The Stormy Petrel's Flash Links of the Day

Macromedia Flash. It’s helped degrade the standards of animation and stagnate the quality of animation in the industry. But, it also has brought forth the means by which otherwise silent entities have created simple and entertaining cartoons. Hence, I shall linketh them.

Ill Will Press - More specifically, Neurotically Your’s and Foamy the Squirrel succeed at being my favourite Flash cartoon of all time. Fear my SQUIRRELY WRATH! I have it, you know . . . It’s one of my hidden nature things.

Happy Tree Friends - It’s violent, it makes no sense, and it’s a group of happy, colourful animals being mutilated horrendously. Everybody loves dead rabbits in bow-ties, right?

Homestar Runner - Look, it’s an internet phenomenon and I don’t even know why I’m bothering to link to it, because everybody and their sister’s vaginal warts knows about it already. Still, Strong Bad emails and random cartoons and games, it’s fun. Go. I’m sad that I’m flying.

College University - If you’ve ever wanted to see the Simpsons, but at college, then have at this. Beer dizawgs?

Newgrounds - It’s the breeding grounds for inane, retarded Flash animations, but an occasion gem finds its way out from the slop. It’s a fun place to poke around, and can equally give you a smile and give you a headache.

You’re A Fucking Moron - This is a series actually off of Zipperfish.com, but I link you to the Newgrounds area because Zipperfish is, as I just now discovered at work, a porn site. It’s all about a Hellion criticising celebrities for being idiots with an overly exaggerated British accent. Insert name here, you’re a . . . Fucking moron. Thank you, thank you.

Retarded Animal Babies - Another series off of Newgrounds, I enjoy it because it’s stupid and grotesque. Similar to Happy Tree Friends in that it has cheery woodland creatures doing unspeakable horrors — and self-aware of this fact — but definitely different enough to not be a copycat. I brought three po-ta-tos, a bucket of chicken, and . . . Satan.

Mario Brothers - Originally linked to by Penny Arcade, this is the epic, stirring tale of two, Italian brothers in a kingdom of mushrooms gone mad. Yes, it’s still incomplete, with only Part IV of V posted, but it’s good. Also, check out the other animations the author of this has done, because they’re crazy and entertaining. The Quadratic Formula is fun!

That is all.

Adios.

A Nation Built On Sciolism (A World of Philistines)

I’ve been listening to the original soundtrack for Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, composed by Clint Mansell and the Kronos Quartet, and it’s very compelling, very entrancing — at least, to me. By my systematic categorization, I rate it at an 3% Failure Rating, for being an all-round stirring musical piece on the level of a symphonic composition, coming across less as an album with track and more as a concerto by movements. If nothing else, it reminds me of the movie, which, in turn, leads me to more depressing thoughts and darker musings on the state of humanity.

Are we, as a generation, the most illiterate people to exist, or is it a byproduct of America’s stupidity-laced culture? We grow up, thinking what it is good to do is watch television and listen to popular musical groups whose lyrics are as recycled as a porn star’s vagina. It is an unacceptable practice to read, to write, to stop and think, almost, not condoned by the commercial forces that run our lives, nowadays. It’s an interesting scenario, wherein children become aghast to contemplate Shakespeare or Joyce, believing it to be an unthinkable act to sit down with classic literature. I, for one, am a huge buff when it comes to the classics — in music, in literature, in art, in drama; I do not believe things are innately superior by being “classic,” but I find that those works which survive to be denoted as classical and survive the test of time are of such a high, undeniable quality that it is nigh ludicrous to question otherwise. Not that I am going so far as to say that it is wrong to not have a taste for the classics, but it is rather ignorant to deny the qualities they possess, the craft of the masterpieces. It is not the fault of the artist, the composer, the writer that one may not see what makes their works superb, but it is the ill-educated eyes of the viewer that fail to comprehend and appreciate the artistry therein.
Yes, I think that everybody who claims intelligence should have an appreciation for classical works of fine art; no, I don’t think every smart person should indulge in them on a regular basis, or even prefer them over modern works. Still, it is the basis of any valid opinion to be well-supported by reliable sources and information, not to mention the history and background of the subject at hand, therefore if one is to approach me about good music, good art, good books, then I will not shy away from referencing Vivaldi, Bach, Titian, Goya, Flaubert, or Eliot. The same goes for movies, honestly; if one does not know Kubrick, Scorsese, Coppola, Burton, Fincher . . . Then one may as well be a child when it comes to movies. We are where we are at, today, because of the efforts of those of the yesteryears, that and that only is what composes the backbone of fine art.
Even an appreciation for the obscure artists of the past should be culled, if you ask me. Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Sri Lankan, Indonesian . . . One does not solely look towards the names of the Old World to find the jewels of art history. African art and Islamic music, Hindi literature and Japanese poetry, all should be considered in one’s background of art. If an attempt to, at least, know some foreign art, then it is a wasted time spent thinking one’s self a connoisseur of fine art.
The argument can be posed that these classical works of art, they are deigned as such by those in history who wrote the records, penned the historical texts, and thus they are fallable as such. Of course, this argument inevitable comes from the mouth of someone who tends to lack much understanding of the scholarly pursuits of history, so I can’t say I listen with rapt attention to them, most of the time . . . Yes, “history is written by the winners,” per se, but that does not defy the solid principles upon which classicism is founded: developed theory, tested aesthetic, indelible mastery. Works of art have, of course, been lost through time, but that only makes those which survived all the more precious, in my opinion.

I have deviated greatly from my original point, though: why is my generation so afraid of, en masse, the classical fine arts? A lot of it has to do with exposure, I think, in that the majority of people in the past were not allowed to view such things, so it is not a new trend that I am observed, but merely the resultant of open venues accessible to all breeds of people. I can’t expect, nor can anyone else, that everybody will understand Shakespeare . . . Or can I?
Why shouldn’t I? Why should I expect it to be part of a complete education to, at least, devout some time and energy into the understanding, contemplation, and appreciation of classical works? Such a cornerstone of culture can, surely, not be ignored just because “not everyone likes it.” A lot of people like a lot of shallow, superficial things; that does not merit these works as viable. People like Linkin Park, but that doesn’t make Linkin Park a talented group of musicians or lyricists, or performers. Perhaps, the latter I’ll relent on, a bit, since to perform successfully merely means to entertain, but to be a true musician, true lyricist? It’s not infeasible to expect of such people a thorough training in the classics, a full education in the theory, philosophy, and scholarship behind it, given the opportunity for such an education to exist.
Louis Armstrong, the famous Jazz coronet and trumpet player, could not read music for the majority of his life, through most of his career. He was born with an ear for music and a taste for playing, and that’s all he had — no money, no resources, no civil rights as a human being. What he got in response to his contribution to the musical world was meager in comparison to the luxury most white, Big Band musicians lived in, later on in the following decades. Nothing can change the life Armstrong lead, nothing can ever defy the cold truth that he had no musical education yet thrived so beautifully as a musician. It is facets of history such as this that really stop me in my tracks when I say that everyone should be educated very deeply.
But, in is wrong to say that, hypothetically, given the chance, had Louis Armstrong been educated by established institutions and leaders in musical thought, would he have been better for it? I think he would, I think that with the start he had, the natural talent, and a background in musical theory and education, he would’ve been greater, stronger, more of an immense force in musical history than he is, now. As it stands, Jazz is almost a novelty in musical history, a gimmick for musical elitists to flaunt . . . Colloquial music versus scholarly music, that’s a hot debate in the musical world, and it’s something I don’t wish to get into without more room to talk.

What is wrong with my generation? What is wrong with all the peers I knew who would never pick up a novel by Henry James, listen to a work by Haydn, a play by Tennessee Williams . . . Why is there such a resistance to culture among Americans? We want, as a country, sports and celebrities; mindless entertainment; reality television and video games; hip-hop artists and techno remixes . . . It kills me that poetry and art are so marginalized by the populace, but, yet, it is acceptable to indulge in hours of cars racing in circles. It’s somehow more acceptable — more sensible — to spend a night in awe of Must-See TV than a night in attendance at an opera. Perhaps, there is a culture out there that I don’t understand, that I am not allowing myself to absorb . . . Perhaps, my problem is that all of this (what I see as) idiocy is actually a culture of its own, a culture of the everyman, a culture of the proletariat.
Sigh, I’m beginning to sound like Karl Marx, using a term like “proletariat.” I band my head against a wall, though, when I think about it for too long; the fact that The Matrix was an “intelligent” movie, and that people fall asleep during Adaptation. Sometimes, it seems so blatantly obvious to me when something is insubstantial and devoid of innovation, yet everyone else . . . Everyone else loves it?
I guess I should get used to living in a Mad TV world.

Adios.

[Editor's Note: Apologies for the lateness, again.]

The pen is bourne steady;
As the soul is born tumultuous.

Meaning carries —
like a sturdy wheelbarrow —
the undecided heart;
Inside it lies —
dormant yet stirring —
a boundless ocean:
Full of desires,
ideas,
thoughts,
words.

Tidal ebb and flow —
by blue moons —
that is human;
Restless youth,
is undone;
Myriad shifting —
as tectonic Earth —
defines us.

Structure,
purpose,
skeletons,
all found the basis:
Under which hides —
unseen yet sensed —
an eternal chaos;
No solidity exists —
like water without volume —
sans meaning.

When broken, we fall!

For all intents and purposes, she supposed, mathematics was quite possibly the dullest subject on the face of God’s green Earth. Looking around herself, subtly so to not attract the wrath of the professor, the teenaged girl observed her classmates, with their mixed expressions of boredom, slight interest, and rapt attention, from the equally apathetic to the overly eager — in her opinion, at least. Trigonometry, she thought, was not meant to be admired or cared for, it was merely for study and understanding, then to be sentenced to the fog of lost memory. She was, this day more than others and for reasons she kept secret and dwelled upon too heavily, feeling very poetic.
The seat in front of her was empty. It seemed lonely, and it gave off an aura of vacuum, a sensation that everything in the world was missing which was felt when one looked upon it and saw that it was unoccupied. Unoccupied, unnoticeably: an unjustified cruelty, in a sense, and a shame, a tragedy. There was a decidedly tragic characteristic about an empty desk, she decided, and she went to scrawling prose in the margins of her paper about it.
She would write a poem, she thought, later on when the mood for those kinds of words struck her the fiercest. That time of day tended to be late in the evening, usually during sunset but sometimes an hour or two earlier. She had observed once, laying next to the thing that was truly missing, that if she traced the figurative lines of her brain, following behind the trains of thought that derailed from the forefront of her conscious, and keeping tabs on the stray, frayed strands of random and spontaneous ideas or emotions that appeared and disappeared, she could find a pattern in it all, something that she theorised defined a portion of her personality, or even was a reason and foundation for it. This was something she lightly considered continuously all the time, taking careful note of when she felt the urge to do what and in what way she moved or lived, wrote or talked. In the end, she concluded that poetry was best left for the setting sun and the afterhours.
Granted, right now, she mused, everything was coming off poetic in her head. But, she knew, from experience, that trying to place that poetry in an external expression would foil it somehow, make it tamer or weaker than it would otherwise be were it written at the right time. She made an analogy in her head, then tossed it aside and promptly forgot it, because trees and fruit were way too overdone by her standards. Pausing in her note-taking and letting her eyes wander in whichever way they desired, she pieced together sentences, verbs with conjunctions and the requisite amount of nouns, in an effort to produce a better simile or, perhaps, metaphor — although, she had discovered, a good metaphor is more precious and rare than a simile.
“Misses Minerva?”
Why did my father give me that name, anyway? . . . Oh, yeah, respond to teacher and pretend to have been listening, right — almost forgot.
“Yes, Miss Evanwoods?”
Not that I don’t like the name, so much as it sticks in my ears and lingers every single time I hear it. Even when it’s not being emphasised or made a big deal about, I feel like it is, like everyone who says it says it way too . . . Too something, I don’t know.
“Are you content to daydream, or would you rather make the taxes your parents put towards the education system worth something and learn a little bit about math?”
She’s always overly political. Everything has to relate to the government or a politician, somehow, with her. I don’t like being all that political, it’s just not worth the worry, the way I see it.
“I’m learning, most assuredly, Miss Evanwoods. I can tell you that that angle is, in fact, thirty degrees, for example.”
She never particularly cared about math, of course, but she did pick it up long enough to get high marks on her exams. Luckily, it didn’t come hard, as it did for many of the other apathetic students whose lackluster approach to the subject was mostly compensation for struggle and ignorance. She didn’t like them, but they didn’t like her, either; therefore, it was an ideal circumstance, for all those involved. Nobody cared, but that’s unsurprising when dealing with apathetic teenagers: nowadays, everybody is burnt-out.
“Okay, Minerva, try to appear as though you are paying attention, though.”
The professor continued with her lecture, and Minerva continued with her brooding. Minerva, Minerva, she repeated in her head, there’s just something unusual about the name. It doesn’t sound right, it doesn’t ring correctly, it doesn’t roll off the tongue smoothly at all, in her view. Sure, maybe the Romans liked it, but she just didn’t.
The abbreviations she endured: that must’ve been it, she realised. Minnie? Who likes being called “Minnie?” Except for some cartoon mouse in a skirt, of course . . . Minnie, mini, miniature, miniature Minerva. Mini-Me and Mini-M&M’s and Mini-Golf. Mini-Minnie.
This is all, she declared to her brain, precisely why I go by my middle name: Eudora, or Dora, alternatively. Nobody names their daughters Eudora or Dora, anymore, so it is a nice throwback to the 40’s or 50’s, for her. It makes it unique, even though unoriginal, which is really all she strove for in existence. She had read somewhere that the truth is that originality is a dead animal, and all good things boil down to unique interpretations of ideas that had been done in the past. Look back at history, she commonly reminded herself, but don’t be history.
She looked at the empty desk that sat before her, again, and mulled on it. There once was someone there, but now he is gone; there will be someone there, but he is not there, yet. Relevant to the past, and pertinent to the future, but not significant in the present: isn’t that how all things seem, she thought, isn’t that how we live our lives?
When that desk is empty, it has the potential to do something, it has the potential to be the spot in which something great occurs, or something miraculous takes place. When it was filled, there was someone there who was doing something, perhaps learning and perhaps being interested in trigonometry. That desk has been and will be part of something greater than itself, alone, for when it is just an empty desk . . . It is a chair and a table attached together by metal. It occupies space, and it looks empty. It inspires girls to think way too much about emptiness, that’s what it does.
She then noted that being interrupted by the teacher derailed her thought pattern and changed its mode. She had been feeling very poetic, but now she was feeling quaintly philosophical and moderately literary. Pausing, she tried to recall the poetry that had swirled about her conscious, appearing in pretty phrases and rhyming ideas — nothing came forth. At sunset, though, she was certain, it would all flood back into her forethoughts. It would all come out of hiding, and start dancing in her head, once more. Now, though, she could only think in terms of theory and postulate: what and how objects affect reality and the individual. The rhythm scheme she had been producing thoughts in was now bland and dry, instructional and didactic instead of whimsical and resounding. The words she thought no longer came out as flowing and elegant, instead they marched forth like soldiers with a mission.
It is odd, she observed, that similes serve me better outside of poetry; in fact, she noticed, they do better to elaborate a point or clarify something which is a bit ubiquitous, thus narrow it all down to a relatable similarity. Metaphorical language, in and of itself, is abstract and possibly difficult to comprehend if one does not follow the analogy, so it has no place in explanatory discussion. A good metaphor in a poem is altogether misplaced in a manifesto or doctrine of theory — they’re already muddled by their nature, no need to throw in further confusion. It made sense, to her.
The empty desk laughed.

[Editor's Note: Yes, this was put up two days late. Sorry.]

Doubleplus Ungood Excrescence (Bonus Entry #02)

There is a significant symbol buried in the fact that I finished reading Stephen King's Misery today; I'm sure if I thought long and hard--or even short and light--on the matter, I could shape some clever axiom around the whole thing.

Yeah, but I don't care enough now to do that; instead, here is another real-time entry . . . Misery merits a 4% Failure Rating, by the by--pleasurable read, and stinginly autobiographical I'm wagering. It was an interesting look into a writer's mind in an excruciatingly horrible scenario, if nothing else. King likes making his main characters writers, if you notice: i.e. The Shining and The Secret Window. I can appreciate that.

So, tomorrow marks the first day of classes for the Fall semester of 2004 at CNU; also, it marks the day I return to being a deskmonkey in IT Services and no longer am directly involved in move-in efforts. Imagine, if you will, a thousand naked leprechauns dancing Irish jigs in a deep green meadow, and that about sums up my feelings on that.
Customer service makes me twitch.
Twitch.

I figured I would commemorate this day with a special bonus entry, but I didn't think through it all the way; namely, I didn't come up with what to write about. My neck hurts.

I guess I should just call this quits, then.
Adios.5

Too Verbose to Resist (Bonus Entry #01)

Excuse me while I explode (in magical real-time even).
I work in IT--Information Technology. I have, for the past four days, worked in customer service: servicing people's computers, and, namely, helping people who just moved onto campus setup their computer for the 'net--Fun!
Ever have one of those assignments you know is going to suck, is going to sap the life out of you, is going to utterly destroy your nerves and turn you into a wrecking ball of stress for days (maybe weeks) on end?
Yeah.
Me, too.

The deal with CNU is quite simple, really; however, it is a new deal, and therein arises the issues. We used to assign static IP addresses based on the physical location of the drop-port in each room. Now, we have a DHCP server that dynamically assigns IP address leases--day by day--to connections from MAC addresses registered with our database (named NetReg). To a computer tech, it's simple enough.
The NetReg box is on the network, obviously; it's accessible via the intranet and it is not necessary to be on the internet to use it. It should--stress should--redirect any connection made to http://www.cnu.edu to the gateway address of NetReg based on the physical location of the computer--stress should. This is in an ideal world.
In reality--that harsh, cruel, cold place of which we all are card-carrying members--there exists viruses... Worms... Spyware and adware... Hijacks... Trojans... and the whole fucking company of malicious/exploitative programming. Almost everyone--it seems--who runs Internet Explorer is already having their homepage hijacked and redirected to something or another, if not by Microsoft then by whoever feels like it; and that's a simple problem.
In reality, Win32 worms like Sasser and Welchia bring down entire networks, because of the explosive amounts of traffic due to self-replicated packet broadcasting--making sure to infect everyone with the fun-ness that is a worm, those who are vulnerable, of course. Windows ME and down? Safe and sound.
People bring these worms onto campus. They have these worms, and know it on some level, because most of them enact shutdown processes that don't look a damn thing like regular errors. I think that's what gets me the most, that there are people who see 30- or 60-second shutdown sequences and thinks that's a normal error.
Let me just say, here and now, folks, that crashes don't give you warning. If Windows crashes, it is fucking there and it is not going to be so kind as to give you a minute warning. Crashes, bugs, glitches, etc--whatever one wishes to call them--happen are there and done, instantenous. When Windows or IE crashes, BOOM, there's an error and everything's motherfucking D.O.A.. No if's, and's, or but's, and especially no complimentary call-ahead.
If your OS--be it Win2k or WinXP, or even WinNT4 for whatever ungodly reason you have that--is giving you a seemingly commanded shutdown process, then you have a worm... Of some sort, at least; not necessarily the standard bunch like Blaster, Welchia, Sasser, Korgo, blah, blah.
The fact that there is someone out there who sees this happen and just thinks to themselves, "Hell, this isn't no big deal, I can work around this--it only looks like someone has somehow obtained full administrative rights to my computer via a remote connection!": that is what makes my head throb.
But, not everyone is really computer literate, or those who are can't always be ultra-sauvvy to everything that exists in the world of computers. I can't blame them.
But I sure can be frustrated by them, when it brings down our campus network and then we catch the shit for it.

You really don't understand why so many IT support/HelpDesk webcomics exist for the purpose of mocking the customers and venting about the bullshit involved until you do it... Not that it makes it funny, but you develop an innate empathy towards it.

Dilbert or User Friendly are still really dull and unoriginal strips, at the end of the day.

Yeah, that's what I have to say... About that... For now.

Explodes.

Johnny Depp Fails To Redeem A Stephen King Movie

Don’t see Secret Window. The acting was flat, the characters were undeveloped and stock, the plot was contrived and predictable, the effects were non-existent. The soundtrack was dull, the cinematography was amateurish, the dialogue was boring. The ending was disappointing, the middle of the movie dragged, and the beginning of the movie was abrupt and rushed. The directing was obviously lackluster, invariably causing all the acting to be unfelt, and the production was poor, with retarded cuts placed jaggedly hither and thither. There were blatant holes in the film, with characters glazed over so much that you hardly knew who was supposed to be significant, and the main characters were uninteresting. Failure Rating 89%. Don’t see Secret Window.

My Word, How Draconian!

I have a rant, and it is a slightly unusual one.
You know who I am growing sick of, tired of, bored of hearing their complaints and issues? Who makes me more frustrated than one can ever imagine, because I was once of this same breed of person? Who I have the hardest time actually delivering a rant against, because I know what dwells in the heart of these people?

Fuck undercutting yourself. Fuck this low self-esteem bullshit, this “I’m not good enough” spiel, this same old, tired rehashing of second-guessing and self-doubt. Fuck this inferiority complex epidemic.
I am coming to be a subscriber to the Denis Leary school of psychology: Shut the Fuck Up, Next. Sit the hell down, shut the fuck up, and get the God damn over it. You know what? There’s little more that can be done about this mentality, because it doesn’t break apart when you try and be rational about it, it doesn’t go away when you prove it wrong, it persists even in the face of undeniable logic and empirical proof, so what else is there to do but to punch it in the face and scream, “Shut the fuck up, God fucking damn it!”
Really, out of this growing feeling of frustration has been growing my own personal philosophy that I refer to as “Punch It In The Face.” Somebody’s an asshole? Punch him in the face. They don’t expect it, they never see it coming, they just can’t believe there are consequences for their actions. So, punch ‘em in the God damn face. The look of astonishment and shock that will wash over their face is unbelievably amusing.

And the same goes for when someone comes out with, “I’m just a bad person.” Punch him in the face. Say to them, “Shut the fuck up, everybody is just as God damn good as everybody else . . . Pussy.” And you know what? That self-awareness of flaws and shortcoming is all the more proof of being something better than a lot of the people out there with real flaws. If you can see where you are failing, where you are coming up with the short straw, than that is all the fucking more reason you’re not a failure.
Now, the other case is that one where someone has to assert their sucking at something which is absurd. “I’m too emotional, I’m too sensitive, I’ve got too many issues.” Jesus H. Christ, how can you have issues with having issues? There’s a fucking line that has to be drawn between actual issues and just making shit up, people.
Nobody has unique emotions. Why the hell do you think you’re not special, but, somehow, special enough to possess some extraordinary trait that nobody else has? Yeah, that’s right, your issue is not unique. For every psychological disorder you may think you suffer, there are two thousand people who probably have the same thought. Even for this “rare” shit they’re coming out with, today, that just means there’s a fuck-ton of others who simply haven’t been diagnosed.
You’re alone in the world, are you? Is that what you have to say, that you are so alone, that nobody else understands? Nobody can live your fucking life for you, no shit, but everybody else sure as shit is living their own life, and one human life is just the same as the next. No, I’m not saying everybody is the same, I’m saying that everybody is in the same bloody boat. We all have the same emotions as you do, perhaps not in the same combination or permutation, but they’re all there.
You don’t think you’re good enough to be with somebody? What the fuck does that have to say about what you think of other people’s judgement capabilities? Oh, they just don’t know what it is that goes on in your head? Well, no bloody fucking wonder, since you keep it in and never tell anyone. Why? They can’t comprehend what’s wrong with you, what happened to you, the experiences you’ve had, your past, your memory, your life? Gee, for someone who is so bloody shitty of a person, you sure are a God damn enigma and mystery of the universe, I guess. You certainly must fail miserably at being worthwhile if you’re the most incomprehensible puzzle in existence. Oooh no, I guess you’re so damn awful when the bounds of your failure extend beyond the very capacity of the human brain, despite you being in possession of the same mind with the same schematic we all get.
Jesus Christ, if you’re so convinced you’re going to be alone, and nobody is going to understand, and there is nothing that can be done to help you, then perhaps that will be the case, but there is something commonly referred to as a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

The world is shit. Life is shit. People are shit. Everything is shit. Misery, dreariness, desperation, anguish, sorrow, woe, tragedy, atrocity, travesty, calamity, catastrophe: reality.
I’m no poet, but I write poetry. I’m no writer, but I write. I’m no artist, but I draw. I’m no genius, but I think.
You would think that in a world where we, as a race, define and refine everything that constitutes our world, it’d be something we would have control over, that within it we would exercise ultimate authority. I suppose, however, that when you yield that right to others, when you allow yourself to be walked upon and confined to their arbitrary borders, then that won’t happen.
But, it is all about power, isn’t it? But, power is an idea we, as humans, created and fuel . . . So, somebody must be giving it to these people in power, these people in control of our destinies and our dreams, our hopes and our desires. This source of power must be coming from somewhere within the populace, and I guess that everything is up to both the people in power and the people giving these people the power, and that’s all there is to it, in the end.
You have no role in your own life, do you?

Fuck that shit.

Beyond institutions, beyond organised religion, educational systems, governments and nations, beyond that is the real fucking world, people. Beyond cliques and etiquettes, beyond royalty and nobility, aristocracy and plutocracy, beyond the walls of economy and society, city and state, beyond everything is the world. Nothing else matters, nothing else is the end-all and be-all, nothing else is the alpha and omega, first and last, best and blest.
You can say it in poetry, in prose and plays, in art and in writing, in oration and speeches, in action and motion, but I’m saying it here, again, straightforward: your life is your God damn own.

“I’m not special.” Then, who is? “I’m not good enough.” Then, what is good? “I’m too emotional.” Then, what is proper emotion? You second-guess yourself, you doubt your own self, you undermine everything you really know, and with what are you left?
Everyone else must know what they’re doing, so you look to them. Someone else, anyone else, aside from me, must be the one with the Answer. And, all of a sudden, you find yourself in someone else’s world, and you’re surprised that you no longer matter, no longer are important, because you’ve resigned yourself to exist in a world of somebody else’s creation, and you can only complain. You put yourself there, shut the fuck up.
Hell, I’d offer to get you out. I’d offer you everything I have, my heart and soul, my time and my words, advice and consolation; I’d offer you the shirt off my back and flesh off my bone, but it won’t do any good. Nobody listens. Nobody hears.
Don’t be surprised when, instead, I punch you in the face. Of course, you will be.

Adios.

Observation of the Day

Freshmen are a chilling reminder of how flamingly retarded high school is. I’ve never been quite sure if it was high school itself that somehow transformed otherwise decent humans into raging morons, by the means of some sort of inexplicable and otherworldly power, or if it was just people, but . . . Jesus Christ, listening to freshmen walk by and talk is like an episode of Saved by the Bell that never ends. And just to expound upon this point, I shall now quote an excerpt from Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Woman at the Store”:
“’I’ll go and turn out the horses,’ said Jim. ‘Got any embrocation? Poi’s rubbed herself to hell!’”

No Treacly Antidote

Harumph . . . I hate Physics, and I was contemplating this in the shower, today, for a random reason. Actually, let me be more accurate . . . I have no tolerance for Physics, and no respect for the Quantum brand. And, here’s my thesis statement: modern man uses quantum physics as a scientific religion of sorts, approaching the universe from a so-called intellectual perspective but with no more actual proof than traditional religion.
I’m pretty sure I hit on this idea before, in an old entry somewhere, but I am going to rehash it, anyway, because it’s on my mind; it’s intriguing, honestly, as I see it as a very distinct facet of the modern human mind.
Science is great, let me start by saying. I love science. Physics, and especially Quantum Physics, is philosophy, however, with scientific tendencies. Much in the same way that Psychology is an application of philosophy to theories of human biology (different topic, another time), Physics is an application of philosophy to the field of astrology. Most people seem to miss this, or out-and-out disagree with it, so Physics is treated as a science . . . Right, which I think is ridiculous, because out of all the hard sciences I’ve studied in my life, Physics has to be the most abstracted.
Sure, yes, there are a lot of aspects of Physics that are perfectly observable and empirically solid . . . Also, these selfsame aspects of Physics are nothing more than laws of mathematics applied to the world, and really aren’t any more of a science than mathematics is, since none of it can be applied to anything to produce a change or variant outcome. Yeah, we can account for these mathematical principles of Physics in scientific endeavours, but none of these principles will ever be altered nor alterable.
I suppose I differentiate between science and philosophy in an a slightly subjective manner, I should specify. Science, to me, can, for one, be used as a tool for the improvement of the world, and, for two, actually has ramifications in the physical world upon their discovery. Chemistry, especially pharmaceutical chemistry, has a very palpable usage in life. Biology, also, has a very tangible function in the world, that, with our knowledge of it today, has lead to some very positive advances in life. Physics . . . Quantum Physics, actually, has proven to be the most useless field of study in the scientific world, which is why I classify it as a religion.
The first law of Quantum Physics, the Law of Probability, basically states that we will never know anything for sure. Once observed, matter has already changed; once recorded in one state, atoms have already changed into another. Quantum Physics stems off of this idea, this theoretical assumption of universal uncertainty. So, in other words, everything in the realm of Quantum Physics is total postulation supported by partial evidence and inexplicable observations that display the proposed quality of the universe. It is a method in which we, as humans, strive to explain, or lay down a set of explanations, for something that, by its nature, can not be explained. Nothing in Quantum Physics can be seen to be real.
Given all of that, I would draw a very obvious (to me) parallel between that and the fundamental principles of the concept of a religion. A proposed set of ideals — an ideology — that can never, by its own admittance, be understood in its entirety, but incomprehensible phenomena and truths which capture only part of the whole give it legs. The primary argument I could see coming against this proposition of mine is that while Quantum Physics continually strives to place mathematical formulae to the universe and, thus, provide some basis for explanation, religion does not, in fact, do that; this argument would originate, undoubtedly, from someone who has never, or scarcely, put much interpretive thought into religion. Theology is as equally dynamic a field as Physics.
The first law of Quantum Physics is that everything is probable and possible. The foundation for any sort of definition of God is that He (She, or It) is the sum total of everything in the universe that is unknown or beyond human capacity.
What I think bothers me is that people who tout themselves as students of Physics never admit this distinction, unless they’ve actually grown beyond the study of Physics into something greater. Albert Einstein, for instance, was no physicist, he was a thinker; also, he had a lot to say about religion and science, with some of which I agree, and with some of which I disagree. But, he never did deny the lack of a religious purpose in science, either . . . Which is my biggest grievance with modern scientific thought, that there is no religion in it.
People will always, it seems, as they grow more advanced in intellectual pursuit, strive their hardest to draw barriers between themselves and their forbearers — much in the same vein as the theories of psychology regarding progeny and parents. We seek, as a race, to replace all the ways of the old, with what we perceive as newer, better mechanics and schools of thought. In the end, it’s overlooked that we’re only repackaging what was already known in a prettier, more acceptable box.
The sad truth of it all is that the human mind has a limit. We are bound by our nature, tied to our being, imprisoned by our brains. There is no escaping that law of the universe. The thought patterns and brain tissue we are expending today is the exact same ones that people were expending thousands of years ago. Of course, the big question is, the great inquisition, what is that limit? Where is that wall? How long until we actually can use all we have been given, and why can’t we, already? What is it in the design of the universe that has deigned it necessary for humankind to have a brain of which only a fraction is accessible?
You can deviate from the traditions of our forefathers and foremothers; strike out in what you think is a “brave, new pursuit,” blazing a virgin trial . . . Or you can expand on the already large body of knowledge we have to try and discover the great truths of the universe. Or do both, combining them into some sort of hybrid school of thought where religion and science co-exist. I would have to say the latter is my preferred choice, because it was Einstein who said, “Religion without science is lame, science without religion is blind.”

Adios.

Water #1

The sea, the sea, the sombre sea;
how it stirs, in my breast, humble thought,
Roaring waves, rising waters, roar and rise;
in my peace, I sit within their midst — I pray:
“Okeanos, Poseidon, Neptune and Gods of yor,
Lords of ocean, washed away by history;
do you still breathe?”

The river, like torrents of snakes, hisses on;
on wind-worn rocks, I perch, and silently brood,
Currents flow, like white ribbons, past my feet;
onward, onward, I urge it forth — I say:
“Triton, Naiads, Acheron of the World Below,
Someplace, somewhere, lost in ruinous memory;
is there still a land where you dance?”

I ponder the water, its liquid nature: fluid,
Perfect adapter, limitless motion — patternless in order;
Rippling in time to some celestial conductor,
Who is He?

It was a beautiful ceremony and reception, they'd say, if they weren't too busy actually thinking about tomorrow's plans, or the latest sports event, or their kid's latest, greatest accomplishment (high marks in school, their knack for art or reading, whatever; not being dead, for one thing, I'm sure). Lisa smirked when she thought that, then immedietely reprimanded herself mentally and straightened her expression back to nuetral and hospitable. Standing, trapped in a circle of relatives that squawked like crows over a carcass, holding a glass of water in one hand and in the other, a piece of toffee cake.
Directly across from her was a woman in a frilly yet plain sundress who wore a smile like a wrinkled, favourite mask. Her age showed, despite her best efforts, peaking out from behind the creams and foundation, showing in gray mockery under the blonde dye, and no woman takes too well to gravity, as they who are too polite to use words like 'sagging' say. She was the sister of Lisa's sister's husband, but nobody cares enough to keep track of those long titles, so Lisa always thought of her as Blondie. Lisa smiled faintly, then lifted the glass of water to her lips.
Her companion, whom Lisa had named Blackie, was as horrifyingly aged as Blondie (as Lisa was sure that it was quite a horrifying experience, to them — growing old). Her gray hairs laughed beneath, appropriately, the crow-coloured camoflauge, and a few strands of silver were visible running through from after the last time it had been applied, undoubtedly, by some overpriced stylist in an uptown salon. Lisa shifted her weight, and chuckled politely and pathetically at something that the others around her were guffawing and crowing about. Who laughs at a viewing: of a dead family member?
Their balding husbands stood at their sides, like dogs with high, "intellectual" foreheads, as they are fond of calling a receding hairline. A thought passed through Lisa's mind, and she wondered, briefly, where the playing cards were being hid, but she never did really like that gaudy painting. Their moustaches were well-groomed, in a strangely identical fashion, one jet black and the other a mousy brown, sitting above their mouths like a . . . Like a broom . . . For sweeping crumbs . . . Lisa paused and tried to put her finger on what it was, exactly, about funerals that made metaphors and similes seem so appropriate for everything.
Emily Dickinson, she decided.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the caterers return to the linen-covered table and refresh the finger foods. Crackers, cheeses, and chips, for the most part, with a few meats and a couple pretentious, trendy hors d'oeuvres that either Blondie or Blackie had suggested. In her opinion, Lisa had never understood what was so high-class about nibbling frog's legs, fish eggs, or liver. An image of a salmon in a top hat and tails popped into Lisa's mind, and she pushed it away, to the side, where the debris of her imagination could wait.
Sniffing, Lisa wrinkled her nose at the pungent, wood-chip fragance of the Dyejob Duo, and sighed. My mind is wandering, Lisa knew, and it's just because I'm not trying to think of anything, at all, right now . . . Makes sense, I suppose.
I could focus on the reality of things, the brunt truth of the world, but who wants to do that? Yes, my nephew was killed, and nobody cares but me and the Nameless Girlfriend (possibly), while everyone else is breathing a sigh of relief because the smear on the social face of the family has been rubbed away. I could brood over having to see people I haven't associated with for years and years, because they disgust me in ways I can't describe with words, and I could get depressed because there's more concern for the year of the wine being served than the reason why Marcus is dead and gone.
But, yeah, who needs those kinds of thoughts?
Taking a bite of the toffee cake, Lisa chewed on it along with her thoughts and did her best to seem interested in the conversational topic at hand. So, apparently, a new restaurant opened that serves French food, and that's great -- because we need more seventy-dollar platters that consist of more garnishings than edible portions. I guess parsley is technically edible, though, but it doesn't taste good, I hear; never had the urge to eat any of it . . . Lisa smiled, and nodded her head in response to the question that had just been asked of her (whether or not she agreed that the French military was weak). One of the husbands started cracking racist, French jokes, using an outrageous, exaggerated accent . . . Oh, how coy.
Lisa let her attention depart from the insubstantial banter of buzing wasps, and looked at her son. She admired his respect for the whole ordeal -- showing more than all the adults -- and how he was standing so angelically. She was slightly worried that he had been, as of late, all too quiet and self-contained, but it was a better reaction to loss and death than it . . . Well, could be. Better silence and, assumedly, contemplation than wailing and whining, or pretending like it never happened. She watched as he sat down in a chair, and drooped his head.
Poor thing, must be sleepy, and Lisa sympathised. Her eyes were feeling itchy, and her head woozy. She had hardly slept more than two hours in the past three days, and was dead on her feet, in all honesty -- but, it was only noticable, somewhat, upon close inspection. The bags under her eyes were mere shadows, and the red veins cracked through the whites of her loodshot eyes, but that was about all one would find to indicate the sleep deprivation she was experiencing. They say you start to lose your mind, noted Lisa quietly, if you don't get enough sleep.
I wonder if Eliza had been sleeping.
Blondie grabbed her husband-puppy's arm, and started pulling him over to the banquet table. In the far reaches of her mind, Lisa actually had heard her say she wanted to try the fish-heads or pig's feet or whatever "quaint cuisine" was being offered. Blackie let loose with a shrill giggle, which cut directly through the equator of Lisa's brain. Lisa just bit her lower lip, and then smiled widely, mentioning the menu that she had prepared.
She recommended the toffee cake.

Don't Be A Quisling: Make Election Day Fun This Year

I have an idea. If you’ve ever been to an anime convention, you have bore witness to many, many people wearing costumes designed after characters in anime or something tangentially related to anime or animation, in general, or even not related to anything but is an iconic character among the demographic which attends conventions (Silent Bob, for instance). Also, Trek conventions resemble anime conventions in that they are both full of costumed individuals. To a lesser extent, but undeniably, gaming conventions have the same tradition of being sprinkled with costume-wearing con-goers. Furthermore, the opening night of a cult movie — Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings — is going to inevitably have a few fans all dolled up in an appropriate costume.
What we have is a pattern of fans wearing costumes to honor their favorite icons in a certain subject area. I have a proposal for you, then. In November, on the day of the Presidential voting, let us all dress up when we go to vote.
Imagine, if you will, voting booths where imitation Bushes and Kerrys step up to cast their decision for 2004. Or, not to limit it to the two major candidates, Ralph Nader costumes and Pat Buchanan get-ups. It’d be great, you could even just dress like your favorite President in history. George Washingtons tromping about with axes in their hands, and Abe Lincolns with the tall, stove-pipe hats, and FDRs wheeling around in fake wheelchairs or on crutches. I think it would be a spectacle to behold, myself, and I fully endorse this occurring.
So, this Election Day, camp out your district voting station with sleeping bags and costumes, and greet the opening doors in the morning with Richard Nixon masks and fake Tate fat suits complete with a bathtub. Do it, you know you want to . . . All the cool kids are gonna be doing it, man.
You don’t wanna be a dork, do ya?

Adios.

"What's Your Shoe Size?"

The Big Empty . . . Was about a cowboy, a blue suitcase, and a bowling ball.

And, ostensibly, the process by which mankind struggles to let go of the self-encapsulation of society and modern life to move on to a free and unbounded future, fraught with fear of the unknown and an unwillingness to release slim hopes of grandeur and possible success, through which insecurity must be shed in the face of assured death or failure due to hesitation.

Still . . . A cowboy and a suitcase, yeah.

Failure Rating: 11%.

Adios.

The Conflation of One Hundred Pages

Just for reference, this is one of those rare entries written the day of it being posted; pure, unadulterated madness abound!

I am so motherfucking done with my summer English course: ENGL308W — Approaches to Literature, Writing Intensive. I just spent over a week writing a paper comparing Gustave Flaubert and his Madame Bovary to the Impressionist movement in Fine Arts, and no one cares. Pages on pages of work poured into this, and all for naught; woe is me! “Nobody can ever say I have not suffered the agony that is Art,” indeed, Flaubert . . . Indeed.

In other news, I looked back at the months of June and July on this Blog, and realised that I have published something akin to fifty to sixty pages of . . . Stuff. In conjunction with this fact is my decision to cut down on my update schedule. Here is the new schedule, which will go into effect next week:
(Week 1): Monday—Random; Wednesday—Rant; Friday—Review.
(Week 2): Sunday—Fiction; Tuesday—Poetry; Saturday—Ramble.
Quite similar to the previous schedule, but with a few days cut out; no more weekly Rant and Ramble, namely. So, if you are one of those rare persons who actually follows this Blog (I’m not entirely sure if that type of person is exactly existent or not) then that is how things will go, probably until December. This way, I can keep up with updates without publishing a fucking novella worth of words every month—I like to write, but don’t have time for that much.

I had been considering just turning comments off because they weren’t going to use, and it increases on publishing time significantly at times . . . But, then this happened, and I realised it’s better to have the availability of comments rather than . . . Not.

That is really all I have to say, today . . . When the caffeine, liquer, and vitamins wears off, I’ll probably be dead.

Oh, yeah: Bush MUST Lose, ’04!

Adios.

He stood on the brink of frenzy teetering on the edge of civilized dignity and insane raving. Drawn all together into a wrinkled, red furrow, his face glistened with the sweat of the angry and his eyeballs twitched in his skull, the tension of each muscle in his body taut with strain. His hands were clasped, each finger woven between its compliment on the opposing appendage, and his feet were squared and firmly planted on the ground. Hunched forward with spine bent and shoulders raised, he sat in his chair as though it were a throne or director’s seat, the center of authority in his personal domain. It was not a far leap, not even a rabbit hop, to say that he looked unhappy.
The man was seated in a plain room with old carpeting and chipped walls, the paint peeling away in places and spreading cracks webbing hither and thither. A fluorescent bulb burnt openly fixed in its place in the ceiling, reverberating a pulsating hum that rang mechanical yet organic — the sound of the tides of the ocean clawing away at the white sands of a beach then reversing and replacing the shores with new turf. Nobody else was presently visible in the room, a few other chairs of identical design and of varying degrees of wear and tear solemnly awaited visitors in clusters positioned against the wall adjoining the man’s chair and the one opposing it. A door lead out in one direction, and another door lead out in the perpendicular direction.
He watched the door across from him at a forty five degree angle, attentively and eagerly, with his expression of grave outrage. The line of his mouth was straight like an architect’s ruler, lips pressed together and pulled inward. The only movement he made was the slightest shifting as he unconsciously thrust his weight from one leg to the other. The light flickered for an instant, pausing in its electrical song of life, and the man blinked his dark, narrow eyes.
With a sudden noise, the door next to the man, which was not the one he had his gaze affixed upon, swung wide and another man stepped through, dressed primly in an ironed shirt and slacks. His demeanor was decidedly calmer and more pleasant to view than the sitting man’s, his eyes soft and mouth curved slightly upward at the tips in a close-mouthed smile. He held a pen in his right hand, and his left was tucked away in his pants’ pocket.
“Yes, sir, I understood you had something to say to me?” the standing man asked with a tone of curiosity. Locking his stare onto the other man’s face, with a flare of a fiery something in his eyes, the enraged man in the chair puckered his lips then spoke:
“You, yo–you, I understand who, what, you are, do, but God damn it, God damn it!” Spittle escaped from his mouth as he formed each word in a series of bursts of exhalations, his chest heaving out and in violently. He braced his knee with one hand, and balled the other in a first and held it up toward the only other person in the room.
“God damn what exactly, may I ask?” inquired the man with the pen, his voice slightly rising in offense. With a sigh of exhaustion, the seated man thrust his arms out from his sides and gestured at the empty room emphatically.
“Th–this, all this. Everything!” he interrupted his own speech with a cry of agitation, but continued, “I mean, look, yeah, I understand the nature of my existence and all that, but what is this, this?” Bringing his arms down, he pointed a finger at the middle of his chest and shook it. “This!”
“A shirt, I believe, is what you’re pointing at, sir, but I doubt that’s what you’re trying to make reference to.”
“No, no, of course not that. I mean — I mean, me, what’s my deal! Huh?”
The first man let his hands fall to his knees, and sighed, again, with the fatigue of the world on his shoulders. His face did not relax, though, and tiny beads of sweat made their way down his face in lines of wetness that traced the ridges of his wrinkled forehead. The second man, seeing the frustration the first, put his weight on his left foot and then crossed one arm across his chest, placing the other arm on the crossed one and, with the hand belonging to that arm, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t know.”
“You don’t, you don’t know?”
“Well, no. You’re angry, obviously upset — peeved beyond normal and bestially feeling wronged, correct?”
“Yes!”
“Good, that’s what I meant for. But as to the cause of this outrage? I haven’t decided.”
“You haven’t decided? Then — then, decide, God damn it!”
“It takes time, and I admit I’m a bit stumped, out of ideas . . .”
“I don’t care if you’re out of ideas, you’re the fucking author of me! Give me something! Anything!”
Humming a low ‘hm’ to himself, the man at the door withdrew his hand from his chin and walked into the room. Semi-circling around the man in the chair, he took a seat near to the first man and slouched down, stretching his legs out to their full length and humming to himself, again, louder. For a minute, he blankly gazed at the ceiling light, listening to the ebb and flow of the currents of power running to and fro to keep the bulb lit, not speaking nor moving more so than to breathe. The first man impatiently tapped his foot against the floor, tilting his head up and down and bending his neck left and right. His eyeballs twitched. “WELL?”
“Like I said, I don’t know! I haven’t come up with anything, yet, okay? I wanted a character who displayed moral outrage or indignant fluster, but I hadn’t had time to create a context for you, yet.”
“Come on, you bloody bastard, I need motivations before emotions, that only makes fucking sense.”
“Don’t get uppity with me, mister. I never said my process made any sense . . . Fine, you give me a reason for you to be upset.”
“What?”
“You’re bound and determined to have a purpose, then give me one. Tell me what would be a good idea for your anxiety?”
The first man ceased his nervous jittering and eager movements, still appearing quite in an uproar though, and looked toward the other man in the room, the one with the pen and the absurd notions. The second man raised his eyebrows and fiddled with the pen in his hand, tapping it against the chair’s leg.
“My anxiety is caused by YOU, you stupid fucking shitface. How about that? My damn author can’t think of a stupid purpose for his own fucking character and wants the character to think of his own stupid purpose, and it’s all the stupidest shit in the world! . . . How’s that, then?”
Adjusting himself to an upright posture, the second man nodded his head and smiled very slightly. “That sounds good, I think,” he said, retrieving a small pad from his pocket. “Hm . . . How about . . . ‘He stood on the brink of frenzy teetering on the edge of civilized dignity and insane raving’? Does that sound good for a starting sentence?”
The character put his head in his hands and grumbled darkly and sat malcontented. Shrugging his shoulders, the author stood up and waved goodbye to the seated man. In a blink, he was replaced by a giant walrus that bit off the angry man’s head.