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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Doc Sach" journal:| February 9th, 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
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| 11:36 pm [Link] |
The "Beat You Over the Head With It" Theory So I was wondering today: at what point does an observation become a rule? Think about the implications of this. When does something finally become a law? A rule? A predictive? A p therefore q? Now, ignoring David Hume, like all epistemology has to, this is a serious question. It's been bothering me. Just how many times do you have to observe an action and it's reaction before you make the connection, and before the two become inexorably entwined together? Seriously. Sometimes it only takes one time. For example, when I was a kid, we spent some time hanging out at my Uncle's dairy farm. He had an electric fence to keep the cattle penned in, and we'd stand on one side of the fence and try to feed the cattle hay. Sometimes they liked it, sometimes they seemed completely uninterested, in the way that only animals seem to be able to pull off. Anyways, so here I am, a young boy, standing in front of an electric fence, trying to feed cows hay. You do the math. Of course, I got zapped, and it hurt like hell. After that, I never touched an electric fence. I've avoided the opportunity to get electrocuted many times, though it's still happened a couple times when I had to help my father wire the attic. Anyways, the clear, direct connection happened right away. Touch electric thing, get hurt. Electricity shouldn't be in my hands. I didn't need to try it again to make sure. But sometimes, it takes an incredibly long time to sink in. For example, it took me about 18 years to make the connection that Thai food comes from Thailand. Also, that Siamese cats come from Siam. I'd heard the words millions of times, eaten the food, admired the cats, studied the countries, seen the "King and I," made jokes about Taiwanese hookers, etc. but the connection had never quite happened until college. Stupid, but there it is. How is it that we make that connection? Where the heck do we get the mental validation that one thing indicates another? I have a degree in philosophy, and I still can't understand why there isn't a set number of observed instances before we make the connection. Or why there aren't certain characteristics that determine how many instances we need to partake in before the connection solidifies? Why do we have to be beaten over the head with some things, while we get other things right away? Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
| November 23rd, 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 01:44 pm [Link] |
Black Friday So this whole plan came up kind of spur of the moment. I was planning on going in early anyways just as a sort of stupid little exercise in commercialism, attempting to get something that was for sale online for the exact same price, but without paying for the shipping. Half way down the road on my way to Best Buy, though, the idea of actually turning this into some kind of highly biased “Blog/Gonzo journalism” cropped up, and, well, I ran with it. November 23, 2007, 1:30ish am: I’m hungry. Thanksgiving dinner had been about 9 hours ago, and despite being supremely filling and delicious, I was again feeling hungry. So, I stepped up my plan of leaving at 2 to get into the line for Best Buy, which opens at 5 am on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the entire year, and decided to hit up some place for food early. Places which are normally open, but are closed for thanksgiving: Wegman’s. Tops. Jim’s Steak-Out. Places which are still open: Mobil. Noco. Denny’s. I decide to hit the latter for food. In impulse strikes me to drive over to Elmwood ave and check to see if “We Never Close” is open, but I decide not to bother as it’s too far out of the way. After Ben Folds’ “Dog” ends, I switch CDs from Supersunnyspeedgraphic to Maroon 5’s “Songs About Jane,” which feels to be about the right level of getting pumped to do this. Why? I don’t exactly know. It’s not exactly a “pumped up” type exercise, and yet I still feel the need for mental preparation that lies somewhere between Ben Folds’ “indy”-rock reflective-angst-piano-man-who’s-actuall 1:45ish-2:15ish, still am: The Denny’s on Maple is surprisingly more filled that I thought it would be. Not packed by any means, but also not exactly slow. The management didn’t seem to be prepared for this, as there aren’t the usual number of waiters and waitresses on duty. The waitress actually seems really disappointed that I’m eating alone, but she’s still very friendly. While eating a burger that has a scrambled egg, hash-browns, and a weird yet strangely tasty cheese sauce on it, I over hear a couple college age young men sitting behind me talk about what they want to buy at Best Buy. Bang! I’ve hit pay dirt. I must be in the right place, doing the right ritual of food-then-purchasing, or something, right? It actually takes me much longer than usual to pay, because groups of people keep trickling in, over working the two members of the wait-staff there tonight. All kinds of people, of all races and ages; some look like families, some like groups of friends. I eventually pay, and drive off. 2:20ish-2:30: First impressions: The whole parking lot looks dead, until you hit the Target. I pass through the empty Barnes and Noble parking lot, past Party City, a cellphone store, and a couple other small shops, when suddenly the line is visible. There are a couple people camped out in front of Target (which doesn’t open until 7, and doesn’t pass out handbills (more on that later)), but beyond that, there’s quite the line. A whole assortment of people, bundled up in blankets, hiding in full-sized camping tents, standing in front of space heaters, gabbing away. There’s even a young woman of no older than 23 curled up in a shopping cart, blankets wrapped tight around her. They mill around a little bit, somewhat, but since I seem to be the only person who has decided to go this mission solo, there’s always someone to keep place for the “team” in line, while people run out to their cars, go get coffee, etc. Terrirotialism is huge in this line. When I step in slightly to see what DVD a couple of kids are watching on a laptop, propped up on a lawn chair in front of them, an older woman from a little further back in the line barks “no!” at me, as if I was holding a knife to her daughter’s throat or something. I have to fight back the temptation to break out laughing, which probably makes me a bad person. They were watching an episode of Futurama, in case you were interested. The first episode, actually, and it’s sad that I can identify it from the fewer than 15 seconds I saw. After standing at the end for 15-20 seconds, I get bored and decide to go talk to people. The folks at the front of the line are very friendly, and seem more than happy to answer my questions, the pad of paper and my pen seeming to lend credibility to any question I ask. They even are nice enough to pause in speaking for me to jot down notes. These folks have been here since 5 am, Thanksgiving Day. As in, they’ve been here for about 22 hours straight. The whole family comes, it’s a big event that they all look forward to. Earlier in the day, one of the gentlemen there had brought a grill and made everyone hot dogs, while other folks there at the front had brought chips and such to get together a big meal. They know one another from camping out in front of the store years previous. The oldest of the crew has been doing it for seven years, and actually got started camping out in front of CompUSA, back when that chain still existed, but switched to Best Buy once it opened. Why do they do it? “I’m just looking for great bargains,” says an Indian gentleman. “It’s a big thing, you know? You come meet people. I see these guys every year.” The others agree with him. Weird, isn’t it? The Indian gentleman had a vague idea about buying a laptop, but he doesn’t actually have any concrete plans as to what he’s going to buy. And yet he and his family will stand outside in what was 25 degrees Fahrenheit weather for 24 hours straight, while it rained and snowed, skipping Thanksgiving dinner. But that’s what they tell me. And they all seem to be having a really wonderful time. From what I can gather, they work in shifts, with half of the family staying in the huge camper that’s parked in the lot (there are actually three of these, the huge “house that is also a car” type Winnebago’s), and the other maintaining a firm presence at the front of the line. Someone actually put up yellow and black striped tape around the decorative central pillars of the store, to create a barrier between those who are in line, and those who are trying to cut into it. Whether this was the store’s decision or the people’s, I don’t know, but I could see arguments being made on both sides. Around 2:30, the Amherst police show up, two officers, and start telling people to take their tents down. The masses comply pretty well, but this results in a big rush forward. The line had been pretty loose before, and in some places could have been confused for the sidelines of a parade in terms of people sitting on lawn chairs, eating, with blankets and such, all wrapped up nice and warm. Your truly wasn’t smart enough to remember his gloves, and consequently split his time between scribbling notes onto paper and rubbing his hands furiously against frost bite. I talk to one of the officers, and he tells me that this is his first year doing it, but he doesn’t seem concerned overly with the difficultly of directing about 500-600 people and keeping them on the sidewalk. The female officer seems a lot more into yelling at people and getting them into place than her male counterpart. The tent disassembling causes a big rush, as everyone who was formally at the end of the line shoves up to the front, and the people who’d been taking up plenty of space with their chairs and tents are now crammed in against those who didn’t bring them. There’s a minor incident where someone leaves their pup tent up, and the female officer starts yelling at various parts of the line, trying to figure out who it belongs to, threatening to have it thrown out if someone doesn’t do something about it. She does this for a good 5 minutes before her partner informs her that there’s someone in the tent, and that he’s getting out and getting rid of it. While wandering up an down the line, looking for people who look interesting to talk to, I bump into Andy Cippola, a friend from college, who’s been waiting in line since midnight, and is looking to get a good deal on a GPS system. He’s here with his girlfriend, Patty, who’s waiting in the car because it’s really freaking cold out here, despite the lack of wind (something I’m thankful for, because the Buffalo wind chill is murderous, as any native could tell you). He’s drinking red bull, which is ice cold, and had been distributed by the two girls in the red bull truck that drives around to public gatherings and gives the stuff out. That weird mix of condensed energy, served ice cold, seems to be a pretty good analogy for this whole thing. There’s a definite presence in the crowd, a kind of hive mind that seems to track length of time spent here as equating to dominance, and that line position denotes status. As Andy and I are joking about drinking something as cold as Red Bull when it’s this cold out, which segues into joking about that “Power Thirst!” commercial that’s been circulating YouTube (look it up, if you don’t know what I’m talking about), I overheard part of another conversation between the ladies behind us, in which she complains that she’d been here since 11, and that before the rush up, she’d been in front of Andy. Finally, 3 am rolls around, and the handbills are distributed. Handbills are a weird thing, really, but they definitely deserve mentioning here. What they are is a guarantee that you’ll get whatever great deal item was being advertised. Rather than risking a rush to the item where it’s stacked in the store, what they do it hand out a voucher that can be redeemed for one of them, and without this voucher, you can’t buy the item, because the company knows that it’ll sell out. Hot items this year are a cool brand of laptop, a desktop computer, a 48” flat screen plasma tv, and the Tom-Tom car GPS that Andy is here to buy. And so, at 3 am, Best Buy employees start moving down the line, handing these vouchers out to people, 1 to a person, who ask for them. They start at the beginning of the line, and work their way down, until they’re out of them, or they run out of line. After Andy gets his GPS voucher, he leaves to head back to his car. He’s the smart one. See, once you have the handbill, the item it’s number is keyed to is reserved for you until around noon, and so you can come back at your leisure to pick it up. He triple checks with the employee handing them out, and then heads off to go get some sleep at home. I don’t notice anyone else following his plan, though. Beyond this, there’s not much else exciting for the next hour, and so I retreat to the warmth of the car for an hour to get the feeling back into my fingers and toes. Around 4:10, I decide to head back out and get in line, so that I won’t be at the tail end. I’m listening to Number Girl, this weird Japanese metal/punk fusion band that is both imminently pleasing and irresistibly toe tapable (as to force myself to groove back and forth a bit, and keep my blood flowing to my extremities). The temperature is down to 23 degrees, and I’m wearing a t-shirt under a button down long-sleeved shirt under a hoodie under a leather jacket, and I’m still cold. My hood goes up to keep the wind off the back of my neck. It’s freezing cold, and I start to wonder why I thought this would be a good idea. I could buy both of the things I’m here for online, and not have to go in early. Neither of them are even on sale for so especially good that it requires this kind of activity, and yet here I am: freezing my butt off, standing in the cold, on a Friday morning, 4:15 am. I end up getting into a conversation with some of the other people in line near me, after the guy, a fellow in his 40s wearing only a hoodie and a vest, asks me where I bought the blue licorice I’m munching on. I offer him some, and tell him where I bought it (Vidler’s Five and Dime, in East Aurora) , and we start talking about how cold it is, what we’re buying, and soon the woman in front of me, and the guy behind the guy I’m talking to are all getting in on the conversation too. There’s a weird feeling of camaraderie. I don’t know these people, not even their names, and I will probably never meet them again, and yet we’re all a part of this much bigger thing. This event. We’re bound into the mocking of those who’ve been here since yesterday at 5 am, and yet still slightly contemptuous of those arriving after us. A mere 5 minutes after I’m at the end of line, it has nearly doubled in size behind me. The 40ish guy swaps out with his girlfriend, who holds his place for 15 minutes while he goes and warms up in the car, then they trade places again. Everyone seems to take a step or two forward every couple minutes. It just happens automatically, you close up the gap. We laugh at those who are assembled across the fire lane, standing on the little concrete embankments with trees on them that separate this lane from the parking lot. We agree that there should be police here to keep these people from rushing the door when it opens, as had happened at Walmart last year, when this woman in front of me had gone in early. There are cries about getting here earlier from behind us, and that these people should get in the back of the line. There are cheers when the same pair of police officers from before show up, and start to get the place in order. I’m checking my watch every couple minutes, as time inches forward in much the same manner as the line. It’s freezing, and I have to keep moving my toes so I can feel them against the cushioning of my sneakers, so I know that they’re still there, that they aren’t frostbitten. I ask myself why I’m doing this, and yet I know I’m past the point of no return, and that turning back now would be stupid. A guy come by selling his handbills to late comers, gets a woman to pay $30 for his GPS handbill. I jokingly wish to myself that I’d grabbed one when I’d had the opportunity earlier, if I’d know I could get any money for it. And then, all of a sudden, the line moves forward. It does this a couple more times, as they seem to stagger entrance to the store. The cops prevent people from rushing the door, forcing them to go to the back of the line, threatening arrest. I overhear one young woman in a Tim Horton’s uniform arguing with the female police officer about how “she only stepped out of line for a minute,” and hence should be let in, while the officer tells her that she’s got no proof and that she should have gotten a friend. The line has grown back to its original length from when I got there, only this time its crammed full of people, rather than loosely knit together. I appear to have gotten back in line at just the right time, so as not to be waiting too long outside, but also not too long in line. At last, my section of the line come to the entrance, and the warmth you feel as you step through the door is like nothing else I can explain. You’re here. You made it. Everything is alright now. That is, unless whatever it is you wanted is being grabbed by other people! No! I waited all this time! It can’t be sold out, it’s only been 10 minutes! And so I walk briskly into the store to find what I’m looking for. This is the major advantage of planning what you want in advance: I know I need a 30 gig Zune MP3 player and a Fujifilm X10 digital camera. Anything else is extraneous and not necessary. And find these I do, snagging a customer service rep almost as soon as I get there, and grabbing both of my products within the first three minutes of entering the store. I also grab a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog, an animated series, assuredly an impulse buy, but it’s a DVD collection I’ve had my eye on for quite some time, and that I had never seen in real life before, and if I didn’t get now, probably never would again. Checkout is surprisingly painless, too. I appear to be heading out before most people are even in the store, let alone having solidified their desires into concrete thoughts. I am out of the store at 5:25, paranoidly walking to my car, lest I get jumped in the parking lot. But nothing bad happens, and I drive home without incident. The sense of accomplishment is astounding, almost a shameful glee. I don’t know if I’ll ever do this again, but it was definitely an experience. Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
| November 12th, 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 11:27 pm [Link] |
My Dilemma in Ethical Philosophy From all that I've studied on it (Bachelor's in Philosophy here), before you get into the specific schools of ethics about Medical, Environmental, Sexual, Religious, etc., there is really only one basic problem: whether people are basically good, and it's their situations and negative circumstances that causes them to act to harm others? or if all people are basically selfish and evil, and any good act they do is the direct result of seeing it as the most direct means to achieving whatever goal it is that they have in mind. Suffice to say, this is a problem that bothers me, both on a social and personal level. It makes me feel weird, and question both myself and those around me. I am confronted with arguments for both sides everyday: someone is nice enough to hold the door for me while I'm passing though, someone cuts me off in traffic, someone reminds me of something that I dropped, someone rushes ahead to get in line before me. Things not connected to me in any meaningful way, too: the profit minded folks over at SUNY Buffalo treating most of their undergraduates as essentially $3000 walking around for their paychecks and profit; my library instruction professor going out of his way to help a poor student from the Bronx who had next to no experience in a library before; Corporate scandals you hear about every couple days involving the maximization of profit set against the safety of the buyer; The John D and Cathrine T MacArthur Foundation passing out literally millions of dollars each year to accomplished and extraordinary people simply to allow them to keep doing whatever it is that they do. And I can't make up my mind. I don't know whether or not to simply trust others, or to be suspicious of their motives. I don't know whether or not I'm going to be okay and that people are going to be decent to me if I'm ever in trouble, or if that's simply another opportunity for them to take advantage of me. I just don't know. Sure, it depresses me sometimes. Sometimes it fills me with optimism. Sometimes it gives me this ambiguous dread for the future. Sometimes it let's me relax and simply accept that whatever happens, it's going to be okay. And to some extent, I don't know if I definitely want an answer one way or the other, if indeed one even exists. Not sure where this was going. It's just something that's been on my mind for a long time, and needed to get out. Any thoughts or opinions, readers? If indeed there are any of you out there :p Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
| November 7th, 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 02:29 pm [Link] |
Just friggin' wow.... Quoted from: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/ye "On 09/19/07 Cpl. Disarro received and email from a concerned parent regarding a new drug called "Jenkem". The parent advised their children learned about this drug through various conversations with several students at Palmetto Ridge High. Jenkem originated in Africa and other third world countries by fermenting raw sewage to create a gas which is inhaled to achieve a high. Jenkem is now a popular drug in American Schools. Jenkem is a homemade substance which consists of fecal matter and urine. The fecal matter and urine are placed in a bottle or jar and covered most commonly with a balloon. The container is then placed in a sunny area for several hours or days until fermented. The contents of the container will seperate and release a gas, which is captured in the balloon. Inhaling the gas is said to have a euphoric high similar to ingesting cocaine but with strong hallucinations of times past. Once ingested the onset of the high takes approximately 10 seconds with the most severe hallucinations happening in approximately 20 minutes. Several articles indicate that the subject immediately passes out after ingesting the gas then regains a magical/hallucinogenic state within seconds of regaining consciousness. The high has been described by the subjects as a feeling of "being out of it" and talking to dead people. The feeling of being "out of it" may last for several hours or days. All subjects who use the Jenkem disliked the taste of sewage in their mouth and the fact that the taste continued for several days. Slang terms: Winnie, poo poo, Runners, Frut from Crack Pipe, Leroy Jenkems, Might, Butthash, and Waste." Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
| November 4th, 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 10:31 am [Link] |
Some vauge musings about the subject of information that probably need to be better refined To some extent, I can see completely why someone would look at America (the USA, to be specific) and see nothing but clearly perceptible moral decay, the kind of right there, “in your face and not leaving unless you punch me” kind of thing that gets terribly annoying after a while. We have become, to an ever greater extent then ever in recorded history, a society where (with a frightening amount of literality in this statement) everything is available. Everything. If I want a copy of what was once a holy book only read by the select priests of a unifying social force that exerted a complete control over most people’s lives, and written in a language that most people can’t understand, well, shit, I can simply hop over to Barnes & Noble and pick up any number of different translations of the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Talmud, the analects of Confucius, or any number of other formally exclusive books. If I want to see whatever particular sexual fetish I have, I can pretty easily get access to it with a computer and an internet connection. Be it, for example (not using real personal examples here), anal sex, a specific configuration of lingerie, a specific racial requirement of the people involved in the act, age limiters, whatever really. I can watch a pair of thirty year old lesbians having sex with a much younger girl, I can watch a paraplegic get gang raped, I can watch a woman have sex with a dog… Anything. If I want political information, I can find it all over the place. I can turn on a television set, I can grab a newspaper for free out of the little racks they usually have at fast food restaurants, I can listen to talk radio, or I can hit the internet and find a million other people out there who will agree with me, or disagree with me, and I can pick them apart. This is seriously scary and new shit, from a historical perspective. I could come up with a bunch of analogies you’ve already heard about how, just sixty years ago, we threshed corn by hand, but now we do it with robots and isn’t it more efficient and profitable at the cost of doing hard work and putting people out of jobs, and all that other Luddite style salt of the earth/soul of the worker stuff that always comes packaged along with it, but cynicism aside, we’re standing literally right in the middle of a vast overflow of information, media, and stimulus. There is almost no control of information in the US; sure, things like child pornography and social security numbers and the like and illegal to trade or publish, for example, but that doesn’t really seem to stop people at all, if they’re interested in that kind of thing. Also, plans for building atomic bombs, CDs that were formally available only in stores, just about every novel that’s had its copyright expire, remixed music and independent films, advice on every subject imaginable, and, if you look close enough, a place where you can put up messages of your own and have people agree with you. Or disagree with you, whatever may be your preference. And that, in terms of what used to be the case, is absolutely nuts. And, by that regard, makes it easy for me to perform some armchair theory about why exactly certain people all over the world hate us. It’s not a conclusive theory, just some stuff that’s been bouncing around in my head, but it’s the only good answer I’ve been able to come up with as to why so many people seem to hate American civilization today (apologies to those non-USA countries in North and South America that tend to get lumped in with us; I just can’t get used to typing the terms “United Statsian” or “USA’er” and the other such words). Basically, because of this freedom of information, and because everything is available, there is very little that is sacred anymore. Best way to explain this is via analogy: take the aforementioned holy book example from above. Formally, because the print runs of such books were rather low, and because of the foreign language used in their composition, these books were the prevue of the wealthy elite and the priesthood. Granted, post Gutenberg and Lutheranism, there were Bibles for the masses, for example, and there are plenty of records of, for example, King Alfred of England translating parts of the bible into English for the masses to read, but just run with me here for analogy’s sake. The ceremony is still performed in a language you don’t quite understand all of, and though you’re saying the words, and it might have been explained to you what you were doing, there’s still a central authority figure involved. A priest to interpret the Gospels for you, or a Rabbi to explain the more subtle points of the Pentateuch, for example. Next thing we know, bang!, everyone can have a Bible, and all of a sudden, now everyone can have an opinion on the Bible they own. They can say “I don’t like this translation” and get a new one made that they do like and agree with. Suddenly, it’s not just the learned men of the town who are able to speak at length of these subjects, now the common man can do so as well. And, as a result, the credibility standards for people’s explanations grow as well. We start needing doctorates and thesis and interpretive literature with good reviews from other respected individuals. We start becoming more critical of anyone’s explanation, and we start to think with our gut feelings rather than with the evidence, and cynicism crops up. We start needing to evaluate critically ever statement made, and information literacy becomes more and more important. And, just as similarly, because everyone can make noise now and back it up to whichever degree they can manage, what everyone is saying becomes pretty much drowned out. We get greedy for more information, more stimuli, and we tire easily of whichever topic was hot last week. So, because we flit from topic to topic, from fad to fad, things which were sacred get gobbled up alongside. I’m sure there are many of all stripes across the world who would be outraged that I own copies of the Bible, the Koran, the Tao Te Ching, and many other religious books, and that before I moved, I used to keep them each next to one another on a single shelf. Things that were once objects of a very holy nature, kept especially in the temples or sacred spots of the culture are now crammed in with other things that we’ve judged to be similar enough in scope and topic with them, and came out in an affordable paperback edition that I can peruse at my leisure. I have own books that it would have once been the privilege of a lifetime for someone to hold, or to spend a week reading the memorizing, and they possess for me none of the divine and inspiring awe that they would someone from another time or place. Is this good or bad? I don’t know. On the one hand, I do love being informed, and indeed have an almost addictive need for more information. An insatiable curiosity, to use the cliché. On the other, though, because it’s all information of equal value to my brain, in some senses, the most holy writings of the divine prophet are, in my headspace and information addiction terms, on par with the details of how the two different Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons were different, or how a radio talk show works, or how to cook better using garlic as an additive, or how to bring a woman to orgasm, or what Nick Fury actually did during World War 2 in his comic “Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos.” I’ve seen picture of Mormon temple garments. I’ve seen pictures of the most holy sites in Mecca. I know about the Xenu (or Xemu) stuff that’s present in high level Scientology. All of these big secrets and sacred rites that might be terribly inspiring and awesomely life-changing to someone else are, to me, just more information. I’m informed, certainly, but does that make me a happier, better person? Or is it that by cheapening such aspects of my life by overloading them with information, I’m merely feeding into the stereotype of the cynical 20something who knows way too much to every commit to anything without a jaded irony to his every conviction (save for, you know, those one or two weird hobbies or preferences that we’ll defend to the point of absurdity)? Damned if I know. Thesis statement for this whole thing, to bring the thing to a conclusion because I’m starting to ramble and digress too much and it’s getting late and I need to sleep: Because we have made information so universal, it tends to lack the sacred and special quality that made it desirable in the first place. As a result of this, people become angry when we reduce their entire cultures and social structures to some analogies we can understand, and a couple books about the history of the region and its significant cultural conflicts. We turn them into something less special than they are, something more digestible and more info-compulsion friendly, and as a result tend to miss some of the macro and micro level stuff that’s going on (for example, calling Iranian’s “Arabs,” when they’re in fact more properly termed “Persians,” an insult on par with mistaking a French person for an Englishman, and turning centuries of cultural, religious, and social strife to a simple summation like “Iran hates Iraq, and also hates the Jews, and America,” which, despite having some relative value of truth, also completely obscures the complexities involved with the “Whys?” behind each statement, and ignores at least 2000 years worth of that region’s history). Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
| November 1st, 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 10:46 pm [Link] |
Interesting...
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| October 31st, 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 04:53 pm [Link] |
Comic authors, and why we tend to hate them after a while So, let’s talk comic books. As you may or may not know, comics and all the assorted aspects of the culture surrounding them, are probably my major hobby. I can be found at a comic shop almost every Wednesday to pick up new releases, there’s usually a graphic novel in my bag when I’m out someplace, I can tell you who most characters are and their history, powers, major appearances, and so on. And, of course, like every comic fan, I’ve got more than my fair share of opinions about the material.  It’s an interesting thing, really, the culture of hatred and anger that surrounds many comic fans when it comes to discussing the books. And it seems to extend a little further beyond the usual literary circle shouting matches (“Pynchon is a genius!” “No! He’s on overrated, unreadable fucktard hack!”, etc.) in terms of the sheer venom that I’ve seen people be able to spit in terms of their feelings about certain writers and certain stories. Unsurprisingly, I am no exception in this regard, as anyone who’s talked to me about the treatment of Bart Allen after his series ended, for example, or about the abrupt and pointless death of Stephanie “The Spoiler” Brown. We, as fans, get really attached to certain characters. Really attached. Not that this doesn’t happen in other media, of course, and people who have followed the sort of prolific writers who manage to get their own entire universes populated with quirky and fun minor characters will, of course, single out ones that they really enjoy seeing, and anxiously write to the authors begging for more stories featuring them. I’m sure Anne McCaffery and Terry Pratchett, to name two, have entire mailboxes worth of letters asking for character X to be the feature of the next novel in the series. However, because there’s a cycle of writers on each book, and their continued publication is completely dependant on sales, many of these favorite characters get swept under the rug, forgotten about, or, as has been the recent, unfortunate trend, killed off. Now, for example, while I was sad about the death of Ned Stark at the climax of “A Game of Thrones,” his death had been not only foreshadowed and expected, but I knew that George R.R. Martin had been planning it from pretty much the beginning of the story, and hence couldn’t really raise up much piss and vinegar over it. Sure, I was kind of upset, as was I’m well sure was the author’s intention, but I kept reading because the book was still interesting enough to finish. I certainly wasn’t angry with Martin himself over it. But with comics, it tends to be a little different. Take, for example, the death of The Spoiler, mentioned above. She died in the quite generic and unremarkable “War Games” Batman universe crossover back in 2005, killed from the wounds she sustained from being tortured by the super-villain crime-boss Blackmask. Now, there’s a wholly other set of annoyances (such as the morality of having a 16-17 year old girl tortured to death in a comic book, the absolutely pathetic handling of the aftermath of her death (such as Robin’s admission that he’s really unable to summon up any feeling of regret or sadness because his dad had also recently died, Batman’s lack of any sort of memorial to her), the admission that the only reason she died was due to intentional medical malpractice in a completely left field turn of character from the formally compassionate to a fault Leslie Thompkins, the continuance of “Women in Refrigerators” syndrome, etc.) that I’m not going to get into with any sort of detail, as this is an anecdotal evidence of some larger thesis I’m aiming at. The point, as far as this essay is concerned, is that as a result of her death, I actually felt angry at the authors of the story, rather than at the perpetrators of the act in the story, as I was supposed to. This, if anything, is a phenomenon I’ve noticed quite frequently in comic stories. People hate Brian Michael Bendis because he killed Hawkeye (and both Antman and Jack of Hearts, in the exact same issue, but they were less popular characters, so people tend to say Hawkeye first) during “Avengers: Disassembled.” People think Ed Brubaker is an ass because he killed Captain America (though, to be fair, almost every single one of Brubaker’s stories starts with the death (or apparent death) of a character, because this seems to be the only hook he can come up with). To this day, I still occasionally hear arguments from one of my friends about how much he doesn’t like Ron Marz, because he turned Hal Jordan evil and replaced him with Kyle Rayner. They aren’t angry with the Scarlet Witch (initiator of the misused chaos magic that killed Hawkeye), nor the Red Skull (who’s machinations got Cap shot by Sharon Carter), they’re angry with the writers of the story, for having written a story that they didn’t like, and doing things to characters that they didn’t like seeing. And here’s the point I’m aiming at making: because these books have many writers over the courses of the years, certain authors get let in the cold by the fans for having “ruined” a particular book, while others get enshrined because of their past work. I am not immune to this in any regard. I still sometimes get the feeling that, were I ever to meet Dan DiDio, current Editor in Chief of DC Comics and the guy behind the new darker turn that their books have taken, I would probably be unable to stop the torrent of swear words and angry opinions that would emerge. Not all the time, mind you, but some of the time. And, it occurs to me now that I hadn’t argued for the latter point in the above. Let me remedy that. Case in point: Frank Miller. Guy writes and draws plenty of influential and (usually) pretty good comics in the 80’s and early 90’s. No one doubts the effect that his runs on Daredevil changed the character permanently and irrevocably (to the point that, until Bendis took over the book during the Marvel Knights relaunch, all anyone could do was pretty much rewrite the Miller stories). No one is going to dismiss how influential “The Dark Knight Returns” was on the comics industry as a whole. Plenty of people enshrine “Batman: Year One” as a masterpiece, though personally I found it to be fairly predictable and boring. Sin City was similarly well received by all the sorts of people who read comics like that. But his recent work? Absolute garbage. “All-Star Batman & Robin” is pretty much unreadably bad (ref. “I’m the Goddamn Batman” as shown below). “The Dark Knight Strikes Back” really needed a good editor and a complete art overhaul. 300 I’ll give him as being as good in comic form as it was as a film, but that’s regrettably the exception, not the rule.  He was good, sure, but what’s his latest project? “Holy Terror, Batman!” a piece of “propaganda” in which Batman fights Osama Bin Laden. Think about that for a moment, would you? As an editor, would you green light that project? But he’s Frank Miller, and because he wrote some really good books 20 years ago, no one is going to tell him no. There are other instances, but Miller is probably the best example of this kind of, well, Diva-ism? Solipsism? Midas Syndrome? Can’t think of the precise term to describe it, but its roughly where one decides that everything they create and every idea that they come up with must be good, and that they should be allowed to publish it, because they’re so good. This isn’t exclusive to comics, mind you, and if you need more evidence, look at Stephen King’s later books versus his earlier ones, or John Updike’s more recent work, or Danielle Steele’s later writings, or even Laurel K. Hamilton’s later versus earlier Anita Blake novels. The earlier ones are heavily edited, carefully controlled and reigned, and the editors don’t seem afraid to tell the author “Hey, this is shit. Come back with a better idea/better written piece/better script/better whatever.” And so there we go. I’m about out of time for this entry. In short, we comic book people get attached to writers, who we hate when they do things we don’t like to the characters we do like, and get so attached to the past work of someone people that we’re often blinded as to just how bad their later work really is. I’ll probably have something less rambling and more thought out next time, but this is how I see things on this topic. Jumbled feelings and emotions, not necessarily in order. Next time will be about the comics I do like, so you can all prepare to rip my opinions to shreds, eh, ;p Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
| October 30th, 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 12:53 am [Link] |
Updating and such So. It's been a while. Yeah. Quite some time, in fact. I haven't had a genuine update in forever. So, here goes nothing, eh? 1. Graduated from Canisius with an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, a minor in Classics. That was over a year ago, now. 2. Entered the University at Buffalo's Library Science program, because Syracuse's program was going to put me into about $60,000 worth of debt. Not worth it for a degree I can get much cheaper. 3. Been writing a lot, working on both a novel and a collection of mildly intermingled short stories. This project may go nowhere, but I'm enjoying writing them, and so I'll continue anyways. 4. Will full confess to being rather down a lot, but no one wants to read about that, and I'm not really at liberty to talk about the reasons why, so I'll just mention it here and move on. 5. Will graduate from UB in December (well, finish classes, anyways, official ceremony isn't until February, for some reason), and have been looking for a job. This has proven mighty stressful, and it looks like I'm going to have to move out of state if I want to get hired. *sigh* Fingers crossed that the job I've got my eye on in the area follows through and I get hired there. 6. Put in my two week notice to TJ Maxx on Sunday. It's been more than seven years, and I'm just completely sick of working there. I don't need the money right now, and I don't need the hassle it is to go there, take abuse from everyone, come home with my back hurting, and further generic work related bitchings. You know the standard package, I'm sure. It'll be nice to have some time to do things, again, or, failing that, time to get more school work done. So, yeah. All in all, it's a life right now, I guess. Some days are better than others. I might have things to say later, I might go another year without updating. No promises. Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
| March 10th, 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 06:27 pm [Link] | 
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| December 12th, 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 03:19 am [Link] |
Paper length malase I remember back in 4th grade when I had to write my first extended research report. Back then, 2 pages seemed like forever, and there was no way I could ever possibly fill that much space up with words. As I got further through Grade school and junior high, that number slowly crawled up to 5, then through high school, up to 6, 7, then 8 pages seeming like the upper limit. By then I could bang out a 3 page paper on any topic, often with no research whatsoever, or even one paper on my inability to do the assignment due to a communications snafu, without even blanching. As I hit college, 10-12 pages seemed like around the upper limit, the length that I would really need to work at to reach. Now, in grad school, I accepted a 15 page paper without blanching, and the pages are just coming out with little to no effort on my part. I quickly reached 10 without even trying. I'm either getting smarter, or just getting older. Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
| November 6th, 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 08:31 pm [Link] | "The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views..." -- Doctor Who More updates later, perhaps. | ||||||||||||||||||
| May 29th, 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 09:44 pm [Link] |
Graham and K mudding, while also on AIM K: man, my alighnment is so bad Graham: heh, well, you're murdering slaves, children, and kittens... cute things... I'm killing goats, sheep, pigs, and other ugly farm animals.... Graham: no wonder you're evil *g* Graham: not that sheep aren't cute sometimes Graham: but these sheep are ugly Graham: whereas kittens are pretty much universally cute K: i kill puppies too Graham: I rest my case Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
| May 28th, 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 06:37 pm [Link] | Well, so I graduated from college...
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| February 22nd, 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 11:52 pm [Link] |
Bizarre revelation on Calories in beverages I commonly drink So I finally decided to get off my ass and lose 10 lbs. like I've been planning to for the past couple years. Right now I weigh betweenm 185-190, depending on how much water I've had that day, and wish to weigh between 175-180. An very achieveable goal, I think. I'm not really looking for advice, because I already know how to do it; this is merely a weird little thing that happened tonight to me on the path. So, as a result of this, I finally did what my father has been telling me to do for neigh on a year now: look at the calories per serving of the stuff you are drinking and eating, and see how it compares to how much you take in a day. This was part of he and my mother's grand scheme to try and get me to stop drinking as much pop as I regularly do. However, it would seem that their plans have backfired in this case: while at Wegman's tonight, because I was literally out of everything to drink and wasn't in the mood for water while finishing up my Roman History essay, I decided to take 15 minutes and check out the carloies of each beverage choice I was considering. Initially, I went in looking for some juice or milk, but when I decided to do this, I was quite suprised at the results: Beverage name calories per 8 oz serving (except where noted) Dr. Pepper 100 Coke 100 Pepsi 100 Grape Crush 130 Orange Crush 120 RC Cola 110 Wegman's Lemonaid 110 Wegman's Fruit Punch 130 Wegman's Berry Punch 150 Tropicana Orange Juice 110 Gatoriad (fruit punch flavor) 50 Arizona Ice Tea 90 Sunny Delight (original flavor) 120 Vitaman D milk 150 per cup Upstate Farm's Chocolate Milk 250 per cup All diet sodas looked at were 0 calories per 8 oz. serving, but since I don't like the taste of them, and because Nutrasweet and Splenda have been linked to causing cancer, I'm not going to drink them. Needless to say, I was rather suprised at these results. Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
| February 12th, 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 02:07 am [Link] |
Infinity is not a number. So tonight, a debate was begun on the topic of Infinity, specifically whether or not one infinity can be larger than another. The old argument was touted out that, since there are an infinite ammount of numbers between 0 and 1, via decimals and such, and that since there are also an infinite ammount of numbers between 0 and 10 via that same principle (ignoring all debate about Real Numbers and such), that consequently the Infinity between 0 and 10 is greater than the infinity between 0 and 1, something which would make sense if it didn't have one fatal flaw: Infinity is not a number. This is something which is usually forgotten by almost everyone when the subject of infinity is brought up. They simply assume that infinity is a very, very large, unbounded number that they can never reach. Such an understanding, however, doesn't really fly when you think about it longer. Rather, infinity must be thought of as a condition, not an ammount. It has, instead of a numeric value such as 5 or 23 or whathaveyou, the value designated as "(insert sideways 8 here)," or infinity. It is the condition of being unbounded and unlimited. It is everything and more of whatever is there, it can never be added nor subtracted from, because any sort of value assessment is irrelevant to it, because no matter how much you add or subtract, it is still infinity. Statements such as "Infinity + 1" are still infinity, and no larger than any other infinite condition. To quote the Yajur Veda (the Indian religious text which contains the earliest known reference to infinity) "if you remove a part from infinity or add a part to infinity, still what remains is infinity." Another quote, from Galileo in On two New Sciences, first published in 1638: "So far as I see we can only infer that the totality of all numbers is infinite, that the number of squares is infinite, and that the number of their roots is infinite; neither is the number of squares less than the totality of all numbers, nor the latter greater than the former; and finally the attributes "equal", "greater", and "less", are not applicable to infinite, but only to finite, quantities." And that's all I have to say on the subject *grin* Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
| February 2nd, 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 11:17 pm [Link] |
Snakes on a Plane... From http://collider.com/index.asp?aid=5 "Beaks: One of those films that you?re working on right now is... well, it?s called "Pacific Air 121"? Jackson: Snakes on a Plane, man! Beaks: Exactly. Jackson: We?re totally changing that back. That?s the only reason I took the job: I read the title. Beaks: Snakes on a Plane! That?s everything! Jackson: You either want to see that, or you don?t. Beaks: And how are those snakes? Besides being on a plane? Jackson: Some of them are aggressive, some of them are cool. They?re interesting to watch, and interesting to interact with. It depends on what kind of snake it is. One day, it took, like, four guys to bring in this 350 lb. Burmese Python. We were all like, ?Where?s that goin??? And I watched an Albino Cobra strike airplane seats the other day. I watched it from another studio. It?s actually been a fun show. But we?re taking the name back!" | ||||||||||||||||||
| January 30th, 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 11:56 pm [Link] | Well, looks like Deadjournal changed its formatting all around, so this is the closest approximation of the old format I could get it too. The changes they made made it simply too narrow for my tastes. Maybe I'll update with real information someday. Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
| December 20th, 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 02:44 am [Link] |
Yipes! | ||||||||||||||||||
| December 16th, 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 09:15 pm [Link] |
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| August 8th, 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 10:24 pm [Link] | So I haven't updated this thing in a couple months. I'm suprisingly okay with this. I needed a break from writing, let mysefl recharge and such, because otherwise it becomes a big burden and I really start to hate doing it. No biggie, right? So, what's happened since my last entry? I've been working. Also, I've been playing the Star Wars RPG by West End Games. Work has been managable, if tiring. I walk around all day, carrying things and making fun of stuff with my co-workers. I don't make nearly as much as I ought to, but whatever. If they don't give me a decent raise at my review, I'll use that time to make a huge stink about it. Until then, I can grit my teeth and bear it. I'm living at home for the next two semesters, my final year at Canisius, because I have no money and no one to dorm with. This should be only slightly different from the usual routine. I just really hope there is no big fiasco with my bus pass like there was last year, where I had to wait almost 2 months to get it, as it will be my primary transportation to and from school. If there's trouble, I'll be very displeased. I've been playing alot of Anachronism, a very fun card game based on history, lately, as well. It's suprising, because it's the first ccg I've been able to play with KT that she really enjoys. I just wish there was a bigger tournament scene here, but such things being lacking are pretty much par for the course in Buffalo. No big deal, really, because I have people to play with, but I sometimes wish there was a larger environment for it. I guess GDP has broken up, because we never practice anymore, and Paul doesn't seem to play the guitar anymore. Usually you break up after you make some money, not right after you record your demo and want to work harder at getting shows, but that's how it goes sometimes. There should be a new project come up soon, as Dan and I still have ideas, but we'll see how that works out as things progress more. And yes, KT and I are still happily together. Why wouldn't we be? *smile* Current Mood: | ||||||||||||||||||
confused
tired
contemplative
surprised
awake
sleepy
nerdy
moody
cheerful
amused
dorky
annoyed
okay