20030228 
As George Costanza once said (paraphrasing):
"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you go live in an old age home. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, then, when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You drink lots of alcohol, you party, and you get ready for high school. You go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back and spend the last 9 months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap, then you finish off as an argasm. Amen"
Questions for the Week ( you must choose one or the other - you can't pass ):
1. If you were a bir would you be an ostrich or a turkey?
2. If you were gaseous effluence, would you be a nasty italian garlic burp or a seeping baked bean flatulant?
3. If you were a bum would you steal from old ladies or children?
4. If you hated me would you tell me and break down my self-esteem or sabotage my life?
5. If you were a C-List Celebrity you'd be Danny Bonaduce or Cato Calin?
6. Ace of Base or New Kids?
7. Bowel incontinence or bladder control problems?
8. If you were a TV star you would rather be Osama or Saddam?
9. Your friends describe you as a jerk or an asshole?
10. Would you rather a Dirty Sanchez or a Cleveland Steamer?
Some girls are just HAAT
(that's hot, with an emphasis on hot)
You know how sometimes you're looking at a girl.. I mean, you're looking at jenny woo and she's stretched out and her shirt is pulled up a little and you can see a little midriff and the curve of the back and.. shit, it's like perfection.
did i ever tell you about the time i was walking to class (happened last year) and i saw this girl. she was so beautiful i almost started crying. literally crying. i know it sounds stupid.. or maybe untrue, but i kid you not, she was so beautiful i was actually moved to tears... fortunately i held back and got the resulting lump in my throat.
Do girls ever look at us like that? Is there anything on our pathetic excuses for bodies that is as enchanting as any part of a (hot) woman?
i think i made a girl gag on her own flem once but that's about as good as it gets for me.
I hear yah on that one Ross.
20030227
As an act of solidarity with my brothas who throw themselves at the wilds of the Applachian Trail with all their force this week...
I will stop drinking the day they step foot on the trail - March 1st, 2003. Sure, I know what you're all thinking - Huh? Why? You can't do it, don't bother. But mike, we can't stand you unless your drunk (cause that usually means you're passed out). How will you manage the daily grind without the supportive effects of alcohol? You know you will loose that teddy-bear charm if the beer belly goes away, right? - and yes, people, I know this. It is a sacrifice that I am willing to make to show my support for the fellows in the wood. Bear with my folks (ha ha ha). I will be scrawling the last few sentences of the first chapter of my drinking life this Friday - gather round for the fun if you'd like.
As a supplement to this I plan on dropping coffee after noon and soda all together. I begged off the meat issue because, well, if my will power was a computer it would probably be running an old pentium - without MMX - with barely enough RAM to boot win95... I must conserve my effort in one area.
On the upside - March 1st is a crazy early date to start the trail with the likelyhood of weeks of snow and chilling temperatures so hopefully, for the sake of my lonely and bored liver, they will be back soon enough.
File this under the Legalized Crime Department.
Here is a copy of your GEICO Indemnity rate quote to hang on to.
Total Premium: $1301.10 for a 6 month policy.
ASSfucks. Bleeders. Legalized Crime. Sounds more like Indentured than Indemnity.
Progressive quotes me (a still ungodly amount of) $703
This car is 10 years old people. 10 years old The car was made when I was 14... And they want me to pay $1400 a year? In a year I will have paid more in three years of insurance what the car is fully worth in the first place.
Legalized Crime
20030226
kate over at montrealcity points out that they're putting a pharmaprix into the old Warshaw's building. Phooey.
I'd have much rather seen a Happy Wheels.
Copyright law is getting a bit ridunkulus
20030225
I like the Natalie post (who is she?), but I really enjoyed the Ross diversion . . . it was excellent. It not only gave all the readers an insight into Ross, and you, it was also very ambiguous what that insight was. The heel of my foot is starting to hurt pretty bad. I was biking two bikes home this afternoon, and it was too slow to ghost-ride, so I picked one of them up and rested it on my handlebars. I wish I would have taken a picture. Well, it was going great until I got a little nervous passing this one girl that didn't look like she was giving me enough room, and I started to wobble, and I dropped the one bike and went over the handlebars of the one I was riding. Luckily, all that happened was that I banged my knee and landed hard on my bare foor (my sandle having flown off).
By the way, I have a bunch of hospital pacifiers that you could send to Ross. In light of his pacifier comment, it would be funny, but, then again, perhaps he'll read this.
Yesterday, or perhaps the day before, I was looking at my lemon tree getting ready to flower, and I had a thought. It was, "no other species worries." Lemon trees sure as fuck don't worry. And herons, herons don't worry. And even some humans don't worry. I decided that I will do my damnedest to be among those living things that doesn't worry. I think you buying a boat, and my sailing on it with you would be a good excursion down that path.
Perhaps as a result of the latter, I had an amazing day today. I decided not to go to the lab meeting that I am not required to attend, and instead go surfing. Sharon picked me up, we went to the beach together, and she read and I surfed. I will post a picture of her perhaps on my site. She is fucking gorgeous. I'm really pleased about that whole deal. She recently found out that she will be in Utah next year, starting in August.
I've been reading some of the blogs you have linked to. It was interesting, I was reading some of them, and the feeling (or the imagined feeling) of what it would be like to live those people's lives creeped in. Often, when I get that feeling, or even nostalgia for how I used to feel, like for example in the winter of first year, or the summer of our graduation, I desire not to lose hold of it. Because it feels good, even if it feel sad. More than good, it feels like there is a momentary potential to live an experience other than the one that I am living now. I also believe that this is a fantasy, and that one cannot actually ever get somewhere else. Luckily, I'm pretty ok with where I am now. Although I haven't necessarily been for a while. I think this anxiety decision will serve me well. I keep a journal, but, I'm starting to dig this blog, too. I should write more often.
I was surprised by your endorsement of the leonardo flick. I never would have considered seeing it if not for your post . . .
You know what I need? More friends that are girls. You've always been up on me by large factor in that . . .
So I haven't been able to make a decent stir fry since I left college. Somehow it never comes out good. I think it has something to do with the fact that I am always trying only cook one portion and I have to run around and do all the steps myself. It was so much easier when we would all sit around in the college pad choppin onions and steaming rice and shootin the shit. Anyhow, last night I broke the curse of the stir fry and made what is quite possibly the best stir fry I have ever made in my entire life. I won't go into detail but damn it was fucking good. I even got the rice right.
aardvark.dj informs me that site meters aren't always accurate... Noooooo. Couldn't be? Anyhow, I put up two more just for shits'n'giggles.
Free money is too much work
I can't believe it! After a little research it appears as if KC will *not* fall below the poverty line (provided he actually works all year)
2003 Federal Poverty Guidelines
Size of Family Unit: 1
48 Contiguous States: $ 8,980
In order to make $8980 even if working at minimum wage one would have to work less than 28 hours a week! 28 hours! Full time at minimum wage is $13,000 bucks.
Don't people always talk about how you can't live on minimum wage? Let's look at housing costs... in Maine of course.. say central maine. You can get an apartment for three to four hundred a month, throw in some bills like heat and electricity and phone and you're talking $500 total. Throw in some food and drink and you're talking $700. Throw in $100 a month for car insurance. Throw in $75 a month in gas. Throw in car costs of ~$1500 over the year (call it $125 a month). Add it all up and it still leaves someone with $83 bucks extra a month. That's $1000 bucks extra a year.
Okay okay okay. I'm not saying minimum wage is the cat's meow and I'm not saying it's as easy as it sounds but I am saying it's possible. And not only possible, but not as horrible as all the bums on the street would have you believe it is.
$8,980 on the other hand.. that would be pretty rough.. even in central Maine. Imagine trying to live on that in Boston or NYC. But you gotta question anyone making that little money in the first place, don't you?
I heard a bum on the radio a few weeks back. They were airing a "Annual Homelessness Marathon" on WMPG to increase awareness about the problem. They had homeless people talking on a panel and a call in show for people to ask questions. Some *actually* quotes from the show:
" I get $550[sic] in disability from the government a month. $550 is not enough to pay rent in Portland, ME"
note: I pay $425 in rent, plus about $75 in bills
When asked whether a veteran had tried to collect promised aid from the military he replied " Well, honestly, there was so much paperwork and hassle just to get my state disability check that I didn't bother"
he didn't bother. it was too much work. free money was... too much work
I'm sounding like a fucking hard ass conservative today, huh? Really though.. it ain't me, babe.
A late night message from the Natalie
I am at the beach...pacific coast this week
Oh yah? How's it going out there?
we had to fight with a pack of angry, hungry iguanas for a spot on the beach...
Sounds violent.
after five hours they won their spot back and we headed out...couldn't handle it anymore.. they know how to put the pressure on...and you can hit those things with sticks...they just come back for more...reminds me of some guys I have dated...
Tell me about it. So what now?
there is an invasion of crickets in my hotel room...
That sucks. Must be a bitch to sleep in all that noise.
better than cockroaches...
Amen to that, sista.
20030224
Tony over on the busblog says we still live in a world where getting naked and being loving freaks people out and how true, how true he is. But he also said he never talks about other bloggers on his blog because, well.. uh.. actually I'm not entirely sure why.. it got mumble jumbled there at the end of his post and then in the very next one he was talking about his friend (he had just sworn that he doesn't talk about friends in his blog either.. actually he swore he didn't talk about anything at all in his blog cause.. well, that's just it.. i don't know why.. He does swear every once in awhile though). I digress. It was a good point that 'ol Tony had. People are very freaked out about getting naked and being loving. Why is that? People are very very insecure. It's a shame. I'm at fault too, don't get me wrong.. I'm just sayin.
But to get to the point of this post : why don't I have a 40 foot sailboat?
Why don't I even have a 34 foot sailboat? And I know what you're going to say, folks. You're going to tell me I don't deserve one and that I'm a greedy little pandy fackler and maybe if I wasn't such an asscake. Right. Well you know what I have to say about that? You're all absolutely correct.
But I'll be the one laughing when I am sailing off into the sunset .. alone... with a reeeally big boat insurance bill... and mooring costs... and maintenance.. and I have headache already.
MIiiiiiiikey mike
20030223
Weekend at the Movies
It's been a short week here in Ptown but I managed to squeeze two movies into the fray thanks to the downtown offerings of The Movies and the Nick and I have to say I was thoroughly impressed on both outings.
Gangs of New York is the sort of movie experience you spend $15 dollars on. Big, bold, long, and best enjoyed with a wealth of popcorn and a gallon of pop. This, my friends, is what the Movies is all about. It was harsh and bloody. It was sometimes hard to stomach. But it was so fucking good it hurt. Daniel Day-Lewis was absolutely amazing as Bill the Butcher. Go see it. Now!
Rabbit Proof Fence is the story of three aboriginal girls who are taken away from their home to be 'educated' by the white folk. They escape and attempt to make their way back home along the 1000+ mile fence built to keep rabbit's on one side and the crops on the other. The story is amazing (and true) and the scenery is gorgeous and the music is grand. What more could you ask for?
Asscake
sigh.
What now, ross?
sometimes there are these games you, Michael Robert Batchelder, make about friends.
Yes?
they seem to be dichotomous in result (tell me if I'm wrong) ...they seem to make some people hate you and some people (maybe even those same haters) seek you out...vying for a place in "mikes' world". do agree with this? i have, in the past wondered if it works for you...do you find that *works* for you?
Huh?
Right now are you thinking: "what the hell are you talking about?"
Yes, ross, i am.
remember the "let's see if you're smart enough to be my friend" game, and everyone had to take your test?
Oh yah. I forgot about that.
there are other games too but i don't feel like dwelling on it right now i'm in no mental shape to think about the past. i'm too distraught. don't get me wrong i'm not saying i'm a hater. but i'm just mentioning something interesting. i swear it's not because i got a "C" mark on your godamn test. do you consider yourself an elitist?
You spelled 'goddamn' wrong there, kiddo.
Why are you such an asscake, Mike? Why?
I...
you don't have to explain yourself. i don't need to have a pacifier stuck between my throbbing gums of rejection.
Maybe you're just going through an intellectual teething process ross.
20030222
And to further the arguement:
According to the US Dept. of Energy petroleum import reports, Arab OPEC countries supplied a cumulative average of 28% of the US's total petroleum imports since 1972. Oil imports from OPEC countries in general have oscillated between 45% and 55% of total imports. Imports from Arab OPEC countries were as low as 9% in 1985 and as high as 47% in 1980. More recently, since the early 1990's, Arab OPEC countries have supplied the US between 20 and 27% of its total petroleum imports. Of this, Saudi Arabia supplies the most. During 2001, Saudi Arabia's portion of the total US petroleum imports was roughly 14%. The gulf region as a whole provided about 18% of the total petroleum imports to the US during that same year.
20030221
Okay you bleeding heart liberals. Shut up already about the gas prices cause I'm going to puke. Do your research before rather than after you spout your bullshit thank-you-very-much.
Annual Energy Review 2001 - Energy Perspectives In nominal (unadjusted for inflation) dollars, Americans paid an average of 65¢ per gallon for motor gasoline in 1978. The 2001 average price of $1.53 was 135 percent higher than the 1978 rate but, adjusted for inflation, it was 4 percent higher.
*** 4 Percent ***
Also, When the United Nations approved the use of force against Iraq in October 1990, prices began falling.
newsQuakes
This is kind of neat.. I guess. It's a map of the world with recent news headlines marked at the place they occurred. It's a bit crude but the idea is there. Multiple concentric rings for multiple headlines in one spot.. kind of shows you where the shit is going down.
20030220
humansforsale - what are *you* worth?
. . .. ... c r e e p y ... .. . .
HTML makes me angry.
VRML makes me even more angry.
I see the acronym XML and my level of rage goes through the roof.
JSP, ASP, CHTML, RSS, CSS, WML, XHTML, VBScript (shudder).. it's all so.. infuriating. Does anyone feel my pain? The rash that is parsed and formatted and colored text?
It's so completely insane it makes me want to drive my head through a brick wall. I know no one gives a rats ass why I think the world is slowly walking backwards with all this mish-mash of web-innovation so I'll save my breath now for the eventual scream of pure ecstacy that will be unleashed from my lips as I throw myself towards certain death off some appropriately high tower.
what am i doing being an audiologist? seriously. do you wonder that sometimes?
yes ross, i do. i actually wonder about that more than i should normally wonder about another man's profession.
i do. i mean sure, i can do it and all. it's not that it's miserable. it has it's pros and cons like anything else. but i was thinking today that it really isn't my passion.
No ross, it isn't.
one of the girls in my class said that she took a test in high school that's supposed to tell you your ideal carreer. she said that her test said "audiology", which i thought was a bit strange...then she said she still wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life her junior year at college so she took another test and it told her "audiology". that baffles me.
That baffles me, too, ross.
maybe those tests do mean something.
Or maybe not, ross. Maybe they mean that if you take them and then do what they say, you'll end up in the profession they tell you that you should be in?
maybe i should have taken more of those tests and seen if they came up with an ideal job for me. to be honest i'm not sure audiology is *ideal* for me. we'll see. i mean it's not bad...but it doesn't move me like the movie "Spiderman" moved me.
That's a really good point ross - the bit about the Spiderman movie.
i think i'm gonna take one of those tests and see what it says about me. i can always do audiology for a while and then do something else. but sheesh. i'm half way through a doctorate and it worries me that i'm questioning my career choice. does it worry you?
Yes, very much so. It worries me to death, ross.
or are you still thinking about being god?
No, I'm sure about that one.
Like, no way dude - bigfoot isn't real.
BFRO Report 1186
Mrs. Huntington would later tell reporters: "My 13-year-old daughter fell off her bike about three feet from him and all he did was cock his head and look at her." It was described as upright and chimpanzee-like. The quiet, intelligent, reserved Lois reportedly told the Maine Sunday Telegram: "I fell right down in front of him and all he did was look at me. I would have known if it were a hippie or something. But it had a regular monkey face. You have seen a monkey before, haven't you?"
From montrealcity - a '. flip book' of still images taken by the Peel/Ste Catherine webcam while the peace march gathered on Saturday.
You can learn alot about people by kissing them or by trying to sell them something. So says tony today. He talks about his blog being the cause of pretty young girls sending him naked pictures. As long as I'm at it too, you all should send me naked pictures, hmmmkay?
20030219
Alex Schwartz is off in Cali, at UCSB.. He's not playing as much frisbee as he should be because he's into the New Orleans piano playing lately. As obsessive as ever. Sounds kinda kosher, if you ask me.
I was thinking.. Everyone is always asking me what everyone else is up to. I was thinking.. maybe I should have a list on here - a list of every person I can think of and where they are and what they are up to. And as I think of more people, I just add them.. and eventually maybe they can add to it themselves.. and eventually, well, who knows?
But I like the idea of a big list that tracks everyone and what they are doing.
Like me.. it would maybe say "Still in Portland, working for the same company. Roommate Matt moved out and so is in transition looking for a replacement" The same sorta thing you would say if someone asked you "what's mike up to?"
But it would be interesting because it would contain only my perception of what everyone is up to and where they are - not actually the truth.. until the called me or told me. And maybe, who knows, if it got bigger, maybe it could list different people's perceptions of where people are.. and you could see rumors propogating.. and
Okay. Maybe I should just make a list.
Over at the Globe and Mail they have an interesting article comparing the differences between Toronto and Montreal pedestrians. Main point being that people in Toronto are submissive orderly little lemmings while Montrealers are a bit more adventurous and daring. Read it all here.
If I thought anyone bothered, I'd stop being a cheap bastard, start paying for bandwidth, and post things like this. Do you bother?
All Things Bright and Beautiful
and as TMBG like to say
S-E-X-X-Y
Note to self: when clipping head hair use same length setting on entire scalp region.
Flax OilWeek 3 Round UpGuzzling from the bottle
Feb. 18th, 2003 Week 3
Due to a serious lack of commitment from the parent organization (read: me) the entire Flax Oil experiment has been reduced to a rag-tag group of spotty data points. Environmental factors and other variables have not been significantly reduced to gain any useful information at all and the scientist's committment to the project is lacklustre at best. The subject, too, is proving to be difficult to handle the oversight commitee is.. well, good at it. So, as a sort of weak second effort we have reduced the daily oil intake to a simple chugging of the bottle. Feeling better? Still not sure. The previous mention of broccoli has been taken to heart and increased in the subject's diet -perhaps muddying the waters more.
subject's notes: Bleh. Discovered the Flax Oil should be refridgerated. Whoops!
Matt is out of the apartment and it is CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN. It has never been so clean for so long. It's, dare I say, brilliantly clean. I spent all day Sunday last week cleaning my room and it's SPOTLESS. You can see the floor. All of it. It's wonderful. It will last, oh, perhaps two more weeks.
The (potential) new roommate is Gaylon. Not Gaylord at least.
Shit..that reminds me. Two days ago I had a severe dream. I usually don't even have dreams. Someone called me out of the blue and said "Your dad is dead - he was in a car accident".. and, well, that sort of sucked.. and while I was trying to process that someone else called and said "Your mom died in _another_ car crash". So I spent the rest of the dream trying to wrap my brain around the idea that my parents were gone - for good - and I hadn't been able to say "goodbye"..
A few days ago someone stopped me in the hall and said "Hey - Captain Kirk is all about the paintball. No no, really. I saw him on TV and he said it was the absolute best game ever - one of the few games where you can make grown men cry [sic]"
Some quick investigation by yours truly brought me to his frontpage here: Spplat Attack
Extreme Paintball meets Sci-Fi Survivor.
20030218
It's cold and windy and miserable out.
I love it.
20030214
In a post from Michael Genrich, he reports from the police log:
BAR HARBOR — Two black-and-white oxen ran up the Indian Point Road Saturday morning. Shortly after, they returned to their farm.
Hehehe. I just love it
20030213
From this Google search came my 1000th visitor.. Woohoo. Can't imagine they stayed long. They came from Google Nederland and they wanted to know more about the English soccer streaker commercial. No surprise there.
Plus, it isn't really that exciting since ~50% of those 1000th hits are probably from me checking my spelling and fixing my formatting issues.
20030212
Can I get some fries with that Shake Shake booty?
Whoa.. close one there. House and Senate denied email surveillance today
you're too black and white for your own good. in an off color sort of way..
hehehehehe
Interesting bit on the life expectancies of Montrealers ( in french). Apparently the poor don't fair so well - off by as much as 10 years!
Damn. It's been a long fucking time since I posted. So, here's the story. It turns out there's some undergrad that tries to be the lap dog of my dept. chair. She's a real cool professor, and all her students hate him. He's a little off, but nothing too serious. Then, the blog. Someone, they must have been looking for it, finds his website (at blogspot) and he's got every interaction with her posted. BIZZARE as fuck!
Now I'm paranoid, because I feel perhaps he's taperecording lab meeting and shit. Damn. It is pretty fucking wierd. the dark side of the blog.
I can only slightly support your rant about evolution, God, and the meaning of life. I like the part about communicating. I think that indeed much of the good one can do in the world comes down to the ideas that you can leave behind. The positive communicating you did. But I don't think it's this that modern society fucksup. In fact, I am believing more and more that my tree hugging, back to nature fantasy is based in bullshit. Things were probably pretty terrible back then: 25 % of men died due to murder or war, infant mortality was through the roof. So, there are some problems, like social isolation, but the truth is, those can be combatted. The meaning of life? None, as far as I am concerned. No lasting meaning, as once your dead . . . not even your genes will remember you.
Though it seems to me like I am taking a view of life that learning is very much integrated with my meaning.
Listen, I'm as tired as FUCK. Who is the Minx? she reminds me of kim valenta. I wll start smoking more dope as soon as my classes lighten up. It's funny that the dull dude got custed. Hah. Damn, I'm miserable at the moment, but things in general continue well. Flax oil every day motherfucker. I would say I'm 9 days straight at least. My little brother is taking it too.
20030211
Some wonderful ha-ha quotes for you all this fine evening:
I'd say she is wickedly fucked up in a way that is the complete opposite of fucked up. All the very good parts of very, very bad.
-imo
I need to find something like [your motorcycle racing] because I can't ride my pipet at 6000 rpm.
-T.Bone Scandawgs
I think that to define smelting would be this: we went drinking and got some fishing done too.
-Zachery P. Hanley
Love isn't chirping birds and chiming bells for me..but it certainly
is bright smiles, warm sun, bubbles, and that full feeling
-Natalie "Don't forget to send a bag of rice to the clown in the
whitehouse" Murphy
Just updated the Writings index for your reading pleasure.
www.archive.org is a fun time. Want to see what www.yahoo.com looked like back in 1996? Wonder how whitehouse.gov looked while Clinton was in office? Go check it out.
I looked my old college website up and managed to find some long lost writings for you to enjoy. I'll be posting them up to my Writings page soon, but for now, from waaaayyyy back:
RamblingsI have argued for ages that the soul purpose of our individual existence is to simply procreate, pass on our genetic code in the form of offspring, and die. No if’s, and’s, or butt’s about it. I have argued for ages that this is part of the greater whole: the universe and its patternistic existence. It was my idea that people, just like planets, are simply groupings of matter, and that everything in the universe is such a grouping. I also pointed out that, due to the limits of things (i.e. the limit of material on this earth, the limit of energy coming from the sun) there is no such thing in this current universe, or at least that part of the universe in proximity to us, that can be called truly random. Random, in itself, suggests that which we cannot even comprehend. Random is more metaphysical then God himself, for the concept is, to me, very mind-boggling. Even your average toddler can easily grasp the idea of God, yet true randomness is something many people struggle to understand. My general idea is this: pick a number, from 1 to 100. Is it random? No, that number can not be, is not truly random, for it is limited to those numbers between 1 and 100. This holds true for anything. Weather, for example, something many people see as random, is in fact not. If we had the technology to monitor every molecule floating in our atmosphere, we could most probably predict weather patterns quite accuratly and specifically.
So, what can be concluded from all this? What else, but my theory of order, that states that all matter in the universe is gravitating together, therefore moving from randomness, to order. We human beings are simply groupings, or more precisly, patterns of matter. As we evolve (through the passing of genes), our patterns become less and less random, more and more alike. We are just a tiny cog in the gigantic machine. But everyone likes to feel important, right? Of course, which brings me to the topic of this article: is knowledge and expression of the human condition part of the evolution (or ordering) of the matter of the universe? If it is, what is matter?
Don’t we all, at some point during the week, during the year, during our life, feel that we are just not doing something right, that there is something missing? Why? It is clear that the human mind feeds off knowledge and new ideas, which is partly so that we may protect ourselves from our surroundings, but at the same time, it seems as if there is something more. We need learning to survive. Yet learning, gone unchecked, causes an inbalance in the mind. When experience collects, but is not released, tension builds. So what is it that balances learning? What else but teaching. When we share ourselves to others, we are giving them knowledge. There is a fine balance between this pair, experience and expression. Experience is what is needed to continue on with the process; experience is the genes with which we build new life. Expression is taking that new life and bettering it; expression is evolution. Unfortunatly, it would seem that modern society has drastically disturbed this balance.
We experience all our lives in this society, but when do we ever get to express? An arguement for sports, for sure, and possibly an explaination for their popularity. We learn and learn and learn for the first 20+ years of our lives and when are we given a chance to share what we have to offer? So, in place of that comes sports. In sports, the individual expresses himself through slamming people up against the boards, tackling, hitting, and scoring. The individual feels important when he scores a goal, or knocks another player down. Sounds somewhat primal to me, yet it is all we have in this very modern society with which to give back to the process. Is this the wrong direction? Probably, but who can tell?
There is no such thing as matter....think about that one long enough and it changes the way you look at things. Let me tell you that there is, of course, matter...but what is matter?...energy! Matter is simply (usually) lowlevel energy...it's so weird... pick up an object...what are you seeing? Feeling? What is happening? It feels like you're touching the object: but you're not....there's no way any two things can touch each other because of atomic repulsion...and what are atoms?...how are they made?...stars, which fused hydrogen into helium and down and down and down the periodic table to the heavy elements... and the star eventually turned into a type II supernova and BOOM...a scattered mess thoughout the whole universe of pieces of different sorts of matter...light & heavy. Then eventually, through the whole process of going from "chaos" toward "order" we are here...and life is now perfect. Okay, maybe not perfect...but thinking...working on our bodies...working on our "spirit".. is all part of this process toward order. I suppose that was my basic idea when I started this article. Whether you believe in that hooky story about that `God’ dude, or you believe we evolved from ants, it doesn’t really matter. We should all do our part to be balanced. Outstanding? No. Just balanced. For then we will truly have evolved.
I was gonna rip an image off of Tony's site.. URL and all. Make *him* pay for the damn bandwidth. But then I thought gee, he can't even afford a car.. or so he says.. so maybe I shouldn't be ripping him off? Maybe I should.. cause everything on there is a lie. In fact, he probably hasn't gotta a single dime from anyone to buy him his car.. but he is pretending he has, so, as weeks go buy and the name list slowly grows, you start to feel as if you're missing out and maybe you should be giving him money. Anyhow, this is the archive link instead of raw image thievery..
What I wanted to say about that image was that I am easy to impress. Sometimes. I have guilty pleasures too. Even if Raymi is an alcoholic beer guzzling trash whore (or not) she is sweetly eloquent.. No no! Seriously! You just have to be in the right frame of mind. She is, admittedly, more theatrical than say, Alison or Ernie but she stretches the boundaries a bit and that's the sort of entertainment you want to read at work.. not some well written musings of a waitress or the tribulations of a gay asian. You want to be on the edge, looking over your shoulder to see who might see you seeing them seeing you look at questionable material on company time. Save the literature and the light oriental humor for at home when you're in bed with a cup 'o camomile.
Dude! We're getting jail time!
That wonderfully charismatic Dell Dude done gone and got his ass busted. Heheh. Seems things do make sense in this crazy world of ours... Sometimes.
And in other computer related news.. After that nasty bit of ooopsy daisy when MIT Student Simson Garfinkel (mwhahahah) bought a bunch of used hard drives only to find everything from credit card numbers to ATM transactions still stored on them... it's happened again - this time with AIDS patient information.
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PALM figures as a pretty good buy is you ask me. If you consider it's considerable intellectual might (they got a ton of Be, Inc engineers and split off their software group) and the fact that they still seem to be the de-facto Brand in the hand held market then it's a no-brainer. Throw in the fact that wireless solutions are growing like a rampant mildew infection in your tub grout.. well, why aren't you over at AmeriTrade right now! Open your belief in the American economy today!
20030207
Mont Royal to get some provincial protection after years of lobbying by conservationists.
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'Sir, I've got a baked Apple.'
...had a lady come in to see if we could fix her PowerBook G4.
The lady opened up the machine and the screen was all cracked, and there was not a single key left on the keyboard. It turns out she had the machine in the oven for 20 minutes, baking at 400 degrees.
No joke.
And what's even more amazing. The machine still works. Ethernet, Modem, USB, it all works.
This reminds me of the time I helped out the Army Reserve in upgrading a number of PCs they had at the base. The guy who I was helping out told a funny story involving a flooded basement full of Wangs. Do you remember Wang? They had a building right off 128 back in the day. Anyhow, the Wangs spent a few days submerged in water and when they pulled them out they just popped the cases off, set them in the sun to dry off, and when they fired them back up they worked just fine.
I'm surprised the powerbook handled 400 degrees though.
Feb 5th, 2003 at 3:07:11 pm - 1 page views
ucsb.edu
Dude. I see you. Leave a frickin' post asshole. Are you turning into a Californian? Do you say "Cali" now? Do you aspire to be in the movies? Does Steven and George and Martin and Stanley turn you on? Do you go to casting calls for Goofy at Disneyland because it's a "good stepping stone"? Do you run around on the beach slapping the tan girls on the ass?
You should.
20030205
John's Switch to Canada commercial. Ha ha. In fact, the whole Switch to Canada site is pretty funny.
Montreal's great jazz bassist Charlie Biddle shuffles off to his final show.
Here, courtesy of tonypierce's surfing, is a graph of U.S. Budget Surplus/Deficit from 1963 through the present - grouped by president. Interesting.. I guess Clinton was too busy with the little girls to get any real spending done. Shame on him.
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no goodbyes
no kisses
no hugs
just a faint click as the door latch slips into place and you scuddle away in the dark
Gadonkadonk butts oft giddy the toor
where blandid and blathful fiddles do sore.
But when the tiny gordornibs do try
their dingles go rundle and orknud flide.
They ringle some ootsles, but floth with utts
and then chase off the Gadonkadonk butts.
BritCoal: get your head out of that Gabondonka butt or whatever it is.
Xxxxxxx: gadonkadonk
BritCoal: sounds like a dungeon boss out of Zelda.
BritCoal: is your butt a dungeon boss in Zelda?
Xxxxxxx: hell yeah
BritCoal: that would actually explain a lot.
Xxxxxxx: yeah?
BritCoal: The graphics weren't that great back then, afterall.
Happy Make Some Promises But Try Not To Burst Out Laughing Day!
Currently there are criminally large holes in my music collection. Huge gaping ones where Led Zepplin and Nirvana should be. Gi-normous caverns lacking DJ Shadow and the Pixies and Johnny Cash. Hu-arge cavities devoid of Lionel Hampton and Pet Shop Boys and Phish and Simon & Garfunkel...
Strangely, though, the singular Show Me Love representing Robyn's opus seems slightly excessive.
Flax OilDay 5Bouyea-Fassett Whole Wheat bread, honey, and peanut butter
Feb. 3rd, 2003 Day 5
Same old same old - feel better? Not sure. It has been said, recently, that one should consume mass quantities of broccoli as well as flax seed oil - 3 or 4 times a week in fact. This i can do. I will begin immediately.
subject's notes: I'm still tired. I still don't sleep enough. I still am not sure about this. I will still give it a go. I will finish the bottle.
Over at evhead he's got a portion of A Conversation with Virtual Reality Pioneer Jaron Lanier posted, originally from here:
Aren't bugs just a limitation of human minds? No, no, they're not. What's the difference between a bug and a variation or an imperfection? If you think about it, if you make a small change to a program, it can result in an enormous change in what the program does. If nature worked that way, the universe would crash all the time. Certainly there wouldn't be any evolution or life. There's something about the way complexity builds up in nature so that if you have a small change, it results in sufficiently small results; it's possible to have incremental evolution.
It's all wrong buddy. You stretching the metaphor a bit far if you think you can compare a program and the universe. They aren't equivalent. Or even close. Of course a program can crash and bug-out from a simple change in the code - so can humans. Schizophrenia, Diabetes, Cancer.. need I go on? Bugs? Maybe not. But small changes resulting in large results - Yes. For that person. For that program, if you will. Now let's call something large and complex "The Universe". Oh.. I dunno. Ideas, anyone? Like.. oh.. the INTERNET? Yeah. That sounds about right. Still a stretch but a lot better than calling 3,000 lines of code "The Universe". Anyhow, now we have many thousands of servers (worlds?) interacting.. all running many programs (individuals?).. And what happens when there is a small, tiny change on the internet? Not much. How about when someone drops a worm and let's it wiggle through everything? Well.. some denial of service. Some trashing of networks. Does the whole internet crash? No. Does it self implode never to work again? No. But it might evolve.
But by the second half of the interview he has a lot of interesting things to say:
Here's the problem with computers: it's just so much work to think about programs that people treat the details of software as if they were acts of God. When you go to school and learn how to program, you are taught about an idea like a computer file as if it were some law of nature. But if you go back in history, files used to be controversial. The first version of the Macintosh before it was released didn't have files. Instead, they had the idea of a giant global soup of little tiny primitives like letters. There were never going to be files, because that way, you wouldn't have incompatible file formats -- right?
The important thing to look at is how files became the standard. It just happened that UNIX had them, IBM mainframes had them, DOS had them, and then Windows. And then Macintosh came out with them. And with the Internet, because of the UNIX heritage, we ended up thinking in terms of moving files around and file- oriented protocols like FTP. And what happened is that the file just became a universal idea, even though it didn't start out as one.
So, now, when you learn about computer science, you learn about the file as if it were an element of nature, like a photon. That's a dangerous mentality. Even if you really can't do anything about it, and you really can't practically write software without files right now, it's still important not to let your brain be bamboozled. You have to remember what's a human invention and what isn't. And you have to think about files in the same way you think about grocery carts. They are a particular invention with positive and negative elements. It's very important to keep that sense of skepticism alive. If you do that, it will really have an influence on the quality of code that you create today.
Plus, considering he invented the term Virtual Reality..well.. he might have a few things on me.
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Flax OilDay 4MISSED!
Feb. 2nd, 2003 Day 4
Smelting will screw up even the tightest of schedules. Flax was missed on this day.
subject's notes: Smelting. Liberal Cup for din din. No Flax. *sigh*
contentment is good. it's the goal, really
the great fear - the fear of unhappiness - is a constant and legit fear because happiness is not attainable
happiness, like an excited electron state, is only attainable for brief periods - before things settle into a more stable state. so.. by expecting and wanting happiness, you are setting yourself up for failure.
contentment - satisfaction - satiation.. this is what we must desire and search for... for only in contentment will we be able to raise ourselves more often to the heightened state of happiness
those asians... so in tune with self
it's like life. i cooked most of the pieces okay.. but one of them got burnt.
You know what really gets my goat? Radicals. You'd think me, of all people, would be right there with them but I don't think it's that simple - not like it used to be anyway. There are the flamingly left wing anti-war zealots who couldn't give a rat's ass if tiny countries on the other side of the world trade nukes for a few rounds.. until the trade winds breeze us over a healthy serving of fresh radiation to go with our morning paper. MMmm. Smell that honey? That's Frrreeeeesssh!. Then there are the violently right wing war mongers who couldn't give a rat's ass if tiny countries on the other side of the world starved to death.. until they're all crossing our borders in a search for a better life, bringing their suitcases full of malaria and AIDS. It's not that simple, boys and girls. Or it is, but with you people out there it makes things a bit complicated. Most problems have a number of possible solutions that are clear and concise and simple - but for the sake of democracy, for the sake of a better world, for the sake of you - yes you, the little man on the corner smoking the butt - to feel like you matter and have a say, there are no simple answers anymore. None. Back in a world before histrionics there were cavemen and when things didn't work out, they hit eachother over the head with heavy objects. This continued for a few millenia and only stopped very recently. In a matter of a decade, maybe a decade and a half, we have become completely and utterly petrified. No longer do we march off to war with our heads held high and our guns aimed upon our enemy. We skirt, we feign. We announce with bright voices our intentions of war but we sooth our Allies[sic] with mild apathy. No one gots the guts, yo. Serious problems call for serious solutions but no one is willing to be serious anymore. A puppet for a president and a bunch of baby boomers who are adamently against a war that would save their very way of being - their SUVs and their central heating and their not-shitting-in-a-hole-in-the-floor. No one realizes the consequences and everyone is busy clamouring over the noise of the crowd to notice the cameras in the corners, zooming in and capturing their pixelated selves. People are too busy talking their heads and filling their mouths and some would say that there is a problem in Rome, baby, and it's not gonna be pretty. Rome fell for a reason and so will the cracking and crumbling institution of America, because it's already begun. You think you're cute because ignorance is bliss. You think that life will treat you right and that someone owes you something because you don't see how small and trivial we are. You seem pretty sure that the cake is coming and you have your fork poised, covered in last course's remains. A long long time ago when someone had a problem with their neighbour they just jumped over to a different tree, barred their teeth, and flung some shit. It almost seems more civilized, if you ask me.
Left ------------ Right
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Flax OilDay 3Mama Rosie's Ravioli with sauce garnished with fried onions and celery
Feb. 31st, 2003 Day 3
Fried up a bunch of onions and celery and mixed in with some tomatoe sauce and poured healthy portion of oil over it all. So far this has proven the best way to avoid the flax taste. Twelve hours of solid bedtime was given to the subject though it is questionable how much was solid sleep.
subject's notes: Plans to Stay up to ridiculus hour worked out, shutting the light off at around 4 am. Did not get out of bed till a sharp 4 pm. Ate ravioli. Watched girls basketball.
Flax OilDay 2Bouyea-Fassett Whole Wheat bread, honey, and peanut butter
January 31th, 2003 Day 2
I applied a layer of oil to a piece of whole wheat bread, only this time I spilled a lot and got the bottle covered in oil. I covered it in peanut butter and a layer of clover honey, and downed it just like last time.
subject's notes: Plans to Stay up to ridiculus hour in order to prepare for all night smelting excursion on the Kennebec. Sleep is of no consequence, I declare.. as I read NYTimes bit on sleep disorders. Wackos.
Over at www.tbotcotw.com he's got a bit (linked of course) about that English Soccer Streaker Commercial.. Woulda been more fun if it was real. Nude or not. When I went to Oriole Park at Camden Yards for the first time the game was rained out. We sat in the upper deck under the roof waiting for about an hour to see if they were going to call the game or not and two other fans who apparently got bored waiting jumped out of the bleachers, ran across the outfield towards second base, and did two big belly flops onto the infield tarp like it was a giagantic slip-n-slide. They got kicked out but the game did get cancelled.
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the guys: philogynist jaime tony - the gals:raymi raspil
