Ready For Closeup

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A Dream I Had This Morning.

(Copied from a .txt file I made just after waking up).

I had a dream that thoroughly scared me a few moments ago. I was inside of an apartment complex building that represented a specific internet forum. It was not one that I post at frequently.

This all sort of started when one of the administrators of the forum approached me to tell me that a sale I had made on the forum had made the buyer unhappy. He was SERIOUSLY displeased with the quality of whatever I sold. What the product was exactly, escapes me at this point. This administrator told me that I was on probation, and that I may never be allowed to sell things again, as I had abused the priviledge. This was surprising to me.

I said his name, he said "fuck off." I asked if I could please speak with him for a moment and he replied "okay." The people in my room went apeshit, screamed at me that he had taken out a gun that he intended to use. I too, went apeshit.

I was so shocked that my own mind; my own dream would withhold this information from me. To learn that he was in the next room was a shock. To learn that he was also fondling a gigantic pistol was also a shock. How could I not be omniscient in a world that was entirely in my mind? I just wanted to get him to understand my point of view, afterall. I frantically cried for him not to kill me, and for him to stay where he was if that was what he wanted to do. I cried that the last thing I wanted was for him to take a life, my life, anyone's life. I ran out into the hallway and there he was. I could barely look at him. Really, the only thing I saw was the flash of the gun out of the corner of my eye. I tried to run down the long, thin, corridor, but it was far too long, and left no room for dodging. I turned to meet my unmaker at the last moment, so that he could see my soul being released as it left my shell. As the gigantic bullet left his gun, time slowed to a crawl, in a way. The moment between the time the bullet left his gun, and just before it pierced my skull did not seem to exist, but as I died I was stuck in the moment just before it actually killed me. I could feel each of my last few heart beats like they were their own individual infinities. I thought so many thoughts. I felt all of the pain and all of the numbness of the shock of knowing one's own death completely. I quieted my soul, and then felt nothing at all as my body, shattered dome and all, had no choice but to crumple to the ground.

I don't know which was more jolting: the shock of learning the terrible truth of my fate in the room adjacent to me, or the shock of the death I experienced just afterward. Maybe it was neither; maybe the worst part was having someone completely misunderstand you and call you the biggest asshole on the entire planet, and totally mean every word of the statement. Crushing. That statement, would haunt my eternal soul forever. That statement would never let me rest. How would I ever know if it was true of me, now that I was dead? How could I have agitated someone to the point of murdering me without even knowing it was going on? These are the questions I imagine the ghosts of the world have to contend with. If you know someone who does not understand your motive for doing something, tell them in a way that they will be able to understand. At least tell me, if it is me. Because I'd sure hate to have to haunt this earth for all of time.

A photograph

Your Teeth Are Too Sharp

Your mind though, it is too small

Go somewhere else with that mind

This Thought Seized Me

If you are a clock maker, chances are you would make an excellent bomb designer

Cursive is good, doe

And so it's begun
This is year one
The birth of a child in the form of a man

Dream

My dream involved going to Colorado. I was visiting a friend: Shane. Colorado was upside down, the moon was upside down and the rest of the world was upside down. The experience was a lot like when you visit the final castle in Ninja Gaiden (2004). I was riding a bike through the many interesting trails, and there were oddly colored grasses. Odd colors like purple and bright yellow. I ended up trespassing on someone's property, and I think he got the army to come after me with guns. Someone was with me when I was being chased, but I cannot remember who. I remember badly wanting a picture of the upside down world. It was beautiful to see, as were all the other sights in the dream, excluding being chased down by a hilariously long and sleek black limousine. Cameras are a great thing.

Poor Dog

I bet he's absolutely clueless about why over the years I've become more agile and powerful / stayed the same, while he is only becoming slower and less sharp.

More Flowers.

Pictures

The Wild Frontier Of The Internet

Well, the internet is a crazy place. I have some things to say about it. If you're spending any large amount of your free time, or other time for that matter, on the internet, it is highly likely that you are a member of some kind of internet community. Maybe even a few. Internet communities are great places for information, but they are also filled with some of the worst kinds of people. People who do not engage in normal social interactions find the internet to be a great place to "be somebody," and often times they take this to the extreme: they "be somebody" other than who they actually are in real life.

I try to be myself on the internet and it works quite well. No, I have not constructed some invincible internet persona that I use as a medium to tell tall and legendary tales. Some people do this. A lot of people actually, do this. In fact, I don't even tell many tales of my real life on the internet, to internet users. I feel like that's a perfect way to spread misinformation, which is something I am vehemently against. If you know me, you already know this though. The internet is just as good for information as it is for lies. By and large, this internet is pretty accepting. If you cannot exist happily in some dark corner out here, there's really no hope for you. If you manage to alienate everyone on the internet who you happen to meet, you are lost and I do not know how to help you.


Blogger is still fucking up. It's fucking up in a different way now (you may notice that my text is being eaten by the menu on the right). This is bound to happen once in a while. It's a free service that is mostly awesome, though.

I travel back to that from whence I came

In an effort to reclaim what I have lost through time
Time has been misused, but can still be retreated
I can make a change, and stand firmly before the gusts of ignorance that try to blow me down

Blogger is fucking up.

For real

The Hurricane

The hurricane came to our town and left us with shreds of everything that made this place home. It took our shelter into itself, and spit it back out, useless. It ate the souls of men by the score. Our livestock numbers were reduced greatly; some of the animals that were not sucked into the tempest were rendered useless by the poison it took with it from the refinery it had visited before it came to us. Nature had never been so cruel to our people before. We were left with nothing that resembled our lives prior to the event, and we did not have nearly enough resources to rebuild even the shoddiest habitats. Our existence may as well have ended. Some of us envied those who perished in the storm. Others were not envious, but just sad because so many of their family members were taken from them. There were a few who were out of touch with the whole mess. These folk attempted to carry on with life, pretending that nothing happened. One cannot use a water pump that is in pieces, especially not when the supply it is connected to has been fouled by this storm, a storm that left behind everything bad and took everything good.

Our shattered people were coming to grips with the truth: by the next full moon, there would be even less of us than there were now. By the next harvest--there would be no next harvest. No food, and no one to plant for the next season. Some people were very bitter. All of our religious leaders had died during the catastrophe. Some had even taken their lives prior to, sensing that all would be lost.

There was a village just south of where we lived. A scout climbed to the top of the highest point of our lands and confirmed what we suspected. It was true, this village had been untouched by the storm. Now we had to do what must be done. But what was it that had to be done?

Some seriously ill shit.

http://www.dallasobserver.com/Issues/2005-06-16/news/feature_print.html

 

These pictures I have taken in the last few days:

They are being taken on an Olympus D-490 digital camera. It's five years old. I want a new one. Here are two that I am looking at:

The lesser: Canon Powershot A510



The greater: Canon Powershot A95

A spider! 

A fly! 

Thanks Picasa 

A few more flowers (5) 

A few more flowers (4) 

A few more flowers (3) 

A few more flowers (2) 

A few more flowers 

Hey, what is up flowers outside that I do not know the name of because I am not very good with flowers just yet 

Hey, what is up day-old whole wheat pita bread on a plate 

Hey, what is up Noah's hand with some rays of light shining through it 

Hey, what is up Burt's Beeswax Lip Balm 

Hey, it's been a while since I have blogged!

I'm working again. Same shit, different location.

Some things I will do this summer:

• Make my arms strong enough to support the entire weight of my body for a good length of time.
• Purchase a nice digital camera and take beautiful pictures with it.
• Dispel some of the myths I have learned over the years about life, the innate differences between sexes (believe me, this would sound a lot less strange if I explained it), and other things. All in all, this should give me a sliver of enlightenment and make me a better person.
• Learn, always learn. Read a lot. But more than reading, doing. I want to make myself stronger academically, but not in a classroom setting necessarily, as I do not really plan on registering for summer classes. I know I can do this, because I am me.
• Perform the kinds of recreational activities that give me lasting memories and change me for the better both physically and otherwise.
• Listen to new music, see new music being performed (I am already pretty far into both of these. I am enjoying Black Eyes and Liars very much, and their music is exactly what I want right now.)
• Reflect on what I believe is a major folly of humanity: the overwhelming majority's perception that we are something significantly greater than the other biological entities that exist on this planet. We are no better than the sea lion, and our basic needs are not that much different. We are also not too much prettier than they are. If people were naked more often, they would see how much they resembled every other thing on this planet. One of the main things that seperates "man" from "beast" is clothing. I'd like to organize some kind of nudity thing, but I do not know how well it would be received, how successful it would be, and most importantly, I do not know if it is something I really want to do. It might be absolutely wrong. I still believe that clothing is one of the things that is blinding man from the truth about his existence.

Ha-ha, look at all that pseudo-intellectual bullshit I wrote. Sorry, but that's how I feel right about things right now.

Quantum science is way cool.

Ha Ha

Boing Boing: World's Worst Excerpt -- The Least Healthy Diet: Breatharianism

Useff showed me a cool looking new visual style 

Ink!

Where there is ink, we can find the most valuable portions of man's brain.

Horrors behind my eyes

Sleep is usually a good thing. Not only does it replenish energy, organize thoughts, and give you something to do for about eight hours, but there is also a chance that your subconscious mind will cook up some wonderful fantasy for you. One of the most terrible things that can happen is for that fantasy to be twisted into a horror. In dreams I have seen things worse than I have ever seen in real life. Catastrophes so great in scale, with so much death and suffering that they make even the worst current events seem like normal occurences. To make it worse, I experience them all firsthand as they happen. This doesn't happen too often, but it has been happening with greater frequency over the last month. Luckily, in most of these nightmares there is some shred of hope. I do believe that if something terrible were to happen to man as a species, there would be some shred of hope in most cases. Something has to survive!

Creationism: God's gift to the ignorant

Here is an interesting article about creationism, which is now commonly disguised as "intelligent design theory." The author, Richard Dawkins, discusses how intelligent design theorists love to take scientists' quotes out of context, and then how they use these quotes against the scientists in a very ignorant way. Funny/sad/interesting.

Creationism: God's gift to the ignorant - Weekend Review - Times Online

Animals and us: Close encounters

If you've been hanging around me lately, you may have noticed that I do a lot of talking about primates other than humans. Namely, Chimpanzees and Bonobo Monkeys. Here is a timely interview with Jane Goodall, who is very famous for her research and study of chimps.

New Scientist Animals and us: Close encounters - Opinion

"But Jesus made me, so he should save me from pity, sympathy, and idiots discussing me; Yes, I am a freak, and nothing can make good of the bad that's been done"

-Morrissey, "November Spawned A Monster" (live)

Wired 13.06: Time's Up, Einstein

A really interesting article from Wired; it is about Peter Lynds, a man who believes that time cannot be broken up into individual quanta, because time is just an illusion created by man's brain:Wired 13.06: Time's Up, Einstein

The article also postulates that Lynds' soon to be published book could be a very popular one. A book that could really get the pop science ball rolling again. This is probably be a good thing, as long as the ideas in the book aren't total bullshit. I guess anything that gets the public interested in science is a good thing.

An Interview With Pixel:

The Guy Who Created Doukutsu Monotagari, One Of The Finest Games In Years. It's free too. Check out the interview, check out the game. It's for the PC. It's free. It makes me wish 2d gaming wasn't essentially dead.

The Independent Gaming Source: The PIXEL Interview

Everybody Loves Raymond?

I never felt compelled to watch a single episode. I do not love Raymond. Sorry, Raymond.

Sunday

~

Sometimes I like my music loud. So loud that it sort of arrests my other senses and forces me to listen with everything I've got. My body feels numb in a way that is indescribable. When it is loud enough that other things cannot be concentrated on, those other things that cannot be focused upon cease to matter. In a way though, they matter more than everything else. If the music is loud, I can reflect on things that I would otherwise be too busy for. Every day, one is bombarded by so much information. Every sight, taste, smell, feeling, and noise; these are all pieces of information that are force-fed to our persons every conscious moment. For me, it is helpful to just concentrate on a single sense sometimes. I usually do not do this, but in the future I will make a point to do it more. I feel like if I saturate myself with one sense, it will help the others along in some strange way.

People, Why?

I walk around every day feeling like just beneath the surface, our culture is fundamentally damaged in some way. Suicide, depression, obesity; these things are everywhere, and the people who experience them are not to fault. It could not simply be a trend because it is too widespread. Somewhere in the fabric of our society is a seed of corruption, and it has spread outward, causing people to either lose their lives entirely or live with greatly diminished quality of life. Don't believe me? Then look elsewhere to other Westernized nations. The Japanese who adopted Western culture very rapidly after being essentially cut off from the rest of the world for hundreds of years have an extremely high suicide rate amongst their youth. In fact, it has been higher in the past than the suicide rate of American kids. Their overall suicide rate is higher; the highest of all Westernized nations. Want another example that backs the idea of Western culture being not as ideal as its champions would like us to think? Look at this painfully current fad in the UK: teens engaging in risky group sex. Daisy Chaining! Wow, what a great term. HIV and other diseases are spreading among the youth there. Maybe we'll just have to go back to teaching kids that sex will kill them indiscriminately, and anything that feels good is a sin! That's the way you all were brought up, right?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1588791,00.html

Oatmeal Swirlers

Damn, does anyone remember those? So good. I only had them one or two times in my childhood, but something about that product was simply magical. What child would not want to put some red syrupy stuff into his oatmeal and make designs with it, or basically do whatever he wants inside of the bowl? If you were one of these kids who was not impressed by this, we cannot be friends. Ever. If you did not know about this delightful breakfast cereal until now, that is okay with me. I just wish I had more to tell or show you about it. Google only turns up a few pages of results, and no images. I know that if I were to eat this food today I would probably be disappointed, but I still want to try it. Maybe the magic will carry over, and it will make me a better person.

Here is a petition to General Mills to get this food produced again: http://www.petitiononline.com/Oatmeal/petition.html

Over-Sentimentality: The Battle Against Mush

I abhor mushy shit. Maybe I just don't like romance; I hate seeing a movie and there being a bunch of needlessly mushy shit in there. Often times it makes me cringe. That is not the way I choose to live my life. I don't believe that people are that way by nature...not most of us anyway. I worry that people see movies with this kind of stuff in them, and then they emulate it in real life, which is pretty bad. You've been around it, you know how it is. I believe romance in a movie can be done without all of this nonsense. I believe one can create a great movie that does not end with someone getting what they always wanted in a significant other. I have seen such films! Such films though, are few and far between, because Hollywood at large believes that these mushy scenes in films are more palatable for the average movie-goer. Is this true? I hope not. I fear it might be.

Sometimes, I wonder:

People who scream loudly when they get upset; do they do this because they think perhaps God will hear their plea and help them out? Example: A man screams "I HATE THIS CAR! IT IS A PIECE OF SHIT!" It is obvious that this man hates his car and considers it of equal or lesser worth than the contents of his own bowels. Does he scream this at the top of his lungs in the hopes that some divine benefactor will give him a new car? Or perhaps a wealthy person who is in a giving mood will take pity on him?

Ponder that.

Lamentations About Foobar2k:

Just kidding, it's as awesome as ever.

YES!!!

"MARCH/05 UPDATE:

MC Paul B is hard at work on a new LP!"

http://www.mcpaulbarman.com/

Going to pick my hair out; Then go and use what lies under that hair

I mean, fuck it. Why not?


God, I hate that kid. I hope he gives me a reason to act on my feelings.


Peace to Scoggin.

Pruning / Reorganizing MP3s

This process involves me deleting music which is no longer relevant, or albums that are incomplete or otherwise fucked. My rationale for deleting albums that are really just missing a song or two is that I would not want to listen to an album that is incomplete, and to spend the time searching for just one file is a waste of my time. After all, there is an ocean of music out there and I can't ever possibly listen to everything I would like to hear.

Libertarian Perspective: Father, Son, and Environment

My friend Peter has an interesting and thought provoking blog. His most recent entry can be seen here:Libertarian Perspective: Father, Son, and Environment

I am giving up on DeadAIM and moving on to Trillian

It's good so far. Really.

My iPod Needs Purging

All 30GB are filled up. I need to go through and remove what I know I will never listen to again.

There's a new AIM virus going around

Don't click links unless you ask a person if they are legit

Read about it here