( Before the Law ) Current Music: "The Temple of Urath" ~ The Glimpse (Summoner OST) |
