Hi, on the off chance you are reading this purely by chance please feel free to leave a comment and let me know if you exist. If you want to add some praise or flame on me you can do that too!
Today's subject falls in between the normalcy and extraordinary qualities of my day. Shit went down. Events of significance cascaded and swirled. Actually it was like trying to climb up a greased ladder while being bombarded with sting rays. Significant sting rays but flat flabby marine animals all the same.
I don't really have the heart to share it here but I'm going to miss Sean.
This will cheer you up though.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Rifters, Sociopaths and Anti-Euclideans unite... (Day CXVIII but not really.)
Your mission people. Click here. This isn't an advert its the single most important click you will ever execute.
See when you hover your mouse over that nifty little scrap of code and command left index finger dominant to exert downward pressure than the world as you know it will change forever. (Dial up users may have to wait a long ass time for the world to change but its your own fault and don't try to squirm out of it!!)
I'd like you to meet Peter Watts. While I cannot consider him a friend in any real sense I can tell you that without doubt if you're capable of both reading and partially understanding any of his books your conscience mind will realize what a terrible burden it is on the rest of you and you'll learn to curse your own intellectual deficiency.
I recommend Blindsight, available online, as a good starting point. All his novels are subject to creative commons licenses but as long as you don't alter or sell the work it should be ok. Trying to write a good synopsis strikes me as being a futile effort. I'll not even try.
Suffice to say that once you read a little bit about the brain works (you will probably need a biological psychology book just to get through Blindsight) then a lot of other really hokey nonsense becomes transparent for just what it really is.
Another example of the under achievement as far as intelligence goes.
Consider a bit of text. I'll use my first woefully overlong and under-inspired book "Fair Coin" as an example. I spent over one year, in many sessions over hundreds of hours, crafting this 200,000 word novel into what it is today. (Half-baked and unlikely to ever see the light of day)
Still the virtue lay in the effort not the result. If you sat down and started typing 60 words a minute then it would still take 2.315 days to hammer out the whole thing. Now thats just the typing. I didn't have anything to read from except my own thoughts. Words had to weave and dance together, plot lines had to stretch and twist and interconnect. Fat beads of imagery and scenery demanded to be woven and glued to this dynamic canvas as it developed and I put down was two dimensional renderings that I could.
Two and a half days without sleep or bathroom breaks clackity clack-clacking away. The end result was a paltry 2.47 megabytes (in MSword) When I think of how my brain compares to a USB flash drive I begin to get a little offended. You see though every single character came from a single digital motion via my fingers on my rusty ol' dell keyboard thanks to my brain and when I reread I still hit parts and think 'holy crap I wrote that' or 'WHISKY TANGO FOXTROT what was I thinking?'
2.5 megabytes. Thats not even 2 floppy disks. Its paltry, its pathetic. And less than 1% of the world could memorize even a significant hunk of that data.
Think of the last time someone told you a phone number and you had to write it down. Twelve Ascii characters and you needed a slip of paper!! Yes you did! Good god that amount of raw data just doesn't even compute. We can store flickers of high-res video with surround sound and smell and pain and stuff like that but 2.5 megabytes of text with any reliability?
Not yet, dear humans. But one day soon.
See when you hover your mouse over that nifty little scrap of code and command left index finger dominant to exert downward pressure than the world as you know it will change forever. (Dial up users may have to wait a long ass time for the world to change but its your own fault and don't try to squirm out of it!!)
I'd like you to meet Peter Watts. While I cannot consider him a friend in any real sense I can tell you that without doubt if you're capable of both reading and partially understanding any of his books your conscience mind will realize what a terrible burden it is on the rest of you and you'll learn to curse your own intellectual deficiency.
I recommend Blindsight, available online, as a good starting point. All his novels are subject to creative commons licenses but as long as you don't alter or sell the work it should be ok. Trying to write a good synopsis strikes me as being a futile effort. I'll not even try.
Suffice to say that once you read a little bit about the brain works (you will probably need a biological psychology book just to get through Blindsight) then a lot of other really hokey nonsense becomes transparent for just what it really is.
Another example of the under achievement as far as intelligence goes.
Consider a bit of text. I'll use my first woefully overlong and under-inspired book "Fair Coin" as an example. I spent over one year, in many sessions over hundreds of hours, crafting this 200,000 word novel into what it is today. (Half-baked and unlikely to ever see the light of day)
Still the virtue lay in the effort not the result. If you sat down and started typing 60 words a minute then it would still take 2.315 days to hammer out the whole thing. Now thats just the typing. I didn't have anything to read from except my own thoughts. Words had to weave and dance together, plot lines had to stretch and twist and interconnect. Fat beads of imagery and scenery demanded to be woven and glued to this dynamic canvas as it developed and I put down was two dimensional renderings that I could.
Two and a half days without sleep or bathroom breaks clackity clack-clacking away. The end result was a paltry 2.47 megabytes (in MSword) When I think of how my brain compares to a USB flash drive I begin to get a little offended. You see though every single character came from a single digital motion via my fingers on my rusty ol' dell keyboard thanks to my brain and when I reread I still hit parts and think 'holy crap I wrote that' or 'WHISKY TANGO FOXTROT what was I thinking?'
2.5 megabytes. Thats not even 2 floppy disks. Its paltry, its pathetic. And less than 1% of the world could memorize even a significant hunk of that data.
Think of the last time someone told you a phone number and you had to write it down. Twelve Ascii characters and you needed a slip of paper!! Yes you did! Good god that amount of raw data just doesn't even compute. We can store flickers of high-res video with surround sound and smell and pain and stuff like that but 2.5 megabytes of text with any reliability?
Not yet, dear humans. But one day soon.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Build II in all its glory, as it happened.
Before you delve any further into this post I lay fair warning that most of the way through I ran out of space on Nat's camera and didn't have the patience to actually hunt down the USB adapter for it. Plus the PC I was going to offload all the sweet ass pics onto was half disassembled at that point.
For the OS install and part of the end game (cable management...you really didn't miss much) you may have to use your imagination.
Here's the boxes!!! Aren't they...cardboardy?
This is my budget Case. I wanted to put a twenty dollar bill next to it for comparison but all I had was 16 ones, 12 quarters and one of those stupid buffalo dollars. The case is way sweeter.
Here's inside the case. Note the PSU to the left. The side panel with the black CPU vent is leaning on the old Dell. More on that later.
Check out the inside of the case. I know my hairy ass arm's in the way but you can see the detachable 120mm fan on the back and all the little case wires. They have to be connected to the Mobo so that the external USB ports, audio and power button all work.
Here's the bulk of the new parts. Even though they are laying on top those pieces on top of the Biostar mobo are going into Build I and their weaker cousins will inhabit Build II
This is the 500 watt PSU that came with the case from Build I. All that junk on the back part is the silicone noise killing kit that I ordered but never used for Build I. The point is that the fan on the PSU is going to be noisy and if its directly touching metal then it only gets worse. With a little buffer I can save an ear gnawing rattle from ruining my pseudo server.
This pic looks like crap but this is the front panel. The fan (top) is actually already placed but screwing the thing in was such a hassle that I forgot to accurately document it. No Pulitzer for me I guess. As you can see to the right the front panel of the case detaches and is more of a grate than a sealed edge. Air will pull through here over the HDD's and get spat out the back via the provided 120 mm fan.
So here's Build I. You'll immediately notice similarities to Build II. Thats because most PC mid tower cases look like this on the inside. Some will have little conduits for routing cables, see through side doors or separate chambers for the PSU. All that crap costs extra so...here's the basic stuff. Take it as you will. Also make a note of the small black tiny fan that came with the CPU.
Back to Build II where you can see the two HDD's have been mounted. The bumps on the case are actually built in standouts for the screws that hold the motherboard to the case interior.
This is just a shot of the IO port on the Biostar. Note the onboard VGA connector. Makes life so much easier!
I give you BIOSTAR (Galactica) The CPU is already attached as well as the big butterfly inspired copper heatsink. Its basically a series of pipes filled with liquid that boils at 35c and a shit load of surface area. Why copper? because its thermal conductivity is unparalleled for the cost. That doodad weighs about five pounds. Arctic Silver thermal paste was from Build I.
This is Build I again. The CPU cooler here is much rounder and heavier and looks so badass its not even funny. Getting the thing on was two and half pains in my buttocks but oh well. The thing rocks out 2,600,000,000 operations per second. Strike that. It does that on both cores at the same time!!
This is my stable temp speed fan reading. I made AVG chase its own tail for 30 minutes or so while doing a little folding at home. It topped out about 5 degrees higher but as I adjusted fan speeds and resealed the case it leveled off in this neighborhood. I made the icons to the left from WoW spells and items. Don't tell Blizzard!
So thats where the pics get scarce. I know this isn't much help for a first time builder but that was not my intent. I don't recommend my style of building to anyone else because it takes forever, uses marginal experience and I had to pull a Mission Impossible style head dodge to keep sweat from dripping onto my Mobo at one point.
I do feel compelled to share a few tips. These are the points that I feel most confident about.
-Research your components to death.
-Try to find others who have built similar systems or used some of the same parts you want.
-Don't just look at manufacturer specs. Read reviews and see what other people think. Take good notes and if someone says something is bigger or wider than it appears take that advice to heart. (In this case my cpu cooler was huge beyond reckoning. That was fine for me but if this had been a slim case build it would have been impossible.)
-Make sure your PSU has the right types of connectors for all your needs.
-Make sure everything fits.
-Try to dry dock all your components before they are installed. Take a look at all the pieces to make sure you can install them in a convenient order. Don't work yourself into corners. I had to take out the PSU for Build II to fit in the CPU cooler. That cost 20 mins and a lot of sweat time because it was already connected to a few other components.
-Cables will be messy no matter how well you plan your build. Tame them with zip ties and make good use of empty spaces. Even tucking a few stray wires can mean a big difference. Plan to spend some time tidying up. Before that plan which cables have to go where and try to get a feel for them. Don't zip tie until the end in case you make mistakes.
-Finally be prepared for things to go wrong. Hopefully all your parts will work correctly and better than that they will all synchronize well. If they don't then the world does not end. If the case looks cluttered or messier don't let it bum you out. Perfection isn't something you have to achieve to make a decent system.
(This how Alex reacted to the post. Two seconds later a bunch of pea soup hit me in the back of the head.)
For the OS install and part of the end game (cable management...you really didn't miss much) you may have to use your imagination.
Here's the boxes!!! Aren't they...cardboardy?
This is my budget Case. I wanted to put a twenty dollar bill next to it for comparison but all I had was 16 ones, 12 quarters and one of those stupid buffalo dollars. The case is way sweeter.
Here's inside the case. Note the PSU to the left. The side panel with the black CPU vent is leaning on the old Dell. More on that later.
Check out the inside of the case. I know my hairy ass arm's in the way but you can see the detachable 120mm fan on the back and all the little case wires. They have to be connected to the Mobo so that the external USB ports, audio and power button all work.
Here's the bulk of the new parts. Even though they are laying on top those pieces on top of the Biostar mobo are going into Build I and their weaker cousins will inhabit Build II
This is the 500 watt PSU that came with the case from Build I. All that junk on the back part is the silicone noise killing kit that I ordered but never used for Build I. The point is that the fan on the PSU is going to be noisy and if its directly touching metal then it only gets worse. With a little buffer I can save an ear gnawing rattle from ruining my pseudo server.
This pic looks like crap but this is the front panel. The fan (top) is actually already placed but screwing the thing in was such a hassle that I forgot to accurately document it. No Pulitzer for me I guess. As you can see to the right the front panel of the case detaches and is more of a grate than a sealed edge. Air will pull through here over the HDD's and get spat out the back via the provided 120 mm fan.
So here's Build I. You'll immediately notice similarities to Build II. Thats because most PC mid tower cases look like this on the inside. Some will have little conduits for routing cables, see through side doors or separate chambers for the PSU. All that crap costs extra so...here's the basic stuff. Take it as you will. Also make a note of the small black tiny fan that came with the CPU.
Back to Build II where you can see the two HDD's have been mounted. The bumps on the case are actually built in standouts for the screws that hold the motherboard to the case interior.
This is just a shot of the IO port on the Biostar. Note the onboard VGA connector. Makes life so much easier!
I give you BIOSTAR (Galactica) The CPU is already attached as well as the big butterfly inspired copper heatsink. Its basically a series of pipes filled with liquid that boils at 35c and a shit load of surface area. Why copper? because its thermal conductivity is unparalleled for the cost. That doodad weighs about five pounds. Arctic Silver thermal paste was from Build I.
This is Build I again. The CPU cooler here is much rounder and heavier and looks so badass its not even funny. Getting the thing on was two and half pains in my buttocks but oh well. The thing rocks out 2,600,000,000 operations per second. Strike that. It does that on both cores at the same time!!
This is my stable temp speed fan reading. I made AVG chase its own tail for 30 minutes or so while doing a little folding at home. It topped out about 5 degrees higher but as I adjusted fan speeds and resealed the case it leveled off in this neighborhood. I made the icons to the left from WoW spells and items. Don't tell Blizzard!So thats where the pics get scarce. I know this isn't much help for a first time builder but that was not my intent. I don't recommend my style of building to anyone else because it takes forever, uses marginal experience and I had to pull a Mission Impossible style head dodge to keep sweat from dripping onto my Mobo at one point.
I do feel compelled to share a few tips. These are the points that I feel most confident about.
-Research your components to death.
-Try to find others who have built similar systems or used some of the same parts you want.
-Don't just look at manufacturer specs. Read reviews and see what other people think. Take good notes and if someone says something is bigger or wider than it appears take that advice to heart. (In this case my cpu cooler was huge beyond reckoning. That was fine for me but if this had been a slim case build it would have been impossible.)
-Make sure your PSU has the right types of connectors for all your needs.
-Make sure everything fits.
-Try to dry dock all your components before they are installed. Take a look at all the pieces to make sure you can install them in a convenient order. Don't work yourself into corners. I had to take out the PSU for Build II to fit in the CPU cooler. That cost 20 mins and a lot of sweat time because it was already connected to a few other components.
-Cables will be messy no matter how well you plan your build. Tame them with zip ties and make good use of empty spaces. Even tucking a few stray wires can mean a big difference. Plan to spend some time tidying up. Before that plan which cables have to go where and try to get a feel for them. Don't zip tie until the end in case you make mistakes.
-Finally be prepared for things to go wrong. Hopefully all your parts will work correctly and better than that they will all synchronize well. If they don't then the world does not end. If the case looks cluttered or messier don't let it bum you out. Perfection isn't something you have to achieve to make a decent system.
(This how Alex reacted to the post. Two seconds later a bunch of pea soup hit me in the back of the head.)
I stopped counting. (Day ???)
Well it seemed like a good idea at first but its just adding overhead. And as long as the days keep adding up then thats what counts. I'll keep May 19th in mind. Just by writing it here I have secured it beyond the limits of my stupid spinning platter hard drives.
Bring on the good shit!!!
Speaking of which, this post relates not to the usual pontifications but more of a practical sort of lesson. Today we'll investigate (in depth) the nifty details of building your own PC.
Bring on the good shit!!!
Speaking of which, this post relates not to the usual pontifications but more of a practical sort of lesson. Today we'll investigate (in depth) the nifty details of building your own PC.
Consider the project of upgrading one PC, we’ll call it Build I and with the spare parts create another PC for a minimum of cost. Call that Build II (gawd damn I am original) Lets take a look at the original PC and where it could and COULD NOT be upgraded.
Motherboard: MSI K9N4
CPU Socket: AM2 (Athlon and Athlon X2 type chips)
Ram: 2 Sockets rated for DDR2 533, 667 and 800
GPU Socket: PCIe x16
4 Sata II ports
1 Ultra ATA controller *2 devices*
3 PCI slots
1 FDD (floppy controller)
Actual Components: (same order)
CPU: Athlon X2 4600 (2.4 ghz dual core, 90nm manufacturing process)
Ram: 2x 1-gigabyte sticks of DDR2 533
GPU: EVGA Geforce 8600 GTS with 256 mb DDR3 Ram
2 Sata HDD’s: 160gb and 320gb
(empty SATAII socket x2)
1 ATA DVD Burner
5.1 sound card
Tv Capture Card
(empty PCI slot 1x)
No Floppy Drive.
So Basically it was a HUGE advance over my ding dong Dell Dimension 8250 with its pitiful 2.66 P4 and 1 gig of RAMBUS!!!! The old video card was a 256 mb Radeon All in Wonder. I will not say anything bad about it. Total HD space was 160 gigs.
Build I was pretty awesome. I applied a lot of the lessons learned from Wade’s build to create a very solid workstation with enough muscle to mess up some games if I so chose but without shelling out 6 grand for an alienware or voodoo PC.
Now it was pretty close but I had some hardware and accessories leftover and I realized that with a few upgrades to my current build that I could slap together a whole new box. Originally I was hoping to make it a Server 2003 box but the drivers didn’t jive with my ‘trial version’ of Server 2003. Microsoft, surprisingly, did not provide much help.
Power Supply
Motherboard
CPU
RAM
Graphics Processor
Hard Drive(s)
Operating System (already had it)
PS All my parts came from newegg.com natch.
Since I got such a great deal I decided to experiment with a new bit of technology (new to me at any rate) so I picked up a Zalman CPU cooler. There was a combo deal so I basically got another (awesome) CPU cooler for 15 bucks plus tax and shipping.
Now the Pics begin so I will segment here to prevent UBER length posts.
Friday, September 14, 2007
What elegant threads weave the good and evil of our souls together...(Almost day 125 but not quite)
As I lifetime insomniac I often find myself Awake in the Night
Following that link will take you to one of my newer online hangouts (sort of) and introduce you to one of the most bizarre and arcane works of Fiction known to man. Consider the story. Millions of years hence the entirety of humanity inhabits an eight mile tall metal pyramid that rests at the bottom of an immense valley that is home to hundreds of varieties of weird critter and downright evil.
Also the sun has been out for a few million years.
The world is immense beyond the usual heave-ho and a sci-fi landscape. Vast details paint a dark and morbid picture of the world to follow. Night hounds, tall as horses bay and prowl. Fixed giants, lumbering behemoths, giant gray people who eat armored men whole stalk silently. Grotesque ab-humans mock and defray all that humans hold sacred across the entire poisonous landscape of cold air and haunting voices.
Looming over these minor creatures, "like hills of watchfulness" are the watching things. There are 5 in all. To the Northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast. Largest and newest of these is the watcher to the south. It is huge beyond reckoning, destined to rend the doors of the last redoubt *big metal pyramid protecting all humanity.* All that stands in its way is the vast bubble of the glowing dome.
In addition there are the Silent Ones who are always veiled in gray. Sometimes they walk along the great roads built by the ancestors of those who reside in the Great Redoubt. They dwell in the House of Silence far north of the last redoubt and not far from the road. The doors to the House are forever open and unmoving. In all recorded history no sound has ever escaped from the house nor have any lights wavered or gone out.
Now that's pretty MFN wild as is but on top of that there's the Ulterior Powers. These are immaterial things that twist and writhe in the darkness. In one story a great black bell materializes over a handful of men and pulls them helplessly to their deaths. In others mists and clouds wreak havoc upon not only the minds but also the souls of men.
Alone in the barren, bleak and mostly static world humans are only able to distinguish themselves from the monsters by use of the 'master word' which can be spoken aloud or sent through 'brain elements.'
Again, this was all conceived and written about in 1912 before WWI had troubled the landscape of europe and turned so many men *including the original author* into so much kibble.
Nowadays if you were to visit the site in question you can see where others have taken up pens and word processors to continue fleshing out this most disturbing world. Bear in mind back in 1912 the premise upon which the book rests is that the sun has totally died and people are alone in eternal night.
At this time the mechanism for how the sun works, namely fusion, was not fully understood. Some theory proposed that the sun's radiance came about as a result of magnetism and that based on calculations at the time would burn brightly for a scant 20 million years or more.
Also telephones, let alone computers, were not mainstream at this point. When extrapolating into the future you're sort of screwed because technology flails about in unexpected directions.
Computers are the most dramatic example but there are other subtler things to bear in mind. As a child of classic sci-fi even in youth occasionally stumbled onto stories where odd hunks of technology mangled together. In one such, a satire about technological 'progress' an entire war was lost because the superior side attempted to develop new tech to fight the enemy and the other side simply just built a shitload of ships and space lasers. My favorite part of the story involves a BATTLE COMPUTER with over a million vacuum tubes. For the youngsters out there early computers were built with these huge stupid glass doodads that were each as big and hot as a light bulb. A .39 cent calculator now has more processing power.
Now normally I don't give two whiffs of a shit about anything that invokes the supernatural, paranormal or pseudo-(adjective) because unless its supposed to be funny its usually a waste of time. I love fiction. I have loved reading fiction for as long as I have been able to read but my tolerance for bullshit wanes like Britney Spears' Popularity.
Why then am I, who lusts for what is true or plausible, so enthralled by this utterly implausible world and all its demented monsters?
I will tell you why. I have a soft spot for Tolkien and his errant beliefs in the nobility of the ancient man. There is something sexy about the idea that everything used to be just fine and dandy until we modern types came along and fudged it up. Nearly any work of 'fantasy' fiction or role playing game owes some or most of its inspirado to good ol' JRR.
Despite its outward incompatibility with my preferences there is something that counts for a great deal. Originality. Anyone reading this blog, or anyone's blog, who was used the internet for a few years *just long enough to get tired of pr0n* should be familiar with that desperate groping mentality of people lashing out into an electronic vista with the same greasy tentacles as everyone else.
Human experience is like water it gets peed out, evaporated and then rained back down good as gold to be consumed and peed out all over again for all time.
Following that link will take you to one of my newer online hangouts (sort of) and introduce you to one of the most bizarre and arcane works of Fiction known to man. Consider the story. Millions of years hence the entirety of humanity inhabits an eight mile tall metal pyramid that rests at the bottom of an immense valley that is home to hundreds of varieties of weird critter and downright evil.
Also the sun has been out for a few million years.
The world is immense beyond the usual heave-ho and a sci-fi landscape. Vast details paint a dark and morbid picture of the world to follow. Night hounds, tall as horses bay and prowl. Fixed giants, lumbering behemoths, giant gray people who eat armored men whole stalk silently. Grotesque ab-humans mock and defray all that humans hold sacred across the entire poisonous landscape of cold air and haunting voices.
Looming over these minor creatures, "like hills of watchfulness" are the watching things. There are 5 in all. To the Northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast. Largest and newest of these is the watcher to the south. It is huge beyond reckoning, destined to rend the doors of the last redoubt *big metal pyramid protecting all humanity.* All that stands in its way is the vast bubble of the glowing dome.
In addition there are the Silent Ones who are always veiled in gray. Sometimes they walk along the great roads built by the ancestors of those who reside in the Great Redoubt. They dwell in the House of Silence far north of the last redoubt and not far from the road. The doors to the House are forever open and unmoving. In all recorded history no sound has ever escaped from the house nor have any lights wavered or gone out.
Now that's pretty MFN wild as is but on top of that there's the Ulterior Powers. These are immaterial things that twist and writhe in the darkness. In one story a great black bell materializes over a handful of men and pulls them helplessly to their deaths. In others mists and clouds wreak havoc upon not only the minds but also the souls of men.
Alone in the barren, bleak and mostly static world humans are only able to distinguish themselves from the monsters by use of the 'master word' which can be spoken aloud or sent through 'brain elements.'
Again, this was all conceived and written about in 1912 before WWI had troubled the landscape of europe and turned so many men *including the original author* into so much kibble.
Nowadays if you were to visit the site in question you can see where others have taken up pens and word processors to continue fleshing out this most disturbing world. Bear in mind back in 1912 the premise upon which the book rests is that the sun has totally died and people are alone in eternal night.
At this time the mechanism for how the sun works, namely fusion, was not fully understood. Some theory proposed that the sun's radiance came about as a result of magnetism and that based on calculations at the time would burn brightly for a scant 20 million years or more.
Also telephones, let alone computers, were not mainstream at this point. When extrapolating into the future you're sort of screwed because technology flails about in unexpected directions.
Computers are the most dramatic example but there are other subtler things to bear in mind. As a child of classic sci-fi even in youth occasionally stumbled onto stories where odd hunks of technology mangled together. In one such, a satire about technological 'progress' an entire war was lost because the superior side attempted to develop new tech to fight the enemy and the other side simply just built a shitload of ships and space lasers. My favorite part of the story involves a BATTLE COMPUTER with over a million vacuum tubes. For the youngsters out there early computers were built with these huge stupid glass doodads that were each as big and hot as a light bulb. A .39 cent calculator now has more processing power.
Now normally I don't give two whiffs of a shit about anything that invokes the supernatural, paranormal or pseudo-(adjective) because unless its supposed to be funny its usually a waste of time. I love fiction. I have loved reading fiction for as long as I have been able to read but my tolerance for bullshit wanes like Britney Spears' Popularity.
Why then am I, who lusts for what is true or plausible, so enthralled by this utterly implausible world and all its demented monsters?
I will tell you why. I have a soft spot for Tolkien and his errant beliefs in the nobility of the ancient man. There is something sexy about the idea that everything used to be just fine and dandy until we modern types came along and fudged it up. Nearly any work of 'fantasy' fiction or role playing game owes some or most of its inspirado to good ol' JRR.
Despite its outward incompatibility with my preferences there is something that counts for a great deal. Originality. Anyone reading this blog, or anyone's blog, who was used the internet for a few years *just long enough to get tired of pr0n* should be familiar with that desperate groping mentality of people lashing out into an electronic vista with the same greasy tentacles as everyone else.
Human experience is like water it gets peed out, evaporated and then rained back down good as gold to be consumed and peed out all over again for all time.
Things have changed greatly... (day 124)
Yesterday Natalie and I had a discussion about the significance of the year. I for one counted getting out of my Shitty job at Roger Penske's Truck Whore House (go with u-haul!!!) which ended climatically and transferred to my new employer on Feb. 19 of this year.
Also important, as noted by the omnipresent counter in the subject header, quitting smoking/starting to swim again on May 19 also of this year. But what is next?
What new Important Event can I bring about for the end of the year? I believe that it will be a return to that mental jujitsu of literary prose. I don't just mean this blog, though I intend to make it last a little longer than the last two. However does one begin anew entirely or should we all retain some of that which has shaped us.
Below is a hunk of a former blog entry from the days before Natalie and Alex I will ponder it as I muster the next post.
**************************
Hopefully my mental contours are not so treacherous as they used to be. When I think back about that particular time period I somberly wonder over which details I have forgotten. I know I was unemployed, rolling my own two-pinch fatties from an aquamarine can of bugler tobacco with zig-zag papers and tooling around with a huge chunk missing off the front end of my duct-taped wrapped civic.
I was still wearing my sunglasses full-time and weighed about twenty pounds more than I do now. Only a thousand days hence and everything just seems so different.
Also in case anyone actually reads this I am considering this training for bigger and better projects. Expect some shitty roughness at first but just remember: Bad athletes burn more calories per second (due to inefficiency) If you actually like some of this brain bashing then stick around. Things will only improve...
Also important, as noted by the omnipresent counter in the subject header, quitting smoking/starting to swim again on May 19 also of this year. But what is next?
What new Important Event can I bring about for the end of the year? I believe that it will be a return to that mental jujitsu of literary prose. I don't just mean this blog, though I intend to make it last a little longer than the last two. However does one begin anew entirely or should we all retain some of that which has shaped us.
Below is a hunk of a former blog entry from the days before Natalie and Alex I will ponder it as I muster the next post.
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4.18.2004
I have not been angry for far to long.
Hopefully my mental contours are not so treacherous as they used to be. When I think back about that particular time period I somberly wonder over which details I have forgotten. I know I was unemployed, rolling my own two-pinch fatties from an aquamarine can of bugler tobacco with zig-zag papers and tooling around with a huge chunk missing off the front end of my duct-taped wrapped civic.
I was still wearing my sunglasses full-time and weighed about twenty pounds more than I do now. Only a thousand days hence and everything just seems so different.
Also in case anyone actually reads this I am considering this training for bigger and better projects. Expect some shitty roughness at first but just remember: Bad athletes burn more calories per second (due to inefficiency) If you actually like some of this brain bashing then stick around. Things will only improve...
GD the GDN US GOV
I have never been more disappointed by the clumsy, half-witted, jerk off bureaucracy that we call a government. That is all.
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