(no subject)
This post should be a comprehensive recap of Canada and winter break, but I am omitting any mention thereof, because it's not really on my mind.
Anyway. Feeling fairly mellow. Feeling good because of sensory overload.
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http://www.friendster.com/user.jsp?id=4761939
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http://www.barnonedrinks.com/tips/
I'm thinking of going to a bartending school. Over the summer, maybe.
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The following passage is not edited at all. Do not take issue with it, because it is likely to be misinterpreted.
I downloaded The Darkness - I Believe in a Thing Called Love today, because I heard it the other night (along with another mystery song I need to hunt down.) It's wicked cool - sort of over the top and very 80's, but I like it.
I looked up the album (which I need to borrow from Pope) on Amazon, and there was some drivel about how cliched and cookie-cutter ironic-postmodern-postironic-hipster it was, followed by a bunch of rebuttals defending the song. I didn't really care. I don't have a handlebar mustache (but I think they're cool) and I don't drink Pabst Blue Ribbon and I don't wear trucker hats or aviator glasses, can I go now?
I try to intentionally avoid subcultures and niches and movements and stuff because I don't like being part of generalizations (NOTE: important semantic difference between 'not being generalized' and 'being an individual,' despite the huge overlap.) But instead I kind of default to a libertarian-middle-upper-class-academic type. Less obnoxious than a yuppie, but happily passive, and therefore construed to be sheep. I really loathe being referred to as a sheep, especially by some asshole in a Hot Topic t-shirt, or some goddam hippie, or some vegetarian who decided to become an activist once they entered college because their world expanded so much, or even someone who I respect. Leave me alone, I have chosen to be passive. It seems like the best possible course of action - it is my firm belief that it is a mistake to hold firm beliefs.
Anyway, it's a niche, and I don't really want to be in a niche. I wonder if that's possible.
That's the problem with stuff like countercultures. To geek out over the problem - a counterculture travels along the same axis as a culture, but in the opposite direction. It's just taking culture and contradicting it, there's nothing original involved. If you want the uniqueness and prestige that you think 'counterculture' implies, you have be on a perpendicular axis. Or ninety degrees out of phase.
(Sorry, that's how my mind works.)
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http://users.wpi.edu/~mikefjr/movemovie%5b1%5d.mov
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I cannot find my digital camera. Or my new pants. This is somewhat distressing.
UPDATE: They were in my bag.
------
I'm starting to read a lot of memepool (www.memepool.com), from which I found http://tlb.org/scooter.html . Memepool is big enough to have a lot of contributors but small enough to not have been completely whored out yet (a la slashdot.)
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Catching up on my maddox articles:
http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=real_men
It surprises me that he picks somebody like Gregory Peck for the list. He missed Hemingway, although I don't think it's intended to be a comprehensive list. He also picked some fishing captain who dragged a shark to shore, by its tail, and killed it with his knife, because it was heading towards his crew. I wish I were that awesome. Although, given the choice between copping out or possibly being eaten by a shark, I think copping out is pretty impressive.
Which, I guess, is exactly the problem that he's talking about.
http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=garfield_sucks
Nothing new. It's odd that I should consume so much Garfield stuff in my wee (formative?) years and then get wound up in a culture that hates it. (no, I can't define the culture - the weird mix of gaming types and plain old internet funnymen. The SA Forum Goons are a pretty good example of it.) Uh, back to the main idea - yeah, I understand most Garfield stuff is not funny (though I can't comment on the more recent stuff, for reasons detailed below.) But I get most of my Garfield stuff from the compilations, where I can simply skim over the typical strips and forget about them, and only focus on the genuinely good stuff. But, since the majority of them are not funny, or only funny in series, the odds of you looking at the comics page and saying "wow, that sucks" are awfully high. The reason I cannot comment on more recent strips is because I don't own any of the newest books (I think I have books 1-33?)
http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=lovin_it
OH MAN. Did you get the clever comic at the top, where he portrays the type of people who buy into marketing as robots, who are brutally SHUT DOWN by the individualist who is TOO COOL to be decieved by a marketing campaign? If I didn't know better, I'd say that comic was RAD.
And, if I didn't know better, I'd infer by the clothing and headphones that he was implying that the skater type was the embodiment of an individual.
http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=owned
Writing / story idea: someone gets a similar treatment from a similar millionaire, and similarly blows them off, except in Real Life, and said millionaire gets pissed off and does insidious things to the detriment of said someone. (Insidious things in a THEM sort of way, or a The Firm sort of way, or in a Runaway Jury sort of way. The type of thing that rich and powerful sorts do to people who anger them.) But then, said someone defeats their plans (the hard part of writing this) in a very literal and non-symbolic way, and subsequently ties them to a chair somewhere (preferably in said millionaire's own home) and beats the fuck out of them (preferably using a pool stick as a blunt weapon somewhere in the process.) End the movie/story before he has to deal with the consequences.
The idea seemed a lot better in my own head.
-------
The numinous is a cool node on everything2.
-----
So I've had an idea for the past couple of days, an idea probably best suited for comic book or machinima medium, nothing terribly original - just something following the adventures of an obscenely strong guy. His strength would be disproportional to his still-considerable size (8' tall 400-something weight.) A guy to do stuff like get in fist-fights with grizzly bears, or punch through cinder block walls, use motorcycles as blunt weapons, tackle (and subsequently derail) trains, or to stand still while a mack truck attempts to run him down and when it gets close enough, punch it in the grill so hard that the whole thing collapses in upon itself while the driveshaft shoots out the back! Or pull up trees and use them as weapons! Your archetypal Beowulf type. Brown pants, white shirt, small sunglasses and a small ponytail, and a chest holster. Armed with a pair of pistols which shoot .50 BMG rounds. Whee.
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Most of my funniness used to stem from me acting angry. Now I am mostly passive, and therefore not as funny. Now most of my funniness is derived from randomness and massive obscenity. Oh well. Sometimes I'm clever, too, if that counts for anything.
-----
The Judaism metanode on everything2 is pretty cool. Especially how comprehensive it is about Kaballah and Sefirot stuff. Jewish numerology is neat.
-----
http://grouphug.us/
Awesome. Ranges from the funny to the disturbing
391236268: " This morning I heard on the news a girl from my school was very seriouslly injured in a car wreck; it involved a moving train, her b/f's car got stalled on the tracks and the truck was hit. When I heard about it, I was not sad at all. I rolled my eyes and braced myself for a day full of drama. But, when I got to my 4th period class, several girls that were friends with her were crying extremely hard and I wondered why. That girl died. All day I thought about how annoying everyone else was and how stupid that girls coat was. Then I realized, she had never done anything to me and didnt deserve to die or my wretched thoughts. Why couldnt it have been someone deserving? Not someone who never comitted a wrong..why wasnt it me?..I'm sorry. I'm sorry, so fucking sorry courtney..."
880017465: "Nightmares, nightmares, they rule my life, they have done that for three years.
Im not sure why, or what is causing them, i cant sleep, im afraid of sleep but when i sleep, i have these horrible dreams about the future, i see soldiers in my home, my entire apartment is trashed, my cats are dead in the kitchen b/c they starved to death , outside the world is dark and cold, i see entire cities in ruins, in the end of every dream i just see a big blue flame floating in space and i know it controls me until the end of everything.
On the outside i look normal, but every morning when i leave my apartment its like i grab a masc and put it on so that no one will know, im 27 now, it sounds cliche but nothing makes sense to me, i dont care, im sure that theres gonna be a big war soon, i hear these terrible newsreports inside my head all day i hear people screaming and reports of riots and death, its so horrible, im not sure if i want to live anymore. to be honest, none would care if i didnt. "
Anyway. Feeling fairly mellow. Feeling good because of sensory overload.
-----
http://www.friendster.com/user.jsp?id=4761939
-----
http://www.barnonedrinks.com/tips/
I'm thinking of going to a bartending school. Over the summer, maybe.
------
The following passage is not edited at all. Do not take issue with it, because it is likely to be misinterpreted.
I downloaded The Darkness - I Believe in a Thing Called Love today, because I heard it the other night (along with another mystery song I need to hunt down.) It's wicked cool - sort of over the top and very 80's, but I like it.
I looked up the album (which I need to borrow from Pope) on Amazon, and there was some drivel about how cliched and cookie-cutter ironic-postmodern-postironic-hipster it was, followed by a bunch of rebuttals defending the song. I didn't really care. I don't have a handlebar mustache (but I think they're cool) and I don't drink Pabst Blue Ribbon and I don't wear trucker hats or aviator glasses, can I go now?
I try to intentionally avoid subcultures and niches and movements and stuff because I don't like being part of generalizations (NOTE: important semantic difference between 'not being generalized' and 'being an individual,' despite the huge overlap.) But instead I kind of default to a libertarian-middle-upper-class-academic type. Less obnoxious than a yuppie, but happily passive, and therefore construed to be sheep. I really loathe being referred to as a sheep, especially by some asshole in a Hot Topic t-shirt, or some goddam hippie, or some vegetarian who decided to become an activist once they entered college because their world expanded so much, or even someone who I respect. Leave me alone, I have chosen to be passive. It seems like the best possible course of action - it is my firm belief that it is a mistake to hold firm beliefs.
Anyway, it's a niche, and I don't really want to be in a niche. I wonder if that's possible.
That's the problem with stuff like countercultures. To geek out over the problem - a counterculture travels along the same axis as a culture, but in the opposite direction. It's just taking culture and contradicting it, there's nothing original involved. If you want the uniqueness and prestige that you think 'counterculture' implies, you have be on a perpendicular axis. Or ninety degrees out of phase.
(Sorry, that's how my mind works.)
------
http://users.wpi.edu/~mikefjr/movemovie%5b1%5d.mov
------
I cannot find my digital camera. Or my new pants. This is somewhat distressing.
UPDATE: They were in my bag.
------
I'm starting to read a lot of memepool (www.memepool.com), from which I found http://tlb.org/scooter.html . Memepool is big enough to have a lot of contributors but small enough to not have been completely whored out yet (a la slashdot.)
------
Catching up on my maddox articles:
http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=real_men
It surprises me that he picks somebody like Gregory Peck for the list. He missed Hemingway, although I don't think it's intended to be a comprehensive list. He also picked some fishing captain who dragged a shark to shore, by its tail, and killed it with his knife, because it was heading towards his crew. I wish I were that awesome. Although, given the choice between copping out or possibly being eaten by a shark, I think copping out is pretty impressive.
Which, I guess, is exactly the problem that he's talking about.
http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=garfield_sucks
Nothing new. It's odd that I should consume so much Garfield stuff in my wee (formative?) years and then get wound up in a culture that hates it. (no, I can't define the culture - the weird mix of gaming types and plain old internet funnymen. The SA Forum Goons are a pretty good example of it.) Uh, back to the main idea - yeah, I understand most Garfield stuff is not funny (though I can't comment on the more recent stuff, for reasons detailed below.) But I get most of my Garfield stuff from the compilations, where I can simply skim over the typical strips and forget about them, and only focus on the genuinely good stuff. But, since the majority of them are not funny, or only funny in series, the odds of you looking at the comics page and saying "wow, that sucks" are awfully high. The reason I cannot comment on more recent strips is because I don't own any of the newest books (I think I have books 1-33?)
http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=lovin_it
OH MAN. Did you get the clever comic at the top, where he portrays the type of people who buy into marketing as robots, who are brutally SHUT DOWN by the individualist who is TOO COOL to be decieved by a marketing campaign? If I didn't know better, I'd say that comic was RAD.
And, if I didn't know better, I'd infer by the clothing and headphones that he was implying that the skater type was the embodiment of an individual.
http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=owned
Writing / story idea: someone gets a similar treatment from a similar millionaire, and similarly blows them off, except in Real Life, and said millionaire gets pissed off and does insidious things to the detriment of said someone. (Insidious things in a THEM sort of way, or a The Firm sort of way, or in a Runaway Jury sort of way. The type of thing that rich and powerful sorts do to people who anger them.) But then, said someone defeats their plans (the hard part of writing this) in a very literal and non-symbolic way, and subsequently ties them to a chair somewhere (preferably in said millionaire's own home) and beats the fuck out of them (preferably using a pool stick as a blunt weapon somewhere in the process.) End the movie/story before he has to deal with the consequences.
The idea seemed a lot better in my own head.
-------
The numinous is a cool node on everything2.
-----
So I've had an idea for the past couple of days, an idea probably best suited for comic book or machinima medium, nothing terribly original - just something following the adventures of an obscenely strong guy. His strength would be disproportional to his still-considerable size (8' tall 400-something weight.) A guy to do stuff like get in fist-fights with grizzly bears, or punch through cinder block walls, use motorcycles as blunt weapons, tackle (and subsequently derail) trains, or to stand still while a mack truck attempts to run him down and when it gets close enough, punch it in the grill so hard that the whole thing collapses in upon itself while the driveshaft shoots out the back! Or pull up trees and use them as weapons! Your archetypal Beowulf type. Brown pants, white shirt, small sunglasses and a small ponytail, and a chest holster. Armed with a pair of pistols which shoot .50 BMG rounds. Whee.
-----
Most of my funniness used to stem from me acting angry. Now I am mostly passive, and therefore not as funny. Now most of my funniness is derived from randomness and massive obscenity. Oh well. Sometimes I'm clever, too, if that counts for anything.
-----
The Judaism metanode on everything2 is pretty cool. Especially how comprehensive it is about Kaballah and Sefirot stuff. Jewish numerology is neat.
-----
http://grouphug.us/
Awesome. Ranges from the funny to the disturbing
391236268: " This morning I heard on the news a girl from my school was very seriouslly injured in a car wreck; it involved a moving train, her b/f's car got stalled on the tracks and the truck was hit. When I heard about it, I was not sad at all. I rolled my eyes and braced myself for a day full of drama. But, when I got to my 4th period class, several girls that were friends with her were crying extremely hard and I wondered why. That girl died. All day I thought about how annoying everyone else was and how stupid that girls coat was. Then I realized, she had never done anything to me and didnt deserve to die or my wretched thoughts. Why couldnt it have been someone deserving? Not someone who never comitted a wrong..why wasnt it me?..I'm sorry. I'm sorry, so fucking sorry courtney..."
880017465: "Nightmares, nightmares, they rule my life, they have done that for three years.
Im not sure why, or what is causing them, i cant sleep, im afraid of sleep but when i sleep, i have these horrible dreams about the future, i see soldiers in my home, my entire apartment is trashed, my cats are dead in the kitchen b/c they starved to death , outside the world is dark and cold, i see entire cities in ruins, in the end of every dream i just see a big blue flame floating in space and i know it controls me until the end of everything.
On the outside i look normal, but every morning when i leave my apartment its like i grab a masc and put it on so that no one will know, im 27 now, it sounds cliche but nothing makes sense to me, i dont care, im sure that theres gonna be a big war soon, i hear these terrible newsreports inside my head all day i hear people screaming and reports of riots and death, its so horrible, im not sure if i want to live anymore. to be honest, none would care if i didnt. "