THE AMAZING TALES OF

2007-11-21T20:53:00.001-08:00

Whattayaknow. They made a poster of the old me!

2007-11-21T18:46:00.001-08:00

Identity, Success, and Dissociative Personality Disorder
(rough draft/unedited)

For every situation, there is an identity to which the scenario constitutes a win-state. The average man being tortured has lost, but masochist is in his element. The average barren women is depressed, a career woman uninterested in offspring is relieved. Of course, this revelation is mostly useless. Few of us have the ability to rewrite ourselves significantly, much less fast and well and into the correct enough person to win in every instance. More than that, to do so goes against some deep and potent need for an Identity, a definition. Even if that was not an issue, there is a resilience to personality and perception that is difficult to bypass and due to this, little chance that some scenarios will be provided with the appropriate champion persona. An ambitious, hard-working type with definite plans that gets laid-off and blacklisted from a high level occupation is unlikely to be made of the traits that the type that would revel in exile because that type would almost never have reached so far. Conversely, because we work towards those goals which we hope and assume reflect our personality-defined win-state, we do have a better rate than chance of being the right person for the big moments. This doesn't help as much as it should, not thanks to a lack of mercury in the spirit, but in that there exists a third set of personalities: those which contain self-defeating definitions of win-states. This can be thanks to the basic nature of success in that every victory gives you a better view of how much higher you could climb. With five dollars, you can better imagine having ten. Because of the nature of the mental mechanisms which allow us to pursue long-term goals, it's also common for a defined victory condition to be less satisfying than the pursuit. This can be circumvented slightly by putting a positive spin on individual moments, but it's rare that it's avoided entirely except by gold-fish and the unusually in-the-moment.

Changing personality is possible, it happens not so uncommonly. Traumas, epiphanies, ardurous months of redefinition are all vehicles for self-alteration, though any of them can come from outside and external influences have no preference in what change they work on an individual. Few people have a knack for it and so we get half-formed identities peppered with contradictions subtle or sternum-piercing, wannabes, and nervous breakdowns from the stress of attempting perfections or ill-fitting clothes. Even those that can work auto-alchemy are often uncomfortable doing so as there nearly always an aspect of chance that may sour the creation and that there is the simple fact that becoming a new person by definition will invalidate much of the old, though if it doesn't there then runs the risk of slipping back into an old skin and old habits, erasing the work of months. So you run the risk of becoming something, someone, less well-adapted to the place and time you've found yourself and if the option of screwy inner-lycanthropy is being considered, it's certainly because you've found yourself ill-suited to where you are while you're there meaning the risk is that of even greater loss than you're currently enduring. And then, if you change and the scenario is only brief, the difficulty of changing again is unstandardized with some shapes sticking more strongly than others. More than that, the new person you are might have the right outlook only to find all your old skills don't fit, leaving you with stronger hands perhaps but a lack of tools. Many resources can be loss, if only because their promoted status is negated. The goals you were so close to that inertia can carry you the rest of the way may become little more than unnotable, unworthy happenstance when someone new lives with your parts. You could be so close to wooing that woman all you needed to do was smile one more time, but after becoming that good and focused professional you needed for work, that one smile never occurs to you. Or the reverse and becoming a soppy easy-goer misses your meeting for you and all that other ambition is toppled over and if the girl was a one-night stand or the job just temping and you eventually return to the old you, all the work of the majority is gone. Most of us are who we are for long enough that big things may be nearly done by the time we change, wasting our time and effort. Of course, most people only change slowly, a long-term adaptation you'd never notice if you were there with them, so sluggish that the water can boil before we notice it's getting hot in here (or that we realize all that paper means we're wealthy now). For those of us that do, though, it's a delicate equation of price and transaction, weight and counterbalance and evaluation of the profit en potentia. And it's hard, too. To decide whether or not to be proactive or let the moment wash over us in the hope of fading time. To trade wallets with a stranger. To let our past be a sunk investment. To give up our projects and patterns and habits in the hope that new pursuits will yield bigger payoffs. To hope that all the reinforcement of the old and poorly working self won't be so much that in trying to change, we only twist ourselves broken like Jenga on a spinning plate, that the new self is as right as we predict it to be, that we can salvage something from the Beforetimes like survivors of an ineptly written apocalyptic novel or that the pain we're escaping really is bigger and longer than joy we're paying with for our escape. The uncertain future makes it hard. Makes a wrong choice feel like our fault when passive victimization is at least the fault of others. Or so we tell ourselves.

2007-11-21T18:45:00.002-08:00

Cardiac Tissue and Pair-Bonding

Having emotions is a different world, a whole other body-parallel, than having romantic emotions. People can hurt you or make you glow no matter which options you come equipped with, but having romantic feelings is like grafting testicles and a penis to your heart. On the one hand, when someone makes your heart run fast, it's even more... satisfying. On the other, when it gets broke or bruised, you've also got to deal with having been punched in the nuts. Either way, things are messier. Fluids and discolorations everywhere. It makes the target more sensitive to pleasure and pain, but also punched in the nuts. That's the main point here. And having all that unthinking motive tissue so close to the head only makes you stupid as it tears all the blood from your brain to fuel heart palpitations and fruitless erections. It makes you aggressive, makes you want to fight or fall or fuck. It's ridiculous. You're ridiculous.

I blame the oxytocin.

2007-11-21T18:45:00.001-08:00

My Opinions

"Good in bed" - good at sex

"Good on the couch" - good at hanky-panky

2007-11-21T18:43:00.002-08:00

Most Soothing

Arbitrary, random, immersive nonsense like staring at a photo montage of mustaches throughout the ages played to a soulful 70's soundtrack

Children's Books that I've never read before

Love of a good woman

Love of a good woman who can't help being bad

Success

Money

Power

Full-Attention-Requiring Games

Milk

Meat

Getting lost on purpose

Imagining riding unusual animals or eating them or punching buffalo

Coffee Excesses (except when it drives me to an intense but productive and satisfying rage)

Driving

Sleep

Plotting and/or Scheming

Turkey

Crushing those that oppose me

Sad but hopeful funk/soul and misc other music

Views of complex machinery

Ruins

2007-11-21T18:43:00.001-08:00

I just realized that even though I saw it before I understood about sex, LEGEND threw a whole lot of intuition about sex into my head. Intuition I ignored later in life, but christ. You want to prepare your kids for how sexual attraction works half the time? Show them the damn movie.

2007-11-21T18:41:00.000-08:00

It's a fun example of subtle connotations that "Big man" is often slightly derogatory (particularly if not qualified by "On Campus" or etc.), but "Big guy" is an endearment.

2007-11-20T11:13:00.002-08:00

Yes

2007-11-20T11:13:00.001-08:00

"It was like in cartoons, how all the characters are starving and when they look at each other, they just see giant talking food, except with (Joe and Jane), all they saw were, I don't know, giant talking genitals."

and

"They were like two hungry lions in a pen except that instead of being hungry for a gazelle, they were hungry for each other. Sexually."

2007-11-20T11:12:00.002-08:00

Methadone Rose

2007-11-20T11:12:00.001-08:00

I need my arms to stop containing muscles who had some kind of gritty, sandy, vaguely caustic crystal powder rubbed into them.
Hydraulics'd be fine.

Hell, I'd put up with the little tiny-embarassed-cartoon-insect farty sound and all that melodramatic emo sighing you get with pneumatics, but this shit has got to go.

2007-11-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

"Stories are told about how Tiramisu was the favorite of Venice's courtesans, who needed a "pick me up" (the literal translation of"tirami-su") to fortify themselves between their amorous encounters. True? Probably not. But it makes for a colorful history. Its American popularity arose in San Francisco, and today, Tiramisu can be found in restaurants throughout the nation."

and

"'Zuppa Inglese' is nothing like Tiramisù and that should prove my second point. Tiramisù is really from Treviso. Zuppa Inglese may be from Tuscany, but Tiramisù was first created in Treviso. The storya bout the courtesans should be true too. As far as I know Tiramisù used to be eaten by the ladies who 'worked' in the brothel above therestaurant called 'Le Beccherie,' where Tiramisù is said to have been created."

-heavenlytiramisu.com

2007-11-20T11:10:00.002-08:00

The Twenty-Three Reasons to Pick a Fight

Dominance
Frustration
Defense
Principle
Boredom/Ennui
Thrillseeking Tendencies
Acquisition
Just Going With It
Not Getting Laid Enough
Sadism
Masochism
To Annihilate Those That Oppose or Offend You
Insecurity
Impress Chicks
Impress Dudes
Suicide
Revenge
Anger - current
Forced To
Part of Your Cover Identity
Survive Prison
Need Bruises
Distract Them

2007-11-20T11:10:00.001-08:00

Water's good for everything else, but not a case of the Blues

The downside of being more health-conscious is that, when faced with emotional distress, my immediate response is to feel like I should be drinking more water.

That doesn't even make sense.

As far as what's opened the gates to the burning tire dump that is feeling down, it's a combination of a little concern for my grandaddy who had a stroke, learning that the most recent ex has a new boyfriend which she kept secret from me and which could easily rearrange a lot of my plans for the home-visit at break, frustration and uncertainty at where I am socially and where I'm going professionally, and cold fingers because I'm too cheap to turn on the heat. And I'm horny as the devil with normal outlets increasingly feeling unsatisfactory with the next best chance not being a one that'll go further than the "giggle" in the "poke and giggle" scenario. And the neighbor's cat has been yowling for an hour.

But really, water might be good when you're sick, tired, have a headache or sore muscles, or having trouble digesting, but I am willing to bet dollars to dimes it is not a meaningful aid in fighting the "Grumpies" (at this point, I'd run out of synonyms for sad that didn't inaccurately pull off into "depressed" which isn't the way things are).

Also, my Primal Male is going fucking crazy these days and I can literally feel the other inner-factions beating his ass down when he gets up, including a bunch of the guilds and organizations that don't normally get involved or reveal themselves to casual conscious inspection. He's acting like an upset crazy old dog that doesn't know or understand what's going on. It's tiring. I'm tired. I wish I were a flaming ball of gas and teeth flying around scaring the crap out of air-traffic controllers. That'd be the life. That'd be better.

2007-11-11T20:53:00.001-08:00

The Hoboken Chicken Emergency

Sometimes, the world has no excuse for its actions.

...

2007-11-11T19:28:00.001-08:00

I would love to see AMAZO fight Brainiac.

2007-11-11T19:26:00.005-08:00

It's only after having handfuls of three types of olives be the complete measure of your dinner do you really realize how weird the little things are. Little semi-ripe textured big-seeded fruit drowned in brine. Not much like anything but themselves.

2007-11-11T19:26:00.003-08:00

"Like those songs you hear as a kid that didn't catch your interest but you can recognize when you're older, but when you hear again sound like they're hinting at things you never would have thought of as a kid and then your childhood feels a little smirched and you feel like they were laughing at you a little when they played the song for you"
-In response to a proposed cover of the Ding Dong Song by Della Reese

2007-11-11T19:26:00.001-08:00

Also an example of why I probably can't be trusted with a machine like that

DW (9:27:55 PM): Dexter Goes to Camp
Wombatidae (9:27:53 PM): And it makes you sort of hate the sister more
Wombatidae (9:28:01 PM): I would watch that
...
Wombatidae (9:28:28 PM): If they did it in the same style as Earnest Goes to Camp
Wombatidae (9:28:37 PM): With just the character switch
DW(9:29:24 PM): Same here, man.
DW (9:29:35 PM): Also, Dexter Scared Stupid would be great.
Wombatidae (9:29:48 PM): Dexter Goes To Jail might be a bit weird, though
Wombatidae (9:30:09 PM): Scared Stupid. Man, he just starts serial-killing horrible goblin-troll beasts
Wombatidae (9:30:32 PM): Tying them down with saran wrap, pictures of the kids they've turned to wooden statues surrounding them
Wombatidae (9:30:49 PM): Talking casually to them about his romantic problems
DW (9:31:06 PM): "Mmmmyap, you killed a lot of kids, huh? YknowwhatImean."
Wombatidae (9:31:02 PM): God, that'd be amazing
Wombatidae (9:31:34 PM): I have always wished I had a magical movie-mixing machine that I could just throw things together with

2007-11-11T19:11:00.000-08:00

Just once, I want that gag that goes "I know X like the back of my hand" and then they look at the back of their hand and remark about something they didn't know to just end with them looking at the hand and then "Cancer!"

Afterwards, if everyone around them was really sincere in consoling them, that too would be funny.

2007-11-11T19:10:00.000-08:00

Sunday Night Question, Monday Morning Query

You're about to depart on a fantastic action-filled space-opera adventure. Which weapon do you pick?

A) Laser gun
B) Flame pistol
C) Lightning pistol
D) Disintegration Raygun (not a point-and-click, shoots holes through things)
E) Sonic Blaster
F) Atomo-pistol
G) Rocket Pistol (shoots tiny exploding rockets)
H) Railgun Pistol/Blunderbuss
I) Bee gun (it shoots out bees)
J) Flechette gun
K) Six-shooter
L) Turbine Pistol
M) Pain Gun
N) Molecular Destabilization Ray
O) Other: Describe Below

Now, what does it look like? What's the make (rifle, pistol, hold-out gun, back-pack blaster, old, new, inherited, etc.), abilities, limitations, and quirks? Why did you pick it? What adventures do you think it's most useful for?

And then, an ACTION SCENE! GO!

2007-11-11T19:09:00.000-08:00

Today, I was more productive than a bulimic bee and what I made, ten times so sweet.

In theory.

What I made was a lot of progress, much of it thanks to the use of my very own shared undergrad who is ambitious and loveable and seems to love scut work. It's glorious, though we may have to go back and fix (or teach her to fix) a variety of issues she may or may not have accidentally incurred in the process of handling a mind-numbing amount of stimuli. Still, it's a beautiful thing.

What I ALSO made was an application for an NSF Fellowship, which I'm unlikely to get, but which yielded a lot of helpful essays that I'll almost certainly further polish and use in applying to the DOD* Fellowship which I have what is probably a slightly better chance of getting, mostly due to there being a lot more funding put towards dealing with prosthetics thanks to the Iraq War. And, see, I deal with prosthetics. Also? What I do can theoretically be applied to weaponry and overall military tech. But that's just a happy/unhappy coincidence. And if it's double, then I can afford all sorts of fancy new things. Toys, clothes, food better than eggs cooked in various forms, scar removal, a tattoo, brail implantation on my hand, a nicer apartment. A monkey that wears a smoking jacket. The possibilities are endless.

Anyhow, just because it might amuse y'all, up next is the horrible, dull, poorly-written, and overall uninspiring essays I set out in my name to fight as my champions. They are probably going to lose. Only one of them even knows which end of the sword counts as "pointy". Things don't look good for our ragtag band.

*Yes, that Department of Defense. If I get THAT grant, it's twice the money, half the pressure from above, and a guaranteed place of employment for the first couple years out the PhDoor**. And besides, super deathkill cyber-soldiers free from the weaknesses of morality and the flesh. Come ON, that's COOL. Damn.

**I know it's not funny. Or clever. It's an abomination level "joke". And your disappointment and pain is the punchline. Haha, not really. I'm just crashing harder than the Titanic, if the Titanic had been one of those unlikely flying boats from videogames and fantasy stories. And was made of lead. With rocket engines accidentally aimed upwards, driving it careening past its natural terminal velocity to cause massive property damage and loss of life in a small-to-middling town unluckily situated under its flight-path. And all the passengers are, like, really fat. Robots. Really, really fat robots.

2007-11-11T19:08:00.000-08:00

Personal Statement

There is little in the way of a good story regarding what drew me into science, much less the specificity of focus which I now pursue, but the constant addition of layer after layer of interest and preference has laid such a strong and uniform perceptual framework that escape is as impossible as pulling a barbed wire fence out of the tree that grew around it. There have been events, here and there, which shaped which field I eventually landed in, but the basic pursuit has been there since the beginning. It’s not one night of staring at the stars or growing up with damaged loved-ones or surviving an accident or a summer at Space Camp (though I did go to Science Camp one summer, which was an experience in psychological research and comfortable submersion in the subculture of awkward proto-scientists).
Between my parents and scattered relatives, who still occasionally send tickets to exhibits like BodyWorks or shows at the IMAX Theater, there has always been a lot of support from my family. My parents did everything to make sure my brother and I were involved with the big world. We regularly went on “adventure walks” and trips to the science museum. Most summers, I went to a day-camp at a nearby nature preserve or spent time at my grandpa’s cabin up in the Minnesota North. At the camp they took us on nature walks, taught us about ecosystems and animals and some slight natural history, all through hands-on exploration and activities. At my grandpa’s, I got technical answers to childhood questions drawn up from his forty-some years as an engineer, DIY guru, and spare-time inventor. Its one thing to design a tree-house when you’re eight, but it’s another thing entirely to get advice about material economy, structural integrity, and electrical wiring issues while you doodle. Home with my parents was often a little less technical, but they did a good job of actually answering my questions as a kid instead of ignoring them or making up answers. Still, because after a point, there’s only so much curiosity any two people can fill, they encouraged early literacy. As soon as I was able to read, they took me to the library every weekend and I would fill a milk-crate with books. A love of reading came in handy as I ended up spending a lot of time sick at home.
As soon as I could read, I stumbled on my dad’s massive sci-fi collection. Not the proudest beginning maybe, but the stories about the potential of technology and man and all the million futures that came from digging into the hidden workings of the world stirred something in me that never settled back down. It was a good thing he had the books, too, as I spent much of my childhood sick at home and without cable, I spent my time reading and sleeping. More than just providing an opportunity for the subtle propaganda of space-operas and cyberpunk to sink in, being sick instilled a dissatisfaction with the “natural” limits we’re born into. It wasn’t so much disliking nature, but being forced to merely cope instead of fix. It was the feeling of being out of control that breeds either resignation or rebellion and too much was expected from me for resignation.
Being away from school so much made me shy and bookish, which would have been more of a problem had I not also been a head taller than everyone else. When I was at school, I was mostly outside looking in. People-watching and awkwardness combined to force me to try to understand things from an intellectual perspective and the time alone gave me time to think it out. All this combined to encourage an interest in the sciences as I was put in a position where there was a lot of information at hand and a need to figure it out, as well as providing me with a diverse base of knowledge in the wide variety of books I read from which to draw inspiration and new ways of looking at things. As I grew up and became less awkward and shy, this way of looking at things never really faded away and instead became increasingly integral to my relation to the world and my ambitions.
More importantly, as time went by I figured out specifically what I wanted to do with myself and where my strongest aptitudes lay. Biochemistry gave way to Neuroscience after taking a class on Gödel Escher and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, where I became increasingly fascinated with the mental and neurological systems. Neuroscience gave way to Psychology after taking my first Cognitive Psychology class in which I discovered a greater aptitude for concepts than memory alone and found that though I was torn between an interest in the concrete functions of the brain (biopsychology/neuroscience) and cognitive explanations, I had more of a knack for cognitive theory than brain chemistry (though I still hope to pursue both to some degree).
These days, it’s a continuous mid-level reinforcement of interest spotted with moments of success in the lab that bring in the big guns of conditioning. There aren’t many moments of overwhelming awe and wonder, but I never stop being impressed. I keep up on the general trends in medical and prosthetics, computers and information theory, and being in closer contact with those that share my interests has given so many more opportunities for sharing excitement over research both past and future that interest is constantly bolstered. Finally having the chance to do the work I’ve been passionate about my entire life has only served to fully set not only my professional ambition, but to make any other life difficult to conceive of.

2007-11-11T19:06:00.000-08:00

Research Proposal

Acquiring Expert-Level Skill with Telepresence Robotic Limb Via Virtual Glove: an fMRI and Learning Process Study

Keywords: fMRI, motor cortex, tool-use, skill acquisition, prosthetics, arm, action mapping, cyberpsychology

Our primary focus in the lab is on tool use with a special interest in prosthetics use, particularly in regards to adaptation to and function-exploitation of prosthetic hands and arms. To this end, we plan to study the acquisition of skill in the direction of a mechanical arm as a parallel to learning to use a prosthetic limb after amputation. With previous research supporting a goal-oriented rather than tool-specific process in the motor cortex (Tunik, Frey, and Grafton, 2005; Johnson-Frey, McCarty, and Keen, 2004), further study is necessary to determine the specifics of the process, an important question in relation to prosthetics use thanks to the apparent integration of tool into action schema, something also of more general interest regarding tool design and training overall. This obvious potential application in increasing the level of function available to those reliant on prosthetic limbs and multi-function tools lends a good degree of value to the study, hopefully aiding our ability to use effectively the increasingly complex technology we as a culture are provided. When performed, this will be my introductory research into the specific topic of interest I have pursued through college. My interest in tool use and prosthetics has been prevalent during most of my life, fueled by the frustration with limits throughout a childhood with limited health and a general fascination with the positive potential on technology that is primarily limited by individuals’ ability to use what tools they can access.
Though much of the proposed research is investigatory, seeking to provide a framework for the acquisition of tool-use and comparisons in activations in the motor cortex, the results should also provide information on the mapping of motor activity. We hypothesize that certain actions are more easily acquired in tool learning when the final action and the initiating action are most similar, such as use of a power grasp to initiate a power grasp with tongs, even if the actual actions are reversals (i.e. grasping to realize an object from reversed chemist tongs) as suggested by theories of embodied cognition (Simmering, Spencer, 2007). Similarly, we hypothesize that errors will be most prevalent when actions are most dissimilar. Furthermore, we expect our fMRI results to mirror earlier research suggesting goal-specific rather than motor-action specific activation in the motor cortex (Johnson-Frey et al, 2004). Combined, this will hopefully provide a basis from which to work in designing training programs for prosthetic-limb and other complex tool use as well as more general information regarding motor activity which may be applicable to reacquiring motor skills for stroke victims and the perception of tool function.
Being a relatively new area of interest, little prior research has been performed. Much of what has been done has focused on attention in regards to control panels or computer monitors or the use of simple tools. Thanks to this, novel research is easily performed without much risk of accidental reproduction of previous experimentation. The studies below reflect research design constructed by myself with design-refinement guidance by my supervising professor.
For the initial research, participants will be trained to reach and grasp objects using the robot via the virtual glove with a semi-arbitrary mapping configuration due to the difficulty of using the pinky to control certain actions. The degree of skill acquisition will be measured both in number and type of mistakes and by the achievement of various performance criterions, such as picking up an object or mimicking an arm posture in an image. After a final performance criterion consisting of use and coordination of each of the robot’s joints is easily achieved, subjects will be moved to an fMRI task in which the difficulty of two conditions will vary parametrically: 1) a reach condition wherein they must keep the robot’s grasping “fingers” together and make context with a target whose width is modulated geometrically, 2) a grasp condition they must reach to grasp the same targets. The geometric variations in target size allow us to modulate the difficulty of reach and grasp. They are cued aurally on a trial by trial basis whether the task is reach or grasp. The participants will begin their motions at a signal from the researcher and then have a limited period of time to achieve the goal of the condition with rest periods between attempts to achieve the goal.
This data will be analyzed in several ways: A) evaluation of the effects of the parametric modulation of target size on reach and grasp conditions separately relative to rest under the premise that the target width manipulation will selectively increase demands on control of reach or reach plus grasp depending on the task, and B) a subtractive contrast of grasp vs. reach to remove the common reach component.
The second study will be methodically similar, varying only in that instead of participants using the same mapping of finger motion to robot movement, the mapping will be randomized. Since the glove is capable of mapping any finger-movement input to any of the movements the robot arm is capable of, each participant will have a randomly assigned mapping configuration to learn. By doing so, we can control for and possibly cancel-out potential effects and quirks of specific mappings when doing more general group analysis as well as providing data for correlation analysis. In the second study, the data will be analyzed in the same way with the addition of looking at correlations between mapping configuration, robot action and component type involved in task, and error types.
If effects are found in either study one or two, a third study with fMRI scans throughout the learning process will be performed to view the process of mapping complex tool functions in the motor-cortex and to determine the relation between the use of complex tools and normal motor functions when the end goal (such as grasping) is the same. Similar data analysis to that performed in the previous studies will be performed with an added temporal component for changes and activation of learning processes over time.

Johnson-Frey, S.H., McCarty, M., & Keen, R. (2004). Reaching beyond spatial perception: effects of intended future actions on visually-guided prehension. Visual Cognition, 11, 371-399.

Simmering, VR., Spencer, JP. (2007). Carving up space at imaginary joints: Can people mentally impose arbitrary spatial category boundaries? Journal Of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance 33 (4): 871-894

Tunik E., Frey, S.H., & Grafton ST. (2005). Virtual lesions of the anterior intraparietal area disrupt goal-dependent on-line adjustments of grasp. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 505-511.

2007-11-11T19:02:00.000-08:00

Previous Research

Perception of Support in Faces Following SubliminalStress – ChadMarsolek

In (SLS), the study was a follow-up of earlier research that had shown an atypical conditioning effect between the subliminal presentation of instinctually threatening stimuli, for which images of snakes were used in both studies, followed by randomized artificial faces that had been altered to be either neutral, positive, or negative in their affect. The effect that was found showed a positive emotional association with those faces that possessed positive and negative affect when they were paired with the threatening imagery and a negative association for those faces with neutral affect. In this study, we hoped to discover further evidence of this and eventually run subjects through fMRI scans to pin down the role and activity of certain opioid centers, though this stage had not been reached by the time I had graduated.

My role in the research was primarily running subjects: having them sign release forms,making sure their consent was informed through an explanation in broad terms of the study, saving the results, and awarding them credit for having taken part. Additionally,as research was gathered, my supervisor and I would meet often, both casually and semi-weekly with other undergrad research assistants, to discuss the results and what implications they had. Though the (SI?) felt that finding a positive association with the negative affect faces ruined our results, my direct supervisor and I felt that the original theory which stated that we look for support when threatened should simply be widened. Instead of merely looking for those individuals who would soothe us, we also look for those who would share our emotional state, that we’re looking for allies to support us in either sense. The dislike of those faces with neutral affect reflects this, as those who are unwilling to respond to our emotional state and whatever triggered it are not only unhelpful, but possible obstacles as well.

Attachment Theory in Support Roles – Jeffrey Simpson

In this study, we were looking for a correlation between attachment style (as posited by Attachment Theory ~ Avoidant, Normal,and Neurotic) and manner in which support was given and received in response to a problem. For this, couples who had their first baby within a year of the testing were used as subjects with the rationale that since attachment styles typically manifest most strongly during times of stress and that there are fewer periods of reliable stress than that following the birth of a couple’s first child.

I was part of a team of double-blind behavioral coders reviewing tapes of the couples interacting after being asked to discuss and give support to the other about a problem they feel needs repair. Results were not finished by the time I graduated.

Terror Management Theory (word recall + subliminal words)– Chad Marsolek

A replication of an earlier study, it was meant to reproduce the effects of an experiment by a colleague. Participants had been shown to be more likely to remember words associated with groups and other group affiliations when subliminally preceded by the words “death” and “dead”, but not “pain” and similar. The basic theory expounded by the original researcher was that, when faced with death, we seek to ensure our immortality through identification with organizations more likely to live on indefinitely past our own demise, explaining upswings in nationalism during times of crisis. To test this, we used the same stimuli word set. Participants watched a fixation point and were asked to identify which side of the screen a word appeared on. The appearance of each word was preceded by a flashed word that was either neutral(i.e. “basket”), death-related, or pain-related. Data-gathering was not finished at the time of my graduation. The original premise explaining the effect always seemed too deeply philosophical to be entirely acceptable and I proposed to the researcher an evolutionary-psychology-based counter-explanation wherein viewing outside death triggered a defensive set of behaviors, including those which smoothed over group dynamics in favor of cooperative defense. This seemed more likely given humans’ lack of natural weaponry and favoring of group tactics. Instead of it being a result of identification with some greater ideal, the greater support of an abstract group was more likely a relatively recent display of the misapplication of a simpler process that had been developed long before social groups larger than a tribe was common.

Memory: Categorical vs. Identical Identification Between Age Groups – Wilma Koutstaal

With a fair amount of research supporting multiple types of memory, new correlations had to be found and with what are often significant differences between ages in performing memory-based tasks, one study I ran participants for compared Categorical versus Identical memory tasks. The set-up was fairly simple. Participants viewed images of objects and were asked to make a size-judgment (in this case to determine whether the object, as it would be in real life during normal use, was bigger than a 3’X3’ box they were shown previous to the experiment beginning). A mathematical task was then used as an interrupter before a final identification task. In the final task, participants were asked to determine whether the images on the screen were either the exact same image shown previously (exact same brown cow) or if they were the same type of image (a cow), depending on which group they were assigned. The end results showed that though younger (20-30yrs) participants had an easier time with identifying identical stimuli, they had the same success rate at identifying categorical stimuli as older (30-50yrs) participants with older participants having more false positives in the identical identification task. My interpretation was that over time, with the general “neurons that fire together, wire together” effect, general associations are increasingly reinforced since categorical identification not only seems to occur more often,but due to being less specific also has lower requirements for forming a connection. Given enough time, this overall categorization process may start to overshadow identification of specifics due to its greater strength of association or simply being easier to access thanks to being wired into a greater network of neurons.

2007-11-11T19:01:00.004-08:00

LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE isn't interesting unless it's your own

My compartmentalization of social groups has tried to reverse itself, instead leading to a single but only mildly heterogenous group. Not nearly varied enough as I need to let full rein go and be fine and good at the end of the day when the different scenarios and interests rear up. Nooo. Before, back there, I had a social group for every compartment and each group was separate, being aware of each other only in that they knew I knew others. It was optimized. I was never more than a little clash, a little off, but there's only the one social group here and because of that it gets all the odd parts when they activate instead of it just being the right group at the right time. On the one hand, it appears to be making me larger than life through some unexplained effect (likely something related to the Social Doppler), on the other, it's a little bit of a concern for when those bits that are off for the group feel the need to manifest socially in that group, though that hasn't happened all that much yet. Most of the old scenes had the opinion of strange, but just a little. It never got to be Big Weird because all things had their outlet. If I don't find a friend to crudely primal male with, I am going to get in trouble. It's honestly the hardest friend type to find: either they're dumb, boring, assholes, or not open to much abstractness. It's all well and good to have friends that think you're deep or smart or whatever eidolon trait they see in the shape of the clouds, but after tapping into the Primal Male, sometimes I need to remark about tits and watch stupid action/horror movies and talk candid and casual on sex and share that side of masculinity which is essentially a horrible monster that maybe never gets acted on.

I did karaoke for the first time. Turns out that I have a good singing voice, but I'm not necessarily good at singing. I got Danzig, Ballroom Blitz, Elvis, an accidental country song, and a few others just fine, but song with too much note-matching or flipping about the scales leaves me a bit behind. Still, when I say I got Danzig and Ballroom Blitz, I tell you this: I ROCKED it. People didn't know me from Adam and yet they were rocked. Behold the power of Rock.

Weirdly, I think I may be on the edge of figuring out how to pick up women in bars. A breakthrough is near, I can feel it!

Minor cultural difference: Whereas in the Cities, almost every bar had a happy-hour deal on some day of the week involving jag-bombs, the majority of people here aren't even sure what it is. Including some bartenders. I didn't even want one. I just couldn't remember what was in it after having not slept for three days.

I applied for the NSF grant. It took longer than I wanted and I still have to send thank-yous to those that sent me letters of rec. If I get it, then I'm so free and clear I am like prelapsarian air on a planet of utopian-communist proto-people. It's 2 to 3 times more pay and no reliance on the supervisor for income and a small cash allowance for buying research equipment or paying subjects. I'm not going to get the NSF grant. I'll be applying for the DOD grant, as said earlier, which is still twice as much cash and freedom plus a couple years employment after I get the PhD rightfully mine as due for existing just right.

Sometimes I drive to school and then bike from the parking lot. Shameful.

I'm coming home for some of Winter Break. Hitting the Cities on the 20th, returning the 2nd. Better damn well offer me some New Years Parties to hit, friends. Or I'll cry, cold and alone. I won't really cry. I never could lie to you.

I eat out every day for lunch. I can afford it. And if I don't goddamn get out of that goddamned office every few hours I am going to become one of Those Guys and be broken, dull, and entirely incomprehensible outside of my own specialty. Also, the air smells like construction work down there, I hate soggy sandwiches, have little patience for food preparation, and it gives me an excuse to bike around. It's not a habit that's likely to stick for the full run of my tenure here, but it's good for now. I'm also looking forward to making the right kinds of friends to go exploring restaurants with. Or a girlfriend. Apparently, girls eat too and they tend to be a bit pickier about eating well, so it's all good influence on me there on in.

It's snowing in the Cities. It's moderate Fall here. It's unreasonable. Unreasonably awesome. Fuck snow. No, it's not pretty. It's white. It's racist. You don't see much snow in, say, Central America or the middle of Africa do you? Racist racist snow. But mostly, fuck ice, fuck jackets, fuck mittens and gloves, scarves are ok, fuck unbikeable roads, fuck that.

The research involves brains, skill acquisition, magical magnet vision, programming, and a robot hand.

I'm also still plugging away at various projects. Unfortunately, a major chunk of most of them was on a now-missing zip-drive. So I've begun new projects while trying to finish a few oversized ones leftover, like essays on perceptual culture and the evils of science and the dangers of science philosophy. You know. For the kids.

There are four women I'm interested in:
There's a particularly cute Korean girl in my grad-student cohort. She speaks pretty well, though thinks she doesn't. I want to be attracted to her, or that is I could be, but the language difference and the shy-vs-bold difference and how she's a bit isolated because of the first two make me actually feel guilty and uncertain at the idea of allowing the observation of attractiveness turn into actual attraction. Guilt thanks to those "humanizing factors" leftover from before (ceteranna noted the change, back when) and uncertainty because of my personal reliance on verbal skills to navigate any kind of romantic negotiations. Confidence and good looks only get you so far. If the words don't make sense, it's just a cavemen with most of his teeth hitting the ground with a stick. Conversely, thanks to the quirks of my attentional processes, though I know she's interesting enough, it's very difficult to get to where enough is understood to be interested and I have no doubt that the inevitable grinding of those subeterranean mental gears that power and twist a mechanism of efficiency would come to a null-scenario conclusion. That is, it wouldn't last. This is less than arrogance as there is a non-negative chance she finds me somewhat attractive.

Then, there's the tall blonde cruise-director of the group. She's pretty, self-directed, A-type, Canadian, and fairly reasonable, but almost hopelessly concrete-thinking. She's classy, fairly resilient, and open mind, if in a relatively conservative way though not politically so. She also seems to be a bit sheltered, but in the way of someone raised by that type of parent who is health-conscious and pragmatic without being hippies or engineers but certainly never buying cable or eating candy. There are other issues. She's been single for a couple years. Had a failed initialization of relationship with another member of the cohort. Is inexperienced, which isn't so bad necessarily, but reaches a 100% level of non-experience, as she puts it, "below the belt". And I've grown to be... fairly sexual over the last year and a half or so. It's not just a matter of supply, you terrible bastards, but of a discomfort in the idea of being anyone's original experience. I don't want to be anyone's first, just their best. I do what I can. And while we're in the zone where we're all disappointed at my heavy set of shallow traits, she's not the physical type I'm used to being attracted to. In fact, she'd almost be the furthest from the type I'd ever kissed. I hate that it seems I have a type. It may be a lack of counterexample, easily could, so it's a not discounting measure, but a thought. Lastly, she is the social secretary, such as it goes, of the first years as well as being a major driving force of the statistics work-group I'm a member of. Though I'm the most attracted to her of the girls here, she's also the biggest loss if a relationship proves nonviable after testing. This is less than arrogance because I am approaching 99.9% certainty she is attracted to me as well.

The other two are less interacted with. The spunky dev. psych child torturer and the half-native Canadian. Spunky is cute, energetic, upbeat, funny, and with good humor, but it's a good bet it's more energy than I can bring to match and while she's for'em, I'm against camping and being awake in the mornings. And there's the uncertain nature of the relationship with the friend she lives with. Ah. The half-native has been a bit distant from the group as a whole and it's hard to tell what to make of her. She has these intense glass-clear eyes that stop just short of being piercing and a sense that she'll be the kind of old woman you can accept your friends having crushes of various types on. I can taste the stories she hasn't told yet. There's a whole set there and that central curiousity that powers the gears makes me grit my teeth in very slight frustration at not having easy access to the notes in her head. She smells like a damn banquet of anecdotes. Plus, she's sharp, open-minded and open-voiced in twisty ways, and with the vibrational sound of the alternative, but in a tone I don't know as I've heard before except in echoes.

There's a fifth, but she doesn't count as she's just a list of traits without details that's a friend of a labmate: smart, cute, pierced. S'bout it.
And a spattering of attractive types here and there, but they're mostly nameless faces and a spanish woman in leopard print. I am a sucker for leopard print.

I'm really just waiting for some random woman to show up, like before. Or at least an introduction to a social group entirely separate from the grad work.

2007-11-11T19:01:00.003-08:00

Bobby McFerrin is essentially the perfect person to have read any children's story with sound effects in it.

I wish I'd know that earlier.

For the tip: ceteranna.

2007-11-11T19:01:00.001-08:00

2007-11-11T18:56:00.000-08:00

Methadone Rose

2007-10-29T19:27:00.000-07:00

The Lamest Complaint

I'm not happy. Not big drama bad, but instilling discipline is less fun. It's a highly technical field. It's not conducive towards people skills, friends, is programming and engineering and physics and neural mapping analysis. Magnets are poor fertilizer for anything much past ferocity of purpose. I'm heading into a career of straight edges and angles with hours of menial effort between the actual reaping of sugar-cane data, a job where grey areas aren't relaxed but are harsh and impeding rains of static, impairing visibility and freezing fingertips. And I'm wary of it. Back when, way when way back, I had myself oriented to the poles and leaned on fixed points for definition and purpose, it was stress and sickness and an endless uncertain doubt. It wasn't that I hated it. I didn't know there was an it to hate. But still, it was bad for me. Muscle-sapping, lunch-returningly bad. No wonder I read so much, saw so many movies, watched so much TV, slept so long. And then the natural sharpness of my bright nerdy little brain found the little hole in the weave and fingers and toes were exposed to the coldness of existential space which was eventually the wild new frontier I escaped into and built strange habitats in and was something closer to free. And I kept spreading out, shapeless amoeba brain. And lo, things were damn good. No niche, sure, and nothing to point to and say "I made this" and build a future on, but a big wide weird view of the world. But that isn't going to fly here.

It's not easy, giving up fluidity, even if it's in exchange for a skeletal structure and muscles. I value my plasticity. It's... it's all I got. I don't want my mind to grow a solid structure resistant to change, even if it's a high-function structure. Ah well, I gotta anyhow. Gotta read papers, program displays, tweak endless maps of glowing brains, run subjects through mindless cycles and punch electrons through their skulls to see what makes them tick. Because if they don't, I have every damn faith and no damn doubt that they will catch on to the deceit which is my sum totality. And that leaves me with a job in retail data entry service management sanitation. I shoulda gone into Clinical Psych. Then the Evil Inside could get paid to do what it love to do so well and look unblinking into the dark of men's souls and then manipulate them into being functioning autobotmen. Ay. It's like putting my brain in a corset. It may give me great sulcal cleavage that'll make all the employers and reviewers drool with scientifical lust, but it'll take time to learn to breathe comfortably and keep from popping out when I bend over or dance. Sexy sexy brains. It'd all be a lot easier if I had a devotion to one of those self-transformative meditative hobbies like writing or mountain climbing or formalized ass-kicking (you know, with the belts and comfortable white pants). When you have something to grab onto and use as metaphor for growth and adaptation and the profits of discipline, well, that's a finer thing.

What makes the whole scenario pathetic is that it's basically just a lazy "I don' wanna" and Peter Pan immaturity from a creature used to being able to slip out from between fingers and obligations, commitments and definitions while he plays all day. And I'm a bit suspicious how much easier a pill to take it became when I rephrased it as a job instead of school.

Still.

I better goddamn get my laser arm and million dollars, I tell you right now. Because if I stop being able to understand how the sun is like a squid with glasses or talk to women, I am going to be fucking pissed unless I can shoot clay pigeons with my fingers on my yacht a couple miles from the major port of Acidalia Planitia.

2007-10-28T00:02:00.002-07:00

I... just bought a can of Cheese Whiz to help me woo a woman.

I don't know how to feel right now.

2007-10-28T00:02:00.001-07:00

So, the biggest downside really to Eugene livin' is the amount of times I have to hear in detail about the intricacies of zen, all spoken with the certain and casual conviction of the self-evident truth and value of it. It's hard, too, when your own views on mindfulness and meditation are not merely a shadow absence or negation but apparently a horrible twisted perversion of the original concepts. Pope, meet Antipope. Now FIGHT! Rome might win and repeat history, but play it out enough times and maybe the northerners'll get the right lucky shot in.

The constant confusion of the philosophy of zen versus the religion of original-locales Buddhism also irritates the crap out of me. I mean, shit, it's a world different.

It stokes ambitions of kingship in me, right enough, to enforce benevolent capitalism and specialized function-specific socialism. Because I am genius madman.

Upside? Invitation to sushi parties, edamame eatin', and some kind of weird mold-based tea that fascinates me.

Damnit, about an eighth of the time, all I can do is flashback to the Halloween party and then I'm distracted by visions of asses and cleavage in bright colors and lose my train of thought. Better than memories of 'Nam, but it's not reassuring when you're going for something past crass. I mean, if there'd been time for talk and room for body-language, it could've been more a gettin' to know you sorta scene (in the social networking not the Biblical sense), but packed like it was, what are you going to do but watch the pretty scenery pass and writhe and occasionally bounce by. To my credit, it was "Look" not "Ogle". 'Cause I'm classy and smart enough for subtlety. I really miss being pure tick-tock, tell you what. It was a hell of a lot less hemi-embarassing. I remember when certain body parts was just parts defined by fat distribution. It was a good time. Well, technically, it was a time without the impulse to consider good or bad past values of "Effective" and "Dischordant", but that's the world through ROBOT EYES.

Aaaaand MONSTROUS!

2007-10-28T00:01:00.001-07:00

The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.

2007-10-28T00:00:00.004-07:00

Ever seen a Drunk Elephant?

Those are some drunk safari bastards.

ctsy child of athens

2007-10-28T00:00:00.003-07:00

I want to see more of Toucan Sam

2007-10-28T00:00:00.001-07:00

142,003 People

Free Texas Personals

2007-10-27T23:57:00.001-07:00

I'd like to mention that I was an awesome bee, complete with stinger, wings, and pipe-cleaner antennae. The way the antennae kept bouncing, though, less than dignified. Still, people seem to love dignified men in undignified costumes. Perversity of mankind, I suppose.

2007-10-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

Male Bees Die After Sex, Their Testicles Ripped Off

Mild intoxication, severe exhaustion, moderate frustration

Not quite bold enough yet, but we're nearly there. A couple more semi-arbitrary alterations and we're good to go. Jesus Eyes with the 70's Anchorman hair will win the goddamn day, one way or t'other. Washboard and contacts. I don't blame myself, mad and overstocked parties are a damn sight more difficult to meet and greet than one with a bit more division of socialization. She-Ra, Flower-Girl, the Bugs, Breakfast At Tiffany's, the Construction Girls, Margo from Royal Tenenbaums, and two of the three Cat Girls were painfully hot, but all of them were so far out of influence and social circle as to be little more than frustrating background noise. Of course, the problem is that the people I've most access to and time with, well, they're close enough for it to be a kind of weird. First years with a departmental focus. Maybe four single women and I work with them too too often for it to be a safe thing if it fails. I tell you what, though, two of them are strangely compelling and one of them for the weak spot I've had since before hormones: Strong. And why a weakness? Because strong can be Strong or it can be Bitch or Control Freak or Prude or Square and not just Strong itself, but still thrums the ol' magnets. And damn if she doesn't make one hell of a good-looking Betty Crocker/50's Housewife (more like a 50's Housewife from the cover of SPICY ROMANCE than anything else). And since she's a bit more... pure than I am and a bit more the social coordinator, it'd be a loss and awkward study groups, certain enough.And difficult. A perverse attraction to the difficult woo. Still. And then, I think another girl finds me a little attractive, but her english is just passable and I've no idea how to work in those limits. I'm not that pretty, just pretty enough for a second hello, not a third, so it's all on the jive and toss and sharp teeth verbosity. So how do you work when the scene is out of your skill? And I don't know from culural differences. Too much a bad man to care much, but too good one not to when the rules can't be so easily passed on. It's sad, too, because humble narrator here was spoilt for choice less than eight weeks ago and now it's all unknowns and poor bets. Full of oneself it might sound, but truer than it had any right to be, leaving a taste for the classy, the beautiful, the brilliant, and, admittedly, the at least slightly busty. Once it's long enough passed, it's back the fathomless monster and predator smile which works too well for reasons less than respectable. Shameless upfront lawyer and out in public un-adventures. Now, though, too concerned with the accidental repulsion of new potential friends, frustrating as a solo flight may be.

More importantly, how the hell did I get through undergrad without going to a stereotypical college party where "skank" or "slutty" was the prefix to whatever noun was a girl's cosutme? I cannot explain enough how hot a sleazy She-Ra and vampy Flower (the plant, not the skunk in this time around) can be. And Dark Phoenix's ass? Phenomenal. Truly goddamn amazing. And Catgirl 1? Christ would have appreciated his view from above if present with a display like that. Crude it may be, but true too. And too bad, because as much as I respected her boy's "Flying Squirrel" costume, a girl that attractive only triggers the primal male to evaluate if her boy could be made broken. He could. I could have done that. Makes me almost miss the Bad Old Days. <- This is the sick talk of a man drawn into the addictions of his gender. I remember once when I was asexual and maybe a bit too strange, but it was a simpler life to live, to pretend a desire than to possess it. As is, the things I miss, the hungers that hang close over the skin, it's a sad sight. Like a hobo junky. A goddamned junky hobo. Pitiful. Pitiful. How normal folk grapple with this ridiculous crap, I can only start to admire. At least it's good incentive for exercise. Ay.

And you know the truth? Those girls you say I don't want? Yeah, I want them. Not for keeps. Not for forever. But yeah, I want them. It's the unfortunate side-effect of being male and less than oblivious or content with my place and relation in the world. There are times in-between true love and tragic love and big stories and I don't want them to be empty just because they couldn't live up to more than the physical. I want to live crude as much as I want to live big glowy idealism, mind, soul, and novelization.

Also, since no one else was using it, mm, I am a bee for Halloween. Honestly, the costume could as easily be a hornet as a bee. Or a wasp. Bad-ass wasp, you know it. Went over well tonight, though there were THREE OTHER BEES. What the hell. Bee girl 1 was cute, bee girl 2 was ok and so was bee girl 3 but 3 was outshone by dragonfly and ladybug. Might add the extra limbs and leg-fuzz if I feel it, but then, I might resort to the "mutant scientist with extra arms", so we'll see. One of these years, I swear I'm going to do the "Your Evil Twin" costume, with the terrifying bearded reflective mask. Still, it's a great bee costume. If I can GET a pic, I'll try to set it up just right for everyone. If I can't, just imagine a great looking guy, dressed as a budget bee.

And there was a guy who went as a LEGO man. Fantastic. Real devotion to a costume. Actually, a lot of good costumes, but the LEGO man was probably the best.

Lot of folk dressed up as native americans though. That was a bit odd.

2007-10-27T23:54:00.002-07:00

Horror Movie Posters from Ghana

2007-10-18T18:25:00.000-07:00

I hate to be the one to break it to you: You've been chosen for retroactive pre-time non-voluntary employment. In a compromise between relevant ruling parties, to both work to break your spirit and provide a larger typing pool, you are to be sent back to the 1940s or 30s, whichever has greater need.

When you meet that broken down, old old woman at the bar, deflated and rendered treadless by six children and a life of mindless submissive menial labor who looks a little familiar as she drowns herself in the only thing that sooths her spirit, rubbed raw by the friction of an existence without any higher meaning, you'll see the truth. Of course, by then, it'll be too late, trapped by paradox.

After a brief period of acclimation, you marry. His name is Hank. He used to work as a mechanic, but they caught him replacing good parts with used parts, both to resell for profit and to encourage repeat business. Then he went to war, having few other employment options (he was among those who enlisted rather than were drafted). And now (then) he's back, gruff, and works loading dockets at a factory that makes cigarette lighters. You could afford a mink, his cousin works at a farm upstate and could get you a deal, but with the six kids, you don't have a lot of scratch and even if you did you're worried they'd just get their grubby little hands on it and ruin it. Surprisingly, on the upside, though he's a little direct, Hank is surprisingly good in bed and has less of a temper than many of the men he works with. He has a mole on his lower left cheek, which you eventually find a little attractive, as it reminds you of some favored movie star, but you never realize that. You also find his crude sense of humor really funny, though thanks to the processors that dealt with you before your time-relocation, you're not entirely sure why you do. Unlike many of the girls in the typing pool, you live in an actual house, or you do, at least, after marrying Hank (which doesn't take that long, it's an out-of-character whirlwind romance for you both), thanks to the death of his parents and brother a few years before the two of you met.

You're lucky, too. That girl that sits to near you, with the longish hair, she marries a friend of Hanks who tells good jokes, has white teeth, and whose face isn't so asymmetrical you'd notice, but he has a demanding way about him, a rough anger, and though he doesn't drink (his father was an alcoholic and, unlike many children of alcoholics,he angrily chooses not to, though he does smoke), he is profoundly unfaithful and indulges when he can in the small selection of narcotics available. After a few years, he gets in a fight with his supervisor which devolves into fisticuffs, forcing his wife to be the sole money earner (which angers him) as well as refusing to help around the house or pay much mind to the three children they've had by this point. He rarely puts real effort into finding a new job. After a couple of years of this, he is shot, accidentally, while being attacked by a stray dog. A neighbor, aiming for the dog in hopes of helping, missed. The shot hit him in the femoral artery and, though bloodloss was assuaged by a quickthinking mailman who made a makeshift bandage from his jacket, a blood clot reached his brain, causing a massive seizure which overstressed his heart and stopped it, killing him as froth ran down his chin and his eyes bulged red with cracked veins. This leaves poor wife with three children, no husband, a ruined figure (both from childbirth and a slow descent into depressive eating), and a haunted, lost look as she tries to understand how she got to this point in life.

2007-10-17T18:45:00.000-07:00

What's YOUR savings account for?

My List
--------

Emergencies
Professional Trips for Cog and Neuro Conferences (e.g. Italy, Nova Scotia, Spain)
Scar Removal
Giant Custom Belt Buckle
Eye Appointment/Contacts
Skydiving
Unnecessary Sound System
Unnecessary TV
Unnecessary Game System
Eventual Desktop Computer Replacement
Future Furniture Purchases
Misc. Apartment Crap
Overdraft Protection

2007-10-17T18:29:00.000-07:00

Clouds are the toilets of angels. Sunlight their toilet paper.

Because, what, you thought we were getting sunshine firsthand?

Now, think about how rainbows fit in

2007-10-13T22:23:00.005-07:00

If you could exchange one relatively mundane requirement with another of about equal semi-objective difficulty but which you're better at fulfilling, what would the switch be?

For example, instead of taking tests to pass a Statistics course, you have to knit a sweater. Instead of dealing with your finances, you have to juggle odd-shaped objects for half an hour. Instead of going to work, you have to run fifty miles. Instead of worrying about whether you'll get the job, you have to defeat fifteen martial artists in sparring atop uneven poles. Whatever.

2007-10-13T22:23:00.003-07:00

Didn't notice it as much in the first episode, but man, Pushing Daisies takes real pride in cleavage.

2007-10-13T22:23:00.001-07:00

Is it possible for a flesh-and-blood human to the Charlie Brown dance?

2007-10-13T22:22:00.003-07:00

Because I look so sharp

I'm smarter than I look, but I really shouldn't be.

2007-10-13T22:22:00.001-07:00

Hoy

I have forgotten enough of how to approach strange women that my charmingly brash forwardness hits fault during startup, but with enough time to abort way before being creepy starts.

I need a haircut. And contacts.

Three beautiful types. 1: small, together, professional-but-hip, smooth skin, slender, flawless bit and just enough other. 2: Sloppy sexy, jello boobs and black, art supplies and hard-candy, dressed comfortable casual out of simple one-piece broken formal. 3: Hip skinny greek statue-woman carved in aryan, short curly blonde hair, tall as me and monsters and totally composed leaning against the pillar on 13th.

Three-minus-three ways to strike up a bit of hello that's nice. Not halfway bad at that, once I get there, except for the tactless shameless offensiveness. I don't even pretend to call it "honest", but still, I've gotten away with calling beautiful skinny women "Fatty" during first impressions and gotten a call back and dates two-three and on.

It can be done.

Damn long day, too. Poorly-worded assignments with bizarre and unintuitive work required. Badly designed programs necessary for my work and the varyingly more and less important work of thousands hit me at every damn angle. And I still haven't photoshopped those pictures of hands holding axes, hammers, screwdrivers, hairbrushes onto a neutral grey background. There's forty and that's too damn many when you've never used the 'shop for more than screwing around and I think that was middleschool. I also remember making a sweet pickle-like coinpurse by purposefully screwing up when baking the rubber. Might have it somewhere but who uses coin purses? And I may have mentioned, short nights for sleeping. Ah, to be young, drunk, and wandering around my neighborhood looking for your keys in the dark. It's a beautiful way to be alive. And last night there were strange dreams and earth-pigs and the sudden creation of a new and never-before-used inside-my-head voice of strange nuance and detail as a parting commentator before I left to wake up.

On the upside, "Cerebus" is genius and insane when normally you hear that and it's just "Mildly clever and BiZZZarro", a little weird but written big, or a disappointing wreck of time and memory. But "Cerebus"? Insane. And the first meta author-meets-the-authored bit that didn't make me roll my eyes like a bored epileptic. The man has issues, but they're clear and deep and put down with a firm enough hand that the musings are more like a treatise bred with a story than a limp-brained mental masturbation rubbing up against books of illustrated philosophy and down against easy-emotion iconography. Also, he's a fucking third-person-pronouns aardvark. All that... and more! I want to recommend it to everyone, but it will just come as crazy for most folk. It really is good, though. -EDIT- Looked at the wikipedia article of it, turns out that what I thought was the rough and crazy patch of what appeared to be misogyny was nowhere NEAR to how bad it gets at the end. I mean, creating an "evil Feminist-homosexual axis" or however he phrased it, one fighting for the right to be pedophiles and zoophiliacs? That is a million times farther than it needs to be. Of course, this from a man that was hospitalized from LSD use. Take that however you need to, right.

Ah well. We'll sleep and see.

2007-10-13T22:21:00.007-07:00

Skippy has music inside him

There's something about this, as wholesome and white-wash homes as it is, that's touching.

Sometimes, I just fail as a monster.

2007-10-13T22:21:00.005-07:00

Feet Like Beasts

I gotta get'em, gotta have'em, gotta give'em to me.

2007-10-13T22:21:00.003-07:00

Guitar Wolf is my Conscience

Man, I loved that movie.

2007-10-13T22:21:00.001-07:00

scalloped/scolloped

2007-10-13T22:20:00.000-07:00

Pushing Daisies is just as great as the hype around it. How it got green-lighted for a channel outside of HBO does not reveal itself at any point through the entirety of its showing. It's clever, charming, interesting, sweet, unusual, and is very much like if you gave more color and googie architecture to the small screen production of some unwritten and less subtly-disturbing Roald Dahl story. The basic premise sets up interesting obstacles and explains the personality quirks of the main character particularly well and practical limitations on the his craaazy power. I really liked it, though I could see it being a little too "sweet and quirky" for some folk because as much as it deals with darker subjects, it comes at them from warm empathic place that believes in adorable girls drinking tea and smiling at shy and kinda pretty boys and having whimsical adventures. Still, if you liked Amelie or storytelling scenes in Big Fish, Willy Wonka, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, or Wonderfalls you're in the right place. There's something about it that reminds me of other things, but nothing I can put my finger on. I'd recommend watching it.

And I love googie architecture. The pies also look delicious. Magically delicious.

A bit of spoilers: The girl he had a crush on when he was a boy is eventually resurrected by him and they have feelings for each other, but can never touch (as much as they both obviously want to). But would it work if the situations were reversed? If, instead of the girl having an attraction which can never be realized, it was the boy who refused to give up an impossible love? If the boy owed her his life, would it be as sweet, or would it just start to resonate with the Wussy Nice Boy Whom Nobody Can Love and/or Self-Restraining Stalker archetype? Would it cease to be sweet? Would it even be as believable? Can we, as the modern Western audience, believe that an otherwise fairly emotionally healthy and mature boy would just pine and pine and not instead find some other female to interact with? Jokes about fear of committment are a hundred times more common in regards to men than women. And, slightly less an issue (depending on how you interpret how she feels about him), is the fact that he inherently has the upper hand (responsible for resurrecting her, can kill her with a touch but otherwise would be unaffected) vaguely sexist? Or is it just vague enough that it lets sort of typical interactions between genders exist in the plot to better resonate with the emotions of the audience? Something there to balance the equation, with her as spunky and him as shy? It'll be interesting to see how the dynamics evolve as the show goes on.

2007-10-13T22:19:00.000-07:00

Realized that, according to basic perception, there was no death in the Garden of Eden. And according to Creationism, there is no evolution so all animals now are the animals were then (maybe less a few, here and there, thanks to extinctions). So either God made carnivores with some very strange fruit in mind, or he was fully expecting the apple to be eaten and the death to come. That is a poor faith thing to do and shows the likelihood of a bit of manipulation. Why make an animal that subsists off of death specifically if death isn't planned to be introduced? More importantly, why design Man that way?

It's not DEEP, but it's a puzzle-piece I hadn't looked at. Thanks for the inspiration, claymation version of "The Adventures of Mark Twain"!

"It isn't a fish. In my judgement, it is either an enigma or a bug."

2007-10-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else find really bored-looking naked women strangely attractive?

2007-09-30T23:25:00.001-07:00

There is the thump thump of electro-alternative from the neighbors across the back and contained in the pounding bass is a lesson you never learn except by sonic accident: Edith Piaf was born for techno sampling in a bittersweet, lost-histories and human emotions breaking over the rough fractal shore of the archival future. Like that feeling you get when you realize the whole of your past must be shed to grow into a new chitinous time. Not invalidated, but past-participle. The once and that's it. Something very like nostalgia.

2007-09-29T21:09:00.000-07:00

What would you tell'em?

So much done, say. New old red-bike with the metal wheel-covers from a gears-and-hippies bike-nerd co-op. Hyphens. Try it out tomorrow/monday. $115 without the new sitter, $140 with and plus lock-up bulldog chain. Old mattress softener returned and total the bike leaves me only $40 down and able to go out. No rain gear yet, but it'll come. Replacement cords for electrics ordered. Parents updated on all of many issues and talks of eyeballs school students friends food sleep. Keep forgetting to buy two calendar, tweezer, nail trimmer, something else.

Uni no so bad. Three hour-to-two obligations and one with work. Research seems straightforward and its focus just fine but eventually I'll have to have that uncomfortable talk where I admit I don't care as much about cataloging the mechanisms of thought of mechanisms as I do about how to add function on function on function. "Honestly, all I really want is to make cyborg supersoldiers." It's an awkward thing to admit, like coming out of the closet but more embarassing because it's not a change of orientation here, it's flaw science and weak rationalities. It's monster science and unprofessional nerdery of a bad bad kid. Upside, of course: machine men and cellphone hands.

Turning my office, with the blessings of the officemate, into a personal lounge for lunch, unwind, and background noise. Big TV, view, VCR, loveseat. It's a good life if you don't let it get to you.

To meet people, I'm going to have to start going stupid, being forward and so on and so forth. Not just coming in to conversations when I'm not on the list and got no invitation, but remembering the bold where you ask out after near-to-nothing. Three chances, gone nowhere. Battleback, here we are. Soon we'll pretty again and then acrumble go some armies. Biking again and the slow diet shift: Art of War.

If I could go back in time and give my younger self a piece of advice, it'd be "Vaseline helps prevent scarring".

Because it's true and simple enough for the dumb kid to understand.

2007-09-29T20:42:00.000-07:00

Realization:

"Rump Sugar", like "Face Gorilla" or "Poop Rat", just ain't gonna be a good thing. Unless you're really stretching the "give me some sugar" and an anal proclivity.

I bet it's a term for butt dandruff. Buttruff.

Or something even more horrible. Possibly pimple-based.

2007-09-29T20:38:00.001-07:00

The night before last, I dreamt I was a sharkbrained at-peace yuppie businessman hired to run security at a deceptively huge casino-hotel with a small built-in shopping center in a town between a bay and low green mountains. The owner was rich and self-amusingly eccentric. I made romantic-friends with a blond woman, softer side of bird slender, with paigeboy haircut. I asked her, eventually, if she'd been hired for me, no offense on any level and little more than curiousity. She responds, "No, they just told me you were pretty" and smiles as we enter the elevator. The other details are surprisingly technical and deal with me feeling out the floorplans and improving security hundredfolds. And watching the video about what happened to the last security manager, a samson-haired body-builder type who turned out to be Hulk-like without the rage and stupidity who nevertheless went passion-mad for a visiting over-sized macro-musclebound crimson-skin shewarrior super. Turns out, being full of radiation and attempting to love a hot-blooded transformed alien warrior princess can cause a huge explosion that requires a good deal of city to be repaired or replaced and a new bridge erected.

Last night, I dreamt through the filter of old Mage rules and the problems with having low sphere ratings across the board, the strange necessity of bizarre combinations. Bacterial-supercharged expansionist brain with self-correcting reverse-entropy thought patterns? Awesome. Running a baseball team? Unexpected. I did heal a beautiful shimmer-blue butterfly that had been hit by a ball. Now I want to play the game and not baseball. Give me a battery and I'll make a million bucks. And swim in quintessence.

2007-09-25T20:39:00.001-07:00

Without enough sleep, there's a coral-dense fog stretched through a cloudline right at the brows. It's not the headaches, the soreness, the lazy heart and feet that make the slowed cold tarry neanderthal feelings of anger and fear stir around. It's access fault, missing houses, locked and lost doors. I can think, but I can't think all the way through. I can acquire, but nothing brews out of it. Nothing happens. Not brilliant or bright or sharp or any wide black-star eyes mind insinuating into weird and truthful universal mud. It's not quite going stupid, it's just going simple. Dull. It's why the feelings are slow-cold-tarry and not slick oily room-temperature (because I know I'm not much a beast of passion). It's why the white page stays white and why I can't build a new woman from the ground up or break a life into being yet. There are eighteen half and quarter projects unfinished and nothing new because normally when I went to the attic door all strange things fell down like goddamn bones with little letters on them. It's the new mattress. Of course it's the new mattress. I've gotten it to where it doesn't leave me woken up sore necked and bad-backed, but I still haven't quite gotten to where it means a good nights sleep, no matter how long the night is. This is the most interesting I can be: Pretentiously rambly. I am full of rage and way too damned tired to do much about it.

2007-09-25T20:38:00.001-07:00

"Just because I'm a bad person doesn't mean I don't love you in my own terrible way."
-Valentine, Perfect Stars

2007-09-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

"There are twelve saints who hold up the world.

One day, they all Friended each other."
-G. Stolze

2007-09-23T22:58:00.002-07:00

They had gummi flies (that taste like blandly unpleasant industrial foam), gummi bananas (that taste like bananas), the good kind of gummi brains (that taste like the platonic ideal of good gummi), and a new version of gummi snakes (which taste like SNAAAAAKES! and two decent but unidentifiable candy flavors) at the mall candy store.

Ever since I was much younger, I've had the undeniable urge to eat every new kind of gummi encountered*. I've had a huge variety by this point. Fighter jets, jalapenos, penguins, scotty dogs, whatever. I've never had flies or bananas. In this way, I slowly consume the very essences of these things. It's a good life.

*I have a similar issue with eating candy money. I would live off candy money.

2007-09-23T22:58:00.001-07:00

Saturday Market

Went to the Saturday Market. Nice atmosphere, lots of colors, and unlike most primarily craft-based market/fairs, not only was there a fair number of people there, a whole spread of the human phenotype expressed itself, not just old people and hippies. Some of the street performers were actually pretty good and surprisingly original. The craft section was a little less so, there being only so much of a demand for random-order bead assembly bent-wire jewelry, dream-catchers, unusable knit things. I spent most of the time in meander, looking for a booth that had been advertised of "recycled art" because a couple of the pieces looked like good gifts. That booth never materialized, like coming late into a story about a weird antique shop that the protagonists desperately seek answers from regarding their purchase but which has disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived. Or the story in reverse and without a second half.

The Farmer's Market section was pretty good. I bought a quarter ton of sweet plums, a garbage-bag's worth of sweet prunes, and the remaindered corpse of the Jolly Green Giant, as rendered down to sweet pea pods. There was a fair selection of honey, raspberries, and goat cheese, but I don't need honey, raspberries are best shared and this flight is still solo, and a punching bag's worth of fine cheeses are still in the meat-n-dairy drawer in the fridge.

Ended the day with a medium Apple Ginger Beer, expecting something like Birch beer or ginger ale, but instead getting something like apple-cider that had been razed by a burning army of ginger.

And now I'm home, waiting for the free-food evening the Uni promised and attempting to figure out how learning was meant to go when you reach the point I have.

2007-09-23T22:57:00.001-07:00

"Open-Faced Knuckle Sandwich" does sound a lot better than "Slap"

2007-09-23T22:13:00.000-07:00

Stardust

With Minor and Casual Spoilers

Stardust was... basically a waste of time and six bucks. Over the years, any project involving Gaiman brings a bit of suspicion with it. I remember enjoying Sandman, Wolves in the Walls, and his run on Miracleman, but he increasingly seems unable to wring a new storyline, idea, or moral from the words he inks down, instead reusing old concepts, characters, and worldviews, though he does manage to come up with novel arrangements of otherwise standard fantasy fare for the atmosphere of his books. Which brings us back to Stardust. Stardust, from start to finish, is just a naive tween parable made enticing to its intended audience through passing wink-and-nudge acknowledgements of "real world" issues like sex and cross-dressing and the addition of a few minor (and generally obvious) reversals of expectation (ooooh!) done mostly just to be the subversion of the formula without adding to experience or plot at all (not to mention not being violations of the greater equation at all). As is increasingly standard in much of Gaiman's lighter work, the movie is full of Romantic but simplistic morals and lessons as well as unsubtle affirmations of the true and secret value of those that don't fit in. Mind you, amiably un-dashing Protagonist is never really shown as being all that unusual and, in fact, neither is anyone else. The main characters, all 2-dimensional and none of them charming, differ little except by overarching goal and what role they have been shoe-horned into by the script (an easy task, given how little room their personalities take up). Tristan, whose name is probably a pun, is an awkward, superficial, dim little man with the social graces of a friendly man with asbergers whose only redeeming quality is that he's "nice". That he's a good noble young hero, rather than just one that's learned (or rationalized) a persona type to get by and self-validate in the face of his other failings, is never actually shown. He's shown being bullied, weakly, but only backs down because he is terrible at swordplay. The original love-interest, who is supposed to has been heavy-handedly condemned as shallow and self-absorbed in dialogue by the end, is really barely worse in any of her failings than Tristan, who obviously fell for her because she's pretty rather than anything else, thought he could essentially buy her with a gift and gave her up primarily because some other pretty girl said she actually did like him (for some unaccountable reason, given he was a dick to her, tied her up, knew her for a week, and displayed no clue of caring for her or of heroism). He's never charming or clever, displays only the most basic level of concern for his fellow man, and in fact really earns nothing he gains. Instead, he makes do entirely by the three breeds of luck that only come to the undeserving: Fool's, Beginner's, and Author's Preference. Everything is a gift, from serendipity to the remarkable speed of becoming a master swordsman in under a couple of day or having a falling star find True Love with you in under a week thereby granting you immortality without having to make any sacrifice at all. It all comes out like the game of make-believe played by a ten-year old boy who thinks reading a lot is enough to make him smart, lives with a house full of sisters, has no friends at school, and a crush on a pretty girl he feels is fully justified until his best friend (a new girl) changes his mind by telling him that she likes him. Story itself dull, made palatable only through copious window-dressing. Even simple characters can be used to show a great grand story, but so few meaningful plot points occur and so little depth is explored, it never gets more complicated than a bedtime story told by an uncreative father who needs to get back to the Television before commercials are over. Nobody grows up, learns anything, makes a difference, or encounters real conflict. The Cabbage Patch Kids dealt with greater moral ambiguity than does Stardust and Harold and the Purple Crayon was as convoluted. Boy wants girl, boy is secretly a prince, boy gets treasure to win girl, boy takes his time getting back while other people try to get it by following from a great distance, boy is magically handed a bunch of presents, boy kills some witches, boy gets girl that's a lot easier to get, boy is king and lives forever in perfect loving happiness, credits roll. Even the trappings and props, though relatively pretty, were sort of old hat already. Whether it was the pseudo-poetic price for a magic flower or gypsies or flying sky-fishermen (No! They're PIRATES! Wait, no, sky-fishermen), it would only reek of the Wonder of the Impossible if you haven't already been through any of Gaiman's earlier works at all. Of course, he does manage to throw in an oblique and unnecessary reference to Shakespeare, if that's your thing. He has a serious fetish for that deceased, negligent-father of a playwright. All in all, it was just disappointing and I wish I'd waited until it was on the budget theater screens before I threw money at it.

Maybe the book is better. I've got it somewhere, a gift from someone, so I'll take a look, but my tolerance is made a bit lower by having seen the movie first. But I don't think it will be.

2007-09-19T21:42:00.000-07:00

How To Count Your Assets - Lesson # Sideways 8

So, ladies, say you've been blessed with stunning woman-peaks and you need to figure them into your assets list now that puberty has finished its work. What equation do you use? Do they count as one, two, or three assets? Do you count cleavage separately? It can get confusing, but worry no more! Thanks to recent developments (courtesy of amateur expert gazongologist C.Eteranna), it's now actually quite simple to figure out your new Utilitarian Value Tally. Decent chest-mounted gender-turrets can yield up to four points of assets using the following equation: Two^X, wherein X=proper showcasing + cleavage (typically for a total of 2).

Thanks, Science!

2007-09-19T21:41:00.000-07:00

Life In Oregon

The populace here is so entirely open to having conversations and being friendly, I don't really understand how A) anyone here can be lonely or how B) anyone here is single. Not only are they willing to start up conversations, they're willing to let you start up a conversation and then actually continue it instead of just letting it drop after the initial topic is satisfied. In the last two days, I've talked with strangers about : Orchids re:cultivation/beauty/fungi of, Hummus, Burritos, Half-Dreaded Pretty Hair, Homicide - tv show, Homicide - crime, Selling Pickup Trucks, Realism in Televsion, Names/Name Origins, Grocery Stores, Horchata, Cheeses. And a non-senile late-middle-aged/early-elderly man offered to let me try his mexican cinnamon-milk-rice drink (before he had a sip of his own) if I used my own straw.

It's one of those more subtle differences, like the weird street layout, that's just enough of a change to register, but not enough to be in another world. Which is what leads me to believe I'm in a coma and this is my own poorly-recreated simulation of the world. Little things being a bit "off" are the keys to knowing you're in a synthetic landscape. I may also be dead and, having lived my life the way I have, found myself in the pleasanter side of purgatory.

And the women! The general selection superficially seems about the same, physical attractiveness-wise, but I've had more positive met-out-of-nowheres in one week than I typically have in months. I think I have a crush on the check-out girl at Trader Joe's.

I got my library card today. The place was jumping. It was a popular place to be. I was really surprised both at their surprisingly good selection of graphic-novels, not just comic books, and at the strangely high number of cute opposite genders there. I don't like they don't separate the Sci-Fi/Fantasy from the rest of fiction, less for my own use than out of remembering how irritating it was as a kid. Decent collection, though, and a visually appealing building inside and out, though I don't really understand why the first-floor outer-lobby bathroom is the "Throne of the S.L.U.G. Queen". Something to learn.

Orientation events have been mostly useless or are a good year early given when I'd apply what they're trying to teach. I have skipped out a quarter-way through two of them, though I'm stuck all day in one tomorrow. I am unimpressed.

Hopefully, I will start sleeping well soon. Damn new mattress. Without sleep, I can only be inane and mundane. Thank god I'm good-looking too or I'd never make any new friends.

I need a bike. And full rain-gear ensemble. Not until the ominous "dystopian future of a clouded sky" look is done will I feel I'm living up to my potential.

The Psych. Dept. beaurocracy are actually helpful, warm, welcoming. Most of my interactions with beaurocrats has shown me that they're necessary, but not really helpful. These, though? They facilitate everything. Get things done, well and quickly. They gave us gifts, organized the crap out of things in a helpful way, and overall friendly and not worn-down horrible old people whose job has killed them inside. I was disappointed that the head of the department, Lou Moses, wasn't an ancient wizened old man, though. I mean, when you hear that name you want balding with pure white beard, walking stick, canny beady little twinkly eyes, and tweed. A friendly hybrid academic-mountain-hippy just doesn't fit, but it'll do.

My office is huge, I get along well with my office-mate which doesn't matter too much because she does her gene-modded brain-cloning neuro-mapping research on the other side of campus and doesn't have any use for an office so far away. Yet. I'm planning on repainting the walls. Giant desk. 4th floor. Nice view. Hell, it's enough to have a window that opens. An alarm-free fire-escape three doors down to have lunch on. Ladder to roof immediately outside my office (with what looks like an entirely pick-able lock). There's some jealousy of my lab-mate, whose office has five big windows, great natural light, and more panoramic view (though of the inner-courtyard and roof), even if she does share it with two other people. I also have a rollodex now. And shelves. Bought some full-spectrum lamps for the office to give it the feeling of better lighting. Intend to buy a nice rug to cover up the puce carpet, but then, I like the puce carpet. It reminds me of my grampa and his warm, musty, underground office beneath an apartment complex and drug-store he owned.

The new apartment-house is coming along pretty well. Three more shelves, a love-seat/couch, and a coffee-table and the basics are done until I've saved up enough to buy unnecessary electronics. I'm even keeping it clean.

I'm optimistic.

2007-09-18T21:39:00.000-07:00

"Honey bees die after stinging.
The "stinger" is an undeveloped sex organ. Worker bees are undeveloped females, who will develop no further. In the fully developed female or queen bee the stinger is the ovipositor (egg depositing tube) connected to her ovaries, it's just a smooth sharp tube. In the fully developed male, or drone, it's the equivalent of a penis, but it's not smooth it has barbs on it and after he mates the barbs hang up in the queen and it gets ripped out of his body, family jewels and all. He dies from the injury, the queen absorbs his "testicles" and they become part of her body, she never has to mate again. In the workers the tube is also barbed, it's connected to poison glands that would be ovaries if she was sexually matured. When she stings the barbs cause the stinger, glands and all, to be ripped from her body, she dies from the injury."
-notmrjohn - top answer to question 'Do bees die after stinging?'

Shit. I knew about the "only breed once" and "stingers ripped out" and "workers are undeveloped females" but this is terror-out-of-space type crazy. Sci-fi alien surreal. The kind of thing they write about in horror stories about hive-minds or biological experiments gone horribly wrong. This is insane comic-book power-stealing collector-type villain shit.

Ladies, I am keeping my family jewels. As a consolation prize, my penis is not barbed. This is a fair trade.

2007-09-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

What's YOUR Spirit Animal?

What if your spirit animal is just the first appropriately shaped toy you got as a child? A bear, an elephant. Maybe some kind of horribly misshaped creature thing or a deformed person.

Mine was a hydrocephalic panda bear with murder in his beady red eyes. He didn't scare me so much as he unnerved me so I kept him at the bottom of the the back of the closet.

What does that shit SAY about a person?

Sure, maybe you lucked out. Got some nice normal animal or some majestic beast of legend. What if you got a sock-monkey, the creepy anorexic perverts of the stuffed animal world? Or a neutered unidentifiable abomination-monster all in muted tones, without even felt claws or plastic eyes? Some wholesome yet mildly-disabled plant from Veggie-tales? How do you expect a cucumber to help you learn about your true self? Do you want some dead-inside goblin abortion thing to be the only thing between you and the dangers of the spirit world? Would YOU follow the floppy, lipstick-smeared face of a simian made from old clothes on the pathway to transcendence and miscellaneous other spiritual journeys? No. Don't get me started on those poor losers who got stuck with a special blanket for too long or a hand-me-down or, god forbid, some old action-figure their older brother left lying around that they got their hands on when not being watched by inattentive parents. I knew one kid whose first "toy" was a loofah.

I don't like to think what having a sociopathic bamboo-fetishist spirit animal means about me. I always liked my second toy better. It was a frog. When my mom bought him, he was full of walnut shells so she cut him open and stuffed him full of cotton. For years I figured I had a matching tadpole, but that was a lie I told myself to keep from feeling incomplete. Doesn't matter. He was a good frog. Completely non-anthropomorphized. Au natural, bebe.

I mean, these lifelong animist babysitters are supposed to show up either around birth or your coming of age ceremony and how many of you had a coming of age ceremony besides the ones that require akwards talks with your parents? I tell you this: at what passed for mine, I didn't see any animal. Just pain and self. I... kinda hope my spirit animal is "Pain"... but it would be kinda cool. Having "Self" as my spirit animal would be recursive and kinda cool. I would have the best hubris on the block. Envy of all the fallen priests and messiah-complex surgeons in the neighborhood.

2007-09-12T17:11:00.000-07:00

Math + Music + Africa = Hilarity!

2007-09-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

Fact: The skin of naked mole rats lacks a key neurotransmitter that is responsible for sending pain signals to the central nervous system.

2007-09-11T18:44:00.005-07:00

The funny thing about political debates (particularly with pundits) is that each side seems to feel that the other side knows the truth, but refuses to acknowledge it. Like they're just being contrary about the whole thing.

2007-09-11T18:44:00.003-07:00

On the One-Breasted Amazon
"The amazon thing? It's bullshit, a convoluted nightmare of folk tales and bad etymology lead to (Privative) a- (Without) and -mazos (Breast).

Amazons in art and in Greek accounts are depicted as having both breasts, and an alternative etymology suggests it may have been (Intensive) a- and -Mazos, meaning "full-breasted"."

-Antagonish

2007-09-11T18:44:00.001-07:00

My question tonight, for you: Why would a hotel bathroom have a bottle-opener in it?

And us, the only room with a no-smoking sign that doesn't match the rest. The only one, too, not colored nicotine yellow. The only one that explicitly spells it out for you that there is "No Smoking" instead of just the little crossed circle sign.

2007-09-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

Shameful as it is, I can see myself as the old man who goes out to the beach every morning with a metal detector, just to give his walks a little sense of purpose and feeling of discovery. The cute, weirdly calm old man taking a casual stroll, the search acted out in way almost meditative. Not the desperate, semi-delusional old man holding out real hope to someday find something "really valuable".

2007-09-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

It's different here, in Eugene. In Oregon.
For one, no sales tax. Convenient, but it pops open a touch of suspicion about public works funding and general prices (particularly with all the never-before type purchases I've been making."
For two, it's illegal to pump yer own gas. Eerie stuff, to me. And a touch inconvenient. Takes a mo' longer, often, and harder to find a place to fill in the middle o' the night, which I've found myself needin' more often than not. O'course, not having to get out of yer nice warm/cool car, that's not so bad. Lower gas prices, too, so far.
For three, there's a definite odd couple of trends in shop naming protocals. There's a lot more of the unnecessary misspelling. Dari Mart, Minit Mart, Candy Tyme, Bi Mart, etc. It's starting to get to me a little. Particularly Dari Mart. It's sounds like an Indian or African joint, does Dari, but is it? No. Just the worst type of spelling-bee drop-out commercial success. Then there's the way they name day-cares: Security First. Lion's Den. Is it prison or harm's way I'm putting Tommy-Sue into? It's a crazed and crazy thing I'll have nothin' for or of.
Last, what is wrong with these coffee places? What kinda java joint doesn't have a bit of free wifi? It's a wrong, strange, confusing and frightening place.

The neighbors, to the right, they're a house full of girls. Entirely average girls, far as I can tell. Normal range of sorta cute. Giant inflatable beer-bottle in the back seat. Cat. One of them is of that beautiful stereotype femme and speaks in fast uninterrupted streams of words with lots of explanation, detail, and minor personal opinions. Nothing for or against in that, but it's sort of funny.
The sourceless external beeping, for now, seems to have stopped, but if it starts again, I've a classy new hammer to run about with.
This is all, by the by, sent to you through weak off-and-on signal stolen from someone who, apparently, has clean pants. The funny ways of server names, hey? It'll do for little short bits until I have my own connection proper.
Tomorrow, I go to a training class on MRI safety first thing from dawn and'll stick there a couple hours yet. After that, if I haven't forgot my own cash, I'll hit a little lunch and run whatever errands on campus I can do, make a couple calls in the hope of setting up the web, and maybe have another go at finding a desk and shelves. Maybe even a fancy little euro-futon for the place between the Swedish stylish furniture.

Best thing: there're blackberry bushes behind the house. They HAD berries on them, 'til I ate them. They were delicious.

Been feeling a bit like an irritated predator. Dangerous, not hungry. Like a new fish in prison. Who is also a grizzly bear (no self-consumption impulse yet, though. Bears, fishes, eh.) I keep wanting to rear up on two legs and chase people until I realize that it's not that impressive, the rearing up, and is mostly just crazy and stupid, the chasing. Ah well.

Spiders everywhere.

Oy. Once I've got a desk and it's easy to type again, there's a good storm front of things to come... which might become entirely shred up by the rocky shores of first weeks. We'll have to have a wait and see on that. Hopefully, all's well without me, though it's true to think that without a center, how can the balance hold?

Best with y'all.

2007-09-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

Here in Eugene. Trip went fairly smoothly, though without much sleep.
The town is a lot bigger and urban-like than I'd thought. I'll do just fine here. They have bumper cars in the Mall. BUMPER CARS.
Typing this from a Full City coffeeshop. On wi-fi pirated from another coffeeshop about a quarter of a block away. Tried to do this whole thing at a Starbucks that's much closer to the house, but instead of free wifi they're just a "Wireless hotspot" which means you need a Wi-Fi account from T-Mobile and I'm pretty sure you get charged. Yeah, that's worth it. Pfah.
The apartment/micro-house is nice, but with quirks. The kitchen sink is overenthusiastic. There's a shelf in the fridge missing. The bathroom door requires manhandling to close, but the bedroom door doesn't close at all. A couple windows are missing the screens and from somewhere nearby there's this intermittant but regular high-pitched beeping. Upside, I'm right across from the Planned Parenthood building and right next-door to a Woman's Aid/Wellness center. And as we all know, the first type put out and the second are vulnerable, so I'm in a great location. To pick up pregnant, emotionally damaged women. Sweet. Neighbors seem ok.
Shop is closing. Later.

2007-08-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

Toby Huss - Go To Hell

Spoken cowboy word with a touch of what feels like the humor of the good Rev. Heat and the late Hunter S. Tommy and all this from the very mouth of Arnie the Strongest Man... In the World! Or the pimp and barker for the girly dance show in Carnivale. Take your pick.

Toby Huss - Two Princes

Imitation of Sinatra taken in the Richard Cheese direction

2007-08-17T01:50:00.000-07:00

Lion Reunites with Humans

"This lion was reared by the guys in the vid,he was then released intothe wild in africa but a year later the guys returned to see if he wasdoing OK.
Check out the look on the lions face as he realises-"thats not food its my MATES!!"
Whats mad is the wild lions hes friends with never met the humans but they are totally passive towards them."

Really adorable

2007-08-09T22:57:00.000-07:00

Never Very Good At Being Human

Every time I try to indulge fully in amorality, hedonism, and temptation I end up paying the price of a full worldview assessment marked notably with revision, reorganization, and general reconstruction. Is it so much to ask to be able to be the lounge lizard Devil every so often without being subjected to new depths of introspection and forced into wide-spectrum analysis? If every time I try to enjoy myself on a transient, superficial level the temptation to pursue some contributing aspect to a deeper, more meaningful degree is going to happen, I swear to god I'm just going to start using drugs and tight pants while hitting on dumb women with great asses. And become a rock star. Is it really such a big deal that everything I do be followed by some unnecessary brainy bullshit crap? I am going to go the nearest library and just start punching. In my other hand, I'll just have a bowl of bacon covered in A1 sauce and cheesy goo and I'm going to chew with my mouth open. I probably won't be wearing any pants. It's going to be awesome. Let me clarify this some. Sometimes, you just want a burger. You don't want to find a key hidden under the bun and a clue written on the underside of your napkin which lead to a fantastic adventure that will test your limits and teach you things about yourself you never knew. Sometimes, you just want something made of dead cow with sesame seeds nearby. Any other time, you'd prefer the magical mystery tour. Sometimes, you want to watch a stupid comedy, not an existential tour de force that intrigues and enlightens you. Not because it's not worth it, it's not something you're going to turn down because the timing ain't hotter than a smart girl in cheap sunglasses*, but sometimes you just need to fill your gut-organ with grease and cheese (not necessarily a tautology) while idiots fall down stairs into a giant cream pie or industrial-sized glue barrel to hilarious results. It gets frustrating, too, that when you've finally taken a break from pursuing those Deeper Meanings, taking a little time to relax and breathe, THAT'S when you find the next clue in the mystery. Can't a guy have five minutes to grab a bite to eat? Even Indiana Jones spent time just lecturing to class full of enamored college freshmen and none of them spontaneously became the only lead to a lost civilization. Can't a guy have the payout come from his dedicated effort and not just drop out of the sky? That's it, too. It's nice to get something you want, sure, but if you only gain it through happenstance and Greater Forces At Work, eventually you're going to feel like an impotent extra in your own cinema. I want to catch a break sometimes, as much as the next guy, but for things I need, important goddamn things, I want to be able to figure out how to get them again. I want to entrust as little as possible to forces outside my influence. Even the best things in life lose their luster if you're incidental to them. Besides, the harder it is to enjoy the little things, not to mention the basic primal physical/social things, the farther you get from normal and human. Which is hard enough to stay near as it is.

If this keeps up, for a sensible man like myself there's only one thing left to do:

I am going to stab a drunken cow in the neck to drink it's liquor-like blood while riding naked through Vegas alongside two gullible barbi-blonde double-D stewardesses covered in olive oil. And the next day, I'll go to work as though nothing had happened. Wearing only bodypaint and dress socks. Just in case.

It wasn't even Big Amorality. Or Big Hedonism. I just come from a very... considerate, moderately unparty-like background (that I've mostly thrown off) so some behaviors seem more like privileges to me than to most folk.

I met a girl at a party. Gorgeous girl. Hot... but I really like her. I can't actually have her, what with moving and all, but still. She's... exceptional. All I wanted was to make out with someone forgettable at a party. Have fun. Noooo. Instead I have to meet a rare, high-quality, attractive type that I'll actually remember. She can fix a car, fly a helicopter, speak four languages, raft, makes games, meaningfully and intelligently follow politics, and she's a med student. And she has passion without being crazy. She smiles while she's kissed. But I'm tired and temporary. It's not the time and not what I'm looking for. Like a high-quality cookware when you're shopping for a picnic's plastic forks. This doesn't help the connection, it makes it more difficult. Ah well.

I'm never getting that no-strings Summer of Love.

*ZZ Top. They knew how to live. Cars, women, facial hair. Oh yeah. That's livin'.

2007-08-09T22:56:00.000-07:00

Queen guitarist wraps studies for doctorate

2007-08-09T22:47:00.002-07:00

85-year-old man learns he needn't lease his phone

ctsy DNTJ

2007-08-09T22:47:00.001-07:00

"Big party" should be a verb, too

2007-08-09T22:46:00.004-07:00

"If I didn't have my trusty knife with me, I'd slit my wrists!"
-Jailbreak, MS Paint Adventures

2007-08-09T22:46:00.003-07:00

If, on anything resembling the "first date" scenario and this includes first-time one-on-one platonic hanging-out scenes, the other person asks a question, it IS acceptable to add in more than the bare minimum of information necessary to answer. Even more than that, it's ok to use the answer to segue into a Conversation Topic. Please, do start topics. Do embellish some. Fear of being that person that starts telling stories which in turn become something closer to a monologue than a dialogue can be just as bad as being that person. At least the chatterbox is putting something out there and seems interested in time you're spending. Minimalism in speech, particularly early on, can easily make it seem like you don't want to be there, that you're being polite or humoring them. If you enjoy the conversation, give feedback. Make semi-mundane observations about the current moment, share opinions. Point out the girl that looks like how Charlie Brown would dress if he was a girl (or a crossdresser). I understand maybe you're nervous, but really, if it's with me, I'd rather you babble embarassingly than respond tersely with spartan sentences. I am six foot five two hundred fifty five pound male. I don't want to feel that you're there because you were too intimidated to say no. Or because you were polite. More than that, I'm generally the monologue type myself. I don't ask questions out of politeness. I ask for the answers. I don't talk to hear myself (though I do have a beautiful speaking voice, true).

2007-08-09T22:46:00.001-07:00

Terrorist Earthquake

2007-08-04T23:23:00.000-07:00

Mind Over Body Over Mind

If your body matched the shape of your mind, what would you look like?

What color/s would you be? Markings?

Local Answer:
I figure mine would look sort of like a snake-body bottom, a huge sphere-thing at the head end, and a lot of weird little manipulator protuberances all over the sphere head, maybe a weird speckling of mouths and squid eyes. Maybe even some horrible patagia or awkward-shaped leather wings, but maybe not.

All browns, darker shades of blue, a little green, all smeary colors, very "broken camoflage ability". Possibly with some season-dependent small yellowish and reddish blurry stripe markings. Maybe a little black. I get the sense the color would change by season/temperature/etc.

2007-07-24T23:27:00.001-07:00

Amaterasu

Because how many stories involve night-time, tossing skinned horses, and the puncturing of uteri?

2007-07-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

Chiller Thriller Theater

and

Chiller Thriller Theater 2

2007-07-24T21:58:00.001-07:00

Triangles

A difficult game of split concentration and ambidexterity.

2007-07-24T21:57:00.000-07:00

Updates in Order of Importance

My granda down in Georgia had a stroke yesterday, a few days after a small heart attack. He was entirely disabled down one side, but could still speak and recognize people, though he couldn't remember their names. They brought him in for surgery, the options being surgery with a possible worsening to the point of death or some degree of recovery OR no surgery but no likelihood of improvement and a good chance at some decline. He was aware enough of what was going on that he could consent to surgery and make it clear that he would take the risk of dying on the operating table because he could not stand to live the way he now was. So far, after the surgery, it has gone from being able to wiggle his toe to being able to move his legs. What's sad is that up until this point, he needed no medicine, no physicals aids, nothing. He ran every day and played, apparently quite competitively, tennis most days. Often against men half his age. His age being eighty-five. So far that's all we know. My uncle hopes he'll be able to play tennis again. My father and I hope he'll be able to live on his own. If he can't, and it's been his strength that allows him and my grandma to live on their own as my grandma is very frail, I don't believe he'll live much longer. The whole event has triggered the hereditary response to potential death: mild hopeful optimism combined with an almost creepy worry-free resignation to the fact, all mixed with a practical assessment of how best to prevent the inevitable from occurring so soon all with a distant sense of sadness. It's a strange feeling. I'll buy him a card tomorrow. I don't know what else to do. We're not particularly close, thanks at least in part to the literal distance, but neither are we particularly distant and is he is a part of my heritage that I'm proud of and I have a lot of respect for his skills and he's always been a good grandpa to me. I don't know. For now, I'll wait and see, buy a card, get together the list of contacts I have that specialize in new methods of treating and retraining after strokes.

I get my new car this week. A hand-me-down silver mini-van that, nonetheless, gets better gas mileage, has AC, and is not any longer than the car I currently have.

I plan to get contacts soon. I have been practicing gently poking myself in the eye while I shower each morning. Finally, my eyes will look almost normal size and my winking will no longer go unnoticed. Also, I will be nearly unstoppably handsome. Once I get in shape as well, anyhow.

I've been biking almost every day and working on projects almost every other day, with in-between days being either chores, packing, friends, relaxing, or spending time with the little woman.

Today, I bought some shirts at the thrift store. One has sleeves that are too short, but I'll just roll them up. I also found a complete and fairly fancy all-in-one home-casino set for $6.50 and an album by a man who sings in blackface.

I ate at The Bulldog over towards the west end of Washington, near the White Castle. Classy and tasty burger, if edging on small within context for my massive handsomely-ogre-like frame. Terrible fries. Delicious tater-tots. A tad pricey, but very good burgers. Fancy, even.

Taking magnesium before I go to bed appears to be working really well. In addition to getting to sleep faster, I seem to be staying asleep more solidly and getting more rest out of the time spent unconscious. It also seems to have upped the level of detail in my dreams to a degree I normally only enjoy once or twice a week. Falling asleep faster could be placebo effect, but the rest seem to be independent of preconceived notions. I mean, they happen when I'm unconscious. Taking two magneisum supplements may have had only odd effects on my sleep, leaving me solidly two-thirds asleep and hamster-wheeling in my thoughts, but it's an experiment I'll need to test again to be sure.

I don't feel as different as I should. Tomorrow, I'll work on projects if it's not too humid. If it is, I'll just run errands and hope for a dry Thursday.

I half-heartedly want to fight, to impress and consensually engage in coitus multiple females, and generally do active life-affirming stereotype manly things. I guess that's the reaction to mortality. I don't know how to feel that something like this triggers something as crude as this, but I feel it might be a better impulse than depression and sociopathy. The primal male is on, but at least he knows what he wants.

...

2007-07-22T22:26:00.002-07:00

Quantum Parallel Universe Many Worlds = No Fun for Anyone

I cannot stand reading stories about parallel-divergent dimensions. Anything vaguely resembling the Many Worlds Theory is straight out*. A Multiverse? Sure, I can do that, as long as it is either Finite or Infinite But Non-Divergent/Non-Repeating/Non-Variations-On-A-Theme. Why? Because the very moment you use the infinite parallel universes, the events within the story are immediately rendered moot. There is no sense of risk nor success because by the definition of the operating rules of that world, all successes and failures have happened AND there is no meaningful difference with the universe you just read over the rest that makes its results more important. The death of a character becomes meaningless and, more importantly, boring. A non-event. In fact, everything becomes self-negated, not just occurrences. Interesting hypotheses of physics, sociology, super-nature, technology or fascinating settings of impossible cities and otherworldly plains are all drawn with the white on white art supplies of the Nihilist painter. It is the dread step past existentialism that is slightly freeing but not in a way that makes you feel any better. So fuck the "every choice spawns enough worlds to allow every option to have occurred" bullshit. You want an alternate universe? There are somewhere upwards of eighty different rationales for the World Where Nazis Won And You Have An Evil Twin But It's In Another Dimension. At least leave enough traction in the story for me to keep holding on to its plot. If you make it all frictionless water-dust by injecting it with the UnMeaning of the Total Comprehensive, it all gets washed out and away.

I'm also increasingly bored with quantum and nanotech magic science in fiction. Particularly since it's often an unpleasant hybrid child of Mrs. Pedantic and Mr. Inaccurate Understanding whose grandfather was Herr No-Interesting-Extrapolations. Seriously, I enjoy a good "what could we do with technology?" vignette as much as the next guy, but a real actual plot with character development and stuff would be nice too.

*Except that one about how you'll never perceive your own death because in some universe SOMETHING happened to save you from that death and thus allow your perception to continue and in the story as the likelihood of being able to survive gets smaller and smaller for the main character the events that he perceives in his accursed and inescapable immortality get stranger and stranger. I think there were alines at the end, there.

2007-07-22T22:26:00.001-07:00

I come home and what do I get?

The faint and directionless scent of high quality vinegar with no clue to its origin, purpose, or solution.

2007-07-22T22:25:00.004-07:00

Near the coffeeshop, an older Somali man was reading an a softcover book straight out of the eighties entitled "MATHEMATICS" and grinning like it was so funny.

That was a little pleasantly odd.

2007-07-22T22:25:00.003-07:00

Potato Fat

2007-07-22T22:25:00.001-07:00

Finland has a lot of islands.

The most islands.

2007-07-22T22:23:00.000-07:00

Inane Opinion About A TV Show

I really like "According to Jim". It has the basic formula of the sitcom: Attractive Wife + Schmucky Male-Stereotype Husband + Family Antics. The dad likes beer and sports, is a little rude and insensitive. The wife is a bit control-freaky, cooks. The twist, though, is that they're not horrible people who resent where they are. They don't just put up with each other. They LIKE each other. And the difference between their level of physical attractiveness isn't painfully unlikely. The humor isn't pure cynicism. The lessons they learn are actually good lessons and aren't Cosby Show cheesy safe. I like the example it sets. I like that it doesn't make married life seem like the death of everything that makes you a real person, a scenario whose only escape is sports and beer, primarily as an excuse to avoid interaction with your wife and kids and speed the time with blurry vision until you're finally dead. A functional family with occasional realistic (or at least not squeaky-clean) issues? Addressing concepts of masculinity and femininity without using stereotypes so 2D as to reduce both genders to essentially unworkably limited creatures forced to interact by the compulsions of hormones and biological clocks, as well as pointing out when its better to be reasonable or put what you care about above your absurd pride? And there's no use of unapologetically horrible parenting. I really like this show. I don't love it. But I really like it. Of course, I analyze this crap a lot more than... anyone else. I really hate basically every sitcom about family on TV right now. They're full of horrible people dehumanizing each other while doing ... horrible people things and self-sabotaging and generally being jerks, idiots, or idiot-jerks. Or even just so awkward it hurts. There's other sources of humor and there's no reason not to show a bit of hope and functionality. Christ.

2007-07-16T23:35:00.001-07:00

Numismatics

2007-07-16T23:29:00.006-07:00

This week will hopefully be the one I get back into the groove of things. Most comments have been responded to. My notes are half-organized. Just got to get back to the pattern.

2007-07-16T23:29:00.005-07:00

Red Ball 1, 2, 3 (Vintage Sesame Street)

This video always made me hungry. To this day, just see the first few seconds make me crave. Funny thing is that I have no association of hunger with counting to three. Just with the first fifth of this clip.