Move to the Sky

I was stupid for hoping anything would change.

Here's another stupid hope: I hope it's over soon.

I can't control how I feel, but I control this venue, so... I think now's a good time to end it.

When the gods communicate with you, they will do so through fortune cookies.

I qualified with a .38 today. I'll take a picture of my target later (I saved it). I scored 230/250 on the test, and man, was it fun.

Gun range day today. I'm going to test with a .38. I'm looking forward to it.

Tomorrow I go to switch my merchant guard license around. Then... more training... get uniforms... and two days off. Then I start on Monday. Start more training, that is. :P

I'm really enjoying this work.

From your bed I gained a day and lost a bloody year

I had a terrible anxiety attack today. Because my life is falling apart. I can't keep my shit together. Don't know what the fuck to do.

I went clothes shopping today! it was a lot of fun. I took my little brother, Jack, and we went around the Southlands mall. I got some new jeans, new shirts, socks, undershirts, belt, et cetera. I also ordered this shirt from SGR:



Pretty funny, eh? I had a good time today.

For Halloween, I'm going to make a plague doctor costume. That's gonna be fun as heck.

I had my physical this morning. It was a lot different than I expected... first they had me ride a bike for five minutes, then lift a fifty pound box up to a high shelf five times... had to push and pull various carts... then they made me carry a thirty pound box around for a couple minutes. Pretty amusing!

So I start there on Monday, I think I've said... Training is from 8-5 for five days. It should be good. Seems like physical work, which I definitely don't mind.

It's very difficult to come to terms with breaking up. Some things have been helping this time around, though, most importantly Epictetus' Enchiridion. The opening sentence, "Some things are in our control and others not," puts things in a new light for me. I can't control how she feels about me, and trying to affect that will make me lament, as he says. But I can control how I react, and so I'm trying to... I don't know. I accept that things are not going to go my way and wanting it to be another way isn't going to change anything.

One of the quotes from the end of the book is very helpful as well. "I follow cheerfully; and, did I not, wicked and wretched, I must follow still." I don't have a choice in this situation and so I have to follow where it goes.

I'd like things to be different. But, this will turn out to be positive.

I think, tomorrow, I'll go out and buy some new clothes. That should be fun.

I long for bed, but not alone

Part of being depressed, for me, is having to deal with it myself. I don't really have anyone to talk to, and even if anyone was willing, I would feel a lot like I was impressing upon them... I end up bottling a lot of things up. It's difficult and I pretty much always feel lonely. But this is... my life, I suppose. I must follow. We will, as always, be okay.

I used to write in my Livejournal a lot, because I had no one else to talk to. I'm a fairly solitary guy, although I don't know if it's an active choice I make. But it's nice to have a place to talk, even if it's into the Twisting Nether.

Tomorrow, I have a physical for my new job. Oh, I start a new job on Monday, driving an armored car. It's looking to be pretty sweet! I'm definitely looking forward to it.

I'm off of AIM and Skype. I spent... a lot, a lot of time there waiting for something. And I'm tired of it. I don't know what not being there will lead to, but at least it'll be a change. I probably will come back on, but I don't know when. I'm aware no one is reading this.

The reason I'm stuck in this situation for the second time has something to do with my inability to be social, and perhaps I will fix that now. The people I love keep moving on without me, and I'm... still here.

Wondering which of the buggers to blame

So, now that I've alienated that last person...

Something I'm coming to realize is... sometimes terrible things happen and the best you can do is accept it. Hoping and praying don't really do anything. Sometimes you can't take any action that would make things any better, and in fact, doing anything to affect the situation would only make it worse. So, I'm going to retreat and... do what I do.

But, like always, I'll be here.

Looks like I got that job, by the way. Would have been... just a few more months. Too late now.

So... I haven't put up a decent entry in some time.

I lost my job recently. I've applied for a bunch of new ones, but I think my best chance right now is this one at Loomis, driving an armored car.. should be fun.

To be honest, my life has been pretty terrible lately. It'll look up, I'm sure, but... I'm so tired. Of bothering. It's so much easier to just sit here and be alone. To go into work and do your eight hours and come home and not bother trying at anything else.

I'm not sure I'll be able to get back into college anytime soon. I'm not sure I really care either. I know I should. I'm just so tired of... everything. When I look inside I can see this vast well of hateful, bitter energy, but I don't want to be bitter my whole life, or to get through this issue with anger. That's just going to make me into Greg.

Don't really know what else to say. More to come, I'm sure.

Well, YOU'RE never too far away, are you.

Man, you should see these sunglasses, because they are pretty chill. They're not prescription yet though, so I can't see anything when I have them on... small sacrifice.

Life goes okay, although there's trouble in the house re: Andy. He was supposed to be home at 11 last night but got back around 5 am after stealing my mom's debit card (again), giving it to some kid, and letting him take $260 out of her checking account. So she's going to press charges, but Arapahoe county doesn't have enough people right now to take him in or investigate his case. So he's still here. He doesn't seem to care about the whole thing, althrough he threw a king-sized fit when she told him he had to leave and called the cops. Punched his suitcase and all that. I'm tired of this shit. I wish he would just go die. Seriously. I am seriously wishing death on him.

I'm doing well in school, so that's always good. Right now I'm gonna go play King's Field: TAC until it's time for work. Also: coffee.

I got some SWEET ASS sunglasses in the mail today. I wish they were more coppery, because that's definitely a color I can get behind.

I'm fascinated with Steampunk stuff.

I just had the urge to learn how to type correctly.

I've been thinking a lot about my friendlessness. I don't really know how to say what I've been thinking. But I recognize some things, and so... I will continue to do nothing about it, I'm sure.

I got a lump in my throat
So I'll keep hold o' hope

So it's going pretty well. I should be studying right now, but I felt like writing a little first.

I've been reading a lot of books recently, as I said last time. It's made me feel a lot smarter, and I definitely enjoy that. I've started on The Power and the Glory, and I'm REALLY enjoying that so far, so props to the one who recommended it to me.

Besides that, I heard on the news today that Lori Drew's case was thrown out. Here's a link if you don't remember what all that was about. It's distressing to me, because I do strongly believe that that woman had a lot to do with the girl's death, but the law she was being charged under didn't fit. It's a shame that she gets to walk free after her actions caused someone to commit suicide... it's a shame that there won't be any justice for that girl. So it goes. :P She just looks so smug... I'd like to punch that bitch in the face.

I'm all sore from yesterday's laser tag. I'd like a rest, but I guess it's time for me to go study now.

Once in love, it's more like a habit
Guess that's what I need to feel like me

This macroeconomics textbook is like a primer for Young Republicans. Ugh.

Not much to say recently. I've been reading a lot more, so that's good. I finished Slaughterhouse-Five around 2 am yesterday, and I finished Machiavelli's "The Prince" at work today. Slaughterhouse-Five was amazing. The Prince had some great, vicious advice on being a leader. Swaptree has got me lots of good books I can't wait to read... I have Genome and The Power and the Glory queued up to read next. Although I should do more homework.

School is going okay. I'm slowly getting better at focusing on my studies. I've been trying to eliminate distractions from my life... I quit WoW recently, yeah. That felt good to do. Hopefully I can stop slacking off in other areas. I'm a little ahead in math and a little behind in economics, although that's okay with me because I hate economics anyway... it's uninteresting middle-manager corporate crap. CRAP. Math is so much more interesting.

I'm not sure anyone reads this. Anyone who doesn't talk to me daily, that is. Which is fine by me. Although the limited human contact I have in my life makes it seem unreal. Almost like a game, and in games, nothing ever turns out wrong, and the way is always clear. I worry that I'm insane.

I discovered some things today. 1) A capella is a machine for destroying music that you love. 2) Ben Gibbard is the generic four-dollar version of Colin Meloy.

I'm crazy in love with this song. It's totally... amazing. Also, Erik Satie's Gymnopedies, those are great.

Miller moths are out in force this year. There's one in my room right now. I'm going to kill it dead just as soon as it shows its treacherous face.

EDIT: The moth is dead.

There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave
You were what I wanted, I gave what I gave

I banned a kid from the mall today, that was exciting.

So, I've started trading things on www.swaptree.com. I like it a lot, except for the fact that about 80% of the stuff people have up for trade is Tom Clancy, Sue Grafton, John Grisham bullshit. You REALLY have to wade through the muck to find something worth trading for. But I've got pending trades for some interesting books, so overall, it's good.

Also, here's a fact: If you are a priest, and you spec Shadow, then you are a wuss. Get out of my face.

This job is bringing my lack of social skil into sharp relief. It's distressing.

Also, I can't stop listening to this song.

Terrible dreams last night. Not sleeping well. Grar.

Work is going well, except that my legs are sore as fuck. As FUCK.

Also, I am lonely. Come ye back to me.

PS: I got up today and all of my apple cinnamon cheerios were gone. That was annoying.

The prettiest whistles won't wrestle the thistles undone

If only I weren't so bad at being out in public, then I would have gone to a show tonight, but instead my irrational fear of the judgment of others kept me at home.

I wonder why I act this way.

Anyway, I got some books...

Yay.

Today was also awesome. I love this site.

Things I liked about today:

-Meeting a lot of interesting people. (CC was especially cool.)
-Seeing a cop (jokingly) chase a kid around, then take the kid's squirt gun and spray him with it.
-Being out in the sun.
-Wearing a silly hat.
-Drinking some beer. (Sapporo, because the late-night store doesn't carry Kirin anymore, the bastards.)
-Meeting Joe's girlfriend.

Joe and his girlfriend, Amanda, are the cutest couple I think I've ever seen in my life. It's so amazingly brilliant to see them together. Joe gets this incredibly goofy grin on his face, and Amanda perks up and gets all bouncy... it's amazing. I love to see it. That was easily the best part of my shift.

I feel so, so awesome... and I don't have work tomorrow. Life is so, so, so great right now.

Loosen your shoulder blades
This is your hour to make due

Classes I would like to take:

Beginner hip-hop dancing
Hobbyist arc welding
Trumpet
Soldering
Combat shotgun
Motorcycle safety

Work was great. I'm happy.

I haven't been able to sleep. I don't know why. Just insomnia. Curses!

Something I enjoy about insomnia is that I become extremely crabby. Wait, no, I don't like that, just as much as I do not like not sleeping. What controls sleep in the human body? Because I'm going to tear it out of me and eat it. EAT IT.

Today, I barely passed my math class, which was sad. It has a lot to do with the fact that I foolishly skipped several assignments.

I also finished reading The Enchiridion, and that was good. Very, very short; Epictetus apparently liked to just get his point across without a lot of talking. I'm following it up with another short one, LaVey's "Satanic Bible." Shh, shh, that's not why I'm reading it. It was recommended to me (by a fellow calling himself Spooky) and I rejected it out of hand because of what I felt was its ridiculous premise. Now I want to read it (because I hate Spooky and his stupid face, and I need to prove to myself that I'm better than that).

It's also short, and if there's any ritual bits or poetry you can bet your ass I'll be skipping over that, so. I'll probably be done with that soon too.

EDIT: God, I remember why I refused to read this... it's so hokey.

I had the BEST dream last night. THE BEST. I also got like eleven hours of sleep. GLORIOUS.

EDIT: I just went to the store and got a bunch of skin care stuff and used it, and I feel pretty good. I also bought some orange juice... I like the kind with so much pulp that it's basically still an orange.

So I used this stuff but I had to take off my glasses to do so, and now it's taking forever for my eyes to refocus. It's very uncomfortable.

I'm also reading the Enchiridion, which I originally thought was about Mexican/French fusion cuisine, but I was wrong. What it's actually about is pretty good too.

EDIT AGAIN: The other night I was trying to fall asleep and I thought of how I'd previously said that totally ridiculous things come to mind when I'm doing that, so I wrote down the next thing that came to mind before I went to sleep and looked at it when I woke up, and here's what it was:

"Leek the Housecake"

I'm not entirely sure what that means.

Also, I don't understand the appeal of the song "I'm On A Boat." It's just not all that funny.

Oh, that old jealous feelin'. Back once again.

I have a lot of trouble letting things go, and by "things" I mean feelings that I can be pretty sure are irrational. It's not just jealousy, but I don't forget being slighted easily, or anything similar to that... though I never act on those grudges that I keep (except in some personally notable cases).

Besides that, I have a final exam coming up and I need to study although I don't want to. It's cold outside, all I want to do is get a blanket and play video games. But I will study.

I love Akeboshi. Thank the non-existent gods for torrents.

Today was a pretty good day! I got a lot of studying done. My aniracetam finally showed up so I took some of that. I ate a tasty breakfast that had sausage. Sausage! I love meat, I'm such a hypocrite. If only I could find a way to reconcile my feelings on the matter and my love of tasty, tasty sausage.

I also went to see This American Life today, and that was excellent as always. How I adore Ira Glass, so handsome, so dorky. I just wanna tousle his hair! Dorks are the best.

I don't know if it's the aniracetam or if it's a placebo effect, but... I've felt so awesome today. I feel like I have this huge weight off my shoulders. I feel more social. GOD, I feel awesome. Even now, this song should be hella depressing me but it's not.

Oops, I never posted this! My bad.

I see you shouting and yelling and struggling
But I can't hear your voice

So, I'm not really sure any longer where I stand on the issue of abortion. To make a long post short, I recognize the validity of pro-life arguments on the matter, but I disagree with the outcome, which (to my logic) would be a bunch of people with babies they don't want. Some statistics I've seen thrown around are 600,000 couples seeking to adopt and 1.3 million abortions performed per year. So clearly even if you stop all abortions and allow all of those couples to adopt, you're going to still have 2625 tons of unwanted baby, assuming average birth weight. So how do you fix it?

I hold a lot of beliefs that I'm sure people wouldn't like, and what I think is the best solution to this problem is one I think people wouldn't like all that much: give males a vasectomy at birth and if they want a kid, allow them to undergo sperm aspiration. This would also make for a great opportunity to require potential parents to prove that they can raise a child without destroying it. (I would never suggest that there is a "correct" way of raising one's child, but I would like to see less child abuse, wouldn't you?) Men who have a vasectomy have reduced sexual desire, but we don't have a problem with cutting dicks up (and thus reducing sexual sensation) as it is, so what's a little added snip? We (men) obviously can't trust ourselves to be rational and use birth control, and I don't think that that responsibility should be entirely on the shoulders of women.

The main problems I have with abortion are that I can't really justify the ending of a life, if indeed you consider a fetus to be a human which I'm not sure I do, and that I don't think that the state ought to have control over what a woman can and cannot do with her uterus. (I also wonder where the rights of the father come into play, since they aren't really considered as it is, but oh well!)

Another view I hold that sounds really terrible is that human life is cheap. REALLY cheap. I really think it's more important to concern ourselves with the welfare of the living.

I saw this on SU today, and I liked it a lot:

"...Ayn Rand, who is pretty much the Ann Coulter of philosophy--she sounds good on the surface, but once you really pay attention to what she is saying, she becomes just another bag full of hot air."

Both people I hate! That's two birds with one stone.

Last night I dreamt I went to see a movie called Pyratbyran / Bofar, but it had nothing to do with The Pirate Bay, and I don't know what Bofar is, or even what language it might be. It was an artsy film about a little girl realizing how difficult it is to meet society's ideal of "beautiful." This girl arrives at some building that seems to have one purpose, but she finds that it's some kind of magical girls' boarding school, I don't know, what do you call those places where girls go to learn manners and all of that crap? That's what it was. Even though she really enjoyed it at first, she soon realizes that she's becoming trapped in this lifestyle that she doesn't want, but it was too late. Totally a movie I would watch in real life.

There was popcorn, but it was kettle corn, which I hate, and for some reason there were also hats, shaped like Bartman's head, although everyone else insisted that they were dog-shaped. Nearly half the people in attendance left fifteen minutes into the movie which I found to be kind of stupid, because it was really interesting.

I was there with my uncle Mario and his ex-fiancee, Caitlin, and Jack. What else...?

I was wearing pajamas. I haven't worn pajamas in years.

It was a really vivid dream. I can remember some people's faces. The movie had a logo, which was just white text on a red background. People were mostly wearing purple. The inside of the theater was bizarre, the very back rows had to look at the screen through windows, but they had huge, comfortable chairs.

Earlier in the dream, it was raining, and the lives of myself and my family were being threatened by some kind of flying ant swarm... there were little icons on the ground that I had to touch for some reason, that would kill them? I think? I'm forgetting it really quickly.

I really do honestly have these dreams... I worry that people think that I'm making them up, but every detail is as accurate as I can get it.

EDIT: It's called a Charm school, I believe.

Continuing on the recent theme of lists and lists about dating.

I do not recap the toothpaste. I do not put things in drawers if they are things I use every day. I throw my clothes on the floor before I get into bed (and yes, I sleep naked [ladies *wink*]). I tend to make stacks of things to be sorted at a much later date. I generally do not press my clothing. I also tend to dress comfortably and this doesn't usually include fancy clothes. I may not put the seat down after I'm done. I don't see the point of making the bed, and so I don't.

Besides that.

Since I work the hours I do, I'm sleepy most of the time, and sometimes on my break I'll almost doze off. But the breakroom has this time card punching clock in it that makes this loud click every minute as it changes the stamp, so I can never really fall asleep, which is good, since I don't want to get fired or anything. So this noise and my sleepiness will keep me in this state of half-sleep for a few minutes or so, at which time I'll be dreaming but still pretty aware. So last night I was doing this and I was dreaming of a place like the coast of Ireland on an overcast day, and there was this girl there who was completely naked and screaming for some reason (though I couldn't hear the scream, just see the scene). I kept trying to figure out why, but she just kept screaming. It was pretty strange.

Sometimes when I do that I'll dream of little snippets of poetry or sentences that I've never seen before, but when I "wake" I can't remember it clearly except that whatever it was really bothered me. Also, just thinking about doing this is making my eyes water, but I enjoy doing it because it's kind of refreshing and I dream of some pretty weird stuff.

I like girls that are:

-Shorter than me
-A reasonable weight for their height
-Dark-haired
-Wear glasses
-Intelligent
-Artistic
-Pretty, but not in a mainstream sense of pretty. I mean pretty in the sense that Zooey Deschanel is pretty, not... America's Next Top Model pretty. (I've never watched that show btw)
-Of a liberal philosophy but not necessarily one that too closely agrees with my own
-Willing to laugh at my stupid jokes
-Good at singing

Also, I prefer girls who like to do things I've never done, and I also prefer girls of non-Western European descent with an exception for Irish women (rawr).

I may put more here later, but I'm not sure. It's hard for me to list these things, because I just don't keep such things in mind... if I like a girl overall, I'm not going to care if she misses everything on that list.

No more long rides home
No more of your station
I didn't like it anyway

Songs I used to feel guilty about enjoying:

1) New Found Glory - Hit or Miss
2) Sailor Moon - Power of Love
3) Alien Ant Farm - Movies

Songs I still feel guilty about enjoying:

1) Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood
2) Mystikal - Danger
3) Britney Spears - I'm A Slave 4 U

Shut up.

That having been said, it's been requested of me to describe my perfect girl. That's a pretty difficult task, so while I'm thinking of that I'll list a few qualities that render a lady uninteresting to me.

I don't like girls who:

-are too skinny or too fat
-are a lot taller than me
-enjoy watching sports
-are primarily right-wing in ideology
-like techno clubs
-are blonde
-prefer to listen to gangsta rap
-are excessively religious
-eat salad all the time
-choose to wear contacts over glasses, exception if said contacts make your eyes look weird
-enjoy the comedy stylings of Carlos Mencia

Mind you, I'm not saying that I don't like girls who have these qualities, just that I tend not to want to date them.

EDIT: I would like a boba tea.

Being able to breathe is basically the best thing ever.

Katakana is going okay, I've just barely started though. I'm aware that all I'm really learning right now is the alphabet, so the hard stuff is yet to come.

I listened to a story last night (from Democracy Now) about a guy whose brothers had been shot by Israeli soldiers. One of them was killed immediately, the other was only shot in the leg. But they wouldn't allow anyone to come and assist him, and they wouldn't let him go get help, so over the course of twenty hours or so he bled to death. Good job, Israel. It really annoys me that we support these people, even though they've got a blockade set up around Gaza. Obama said recently that we weren't at war with Islam, but the sheer fact that we blindly support Israel in this conflict means that we are indeed at war with Islam.

Bess showed me a site this morning, zipia.net, that has a bunch of awesome stuff. I haven't stopped looking at it since she showed it to me.

I have seven more days before I get another day off.

Things I am going to do in the coming month:

-Go see This American Life on the 23rd
-Some kind of show at the Hi-Dive on the 1st of May

Right now I'm going to go to sleep.

At times, instead of using real curse words in frustration, I will instead use the word "pants!" or "sandwich!"

I'm getting tired of my job... I hate the night shift. I think I've said this before, but I'm not sure.

Today I'm going to start studying katakana, and I will also look for classes to become NRA handgun certified. I'm sick of guarding malls, too.

While on patrol last night, I saw this old looking building with a sign that said "Stapleton Control Tower." I guess it was part of the old airport, but it was all fenced off and windows were broken, etc. I want to go look inside, I bet it's interesting.

I need to pay my taxes today.

The more I study kana, the less it appears like a human language and more like something an elder god would write. I've been struggling and struggling with characters like ち and さ that are just laterally flipped.  Or め and ぬ whose only difference is a tiny little bit of what is essentially SERIF.  It's frustrating.

But like I said before, I'm using this game Slime Forest, and it's really helpful.  I tweaked the settings to really turn up the review and I definitely am learning.  The hardest part is recognizing that I'm not going to be fluent overnight.  If only I could find a copy of download-shit-into-your-brain-V1.0.exe, then I could learn it in just a couple of minutes.

EDIT:  So, I've pretty much got normal hiragana down now... the muddied ones are a lot harder to get used to.  But I'm getting there, definitely.

EDIT AGAIN:  I can recognize all hiragana... for now.  I'll probably forget a lot soon, but I feel pretty good about that.

I registered a copy of Slime Forest today. If you've never heard of it, it's basically a game that teaches you to recognize Japanese characters. It's pretty well done, and inexpensive considering how well it teaches you.

I like learning new things; I just have trouble being motivated.

So, I've tentatively set up a roadtrip with my friend, Johnathan, to go to AnimeNEXT in New Jersey... not for the anime, because I'm not exactly a big anime guy, but Fake? is playing there, so I basically have to go, because when do they ever play in AmeriKKKa?

I've never been on a roadtrip before, so I'm a little apprehensive about it, but I know it'll be fun.

Anyone have any advice for a fellow traveler? (yes i know I'm misusing that phrase)

The state of Colorado is predicting the end times because of the snow, so if I don't make it home... come rescue me.  </malcolm>

Is it weird that I want to join the French Foreign Legion?

So I just got finished watching The Colbert Report for March 11th (now that I think about it, I seem to watch a lot more TV then I like to say I do). There's a segment on that episode about improved sales of the novel Atlas Shrugged, and how someone's posted a website (goingjohngalt.org) and calling for a strike among the so-called "productive" members of society, to tell the "victimizers" (the people that taxes go to, to help) to fuck off, so to speak. I kind of feel like I'm the only one who sees how crazy that is.

The reason why this call is being made is because of the tax hike on the richest Americans--but the thing is that people wealthy enough to be in that bracket don't produce anything on their own. They don't mine copper, bake cakes, run classes, or stop criminals. They just move money around, or manage people who don't really need managing. People who truly produce something don't get paid a lot of money--in fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but it generally appears that the more you physically produce, the less you get paid. It's appalling that the rich want to tell the poor to go die in the corner after they've taken advantage of them. It's the same reason I support affirmative action--we don't tell the disenfranchised black to piss off.

Someone tried to lend me a copy of Atlas Shrugged when I was 15 or so, but I couldn't even get past the first few pages because it was so dry. I've since read a little further on Ayn Rand and objectivism, and the more I read, the unhappier I am that there are people out there so fucking selfish as to openly declare war on the poor.

I don't believe the oft-repeated right-wing lie that the poor just don't want to work. Sometimes you just can't get enough work, or any work at all. Yes, there are people who will cheat the system--but what would you rather have: innocent people starving so you can make sure there's no cheaters, or feed some guilty people to make sure the genuinely poor get helped? I'll go with the second option, every single time--but I'm not as heartless as an objectivist.

EDIT: I thought it was disgusting to read the posts on that site--I hadn't read any of the comments.

EDIT #2: "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. "

I'll pile high to the sky
Bodies of my ex lover's lovers
Watch them die, die, die

Today, I went to Microcenter and got a 500GB external hard drive, a 4GB thumb drive, and a 2GB SD card for $117. I'm very excited. I can finally keep backups and not be an idiot! I'm happy that memory is so cheap nowadays.

There's an app on Facebook called Interview, and it asks you a bunch of questions that people can look through. I decided I'd take the list of questions I'd finished and post them up here. The list should be in reverse, but it was easier to copy it this way. Also, there are a lot of repeats.

( There's a lot of 'em. )

From an interview with Paul Coelho, author of The Alchemist:

"When you were 17 your parents had you committed to an asylum.

Yes, three times, and also I was in jail three times, but I never saw myself as a victim. This is part of my journey. My parents wanted me to follow their dreams, not my dreams, and the simple fact that I didn't accept that does not make me a criminal or an outcast."

See? I'm not the only one saying this.

Yay for days off!

I was thinking about intelligent design the other day, and how it probably isn't true by sheer virtue of how poorly designed the human body is. Genitals outside the body present a huge vulnerability, for example. The organs have a tendency to break down. We're not all that resistant to disease.

But then I started thinking about how I would design a human. First I went in one direction and decided upon things like spikes, armor plating, heat/cold resistance, increase in strength, increase in metabolism, et cetera... but I realized I was thinking purely in terms of combat, and I didn't want my little beasties to kill each other anyway. So how do you make something not want to kill, if you can't directly control its mental processes? You could make it herbivorous, but that would only keep it from killing for food. Or, you could make it extremely weak and fragile, stoppable by the weakest of projectiles, felled by the most minor of viruses, so that combat now becomes a huge threat to one's own safety. But aren't we already that way? Following this train of thought, I could see there being a designer who was possibly not that intelligent, who wanted only the best for us. But how can you stop something with free will (as far as we have free will, that is) from fighting besides what issues we already have?

I'm an atheist, but I find myself arguing in the direction that is opposite of my personal views on this pretty often. I don't particularly care for the idea of god/gods, unless there's a whole pantheon that physically manifest themselves... but we don't have that. I think what I have trouble with is that I don't know where the universe came from, and I would very much like to know, but I will probably be dead before we figure that out.

On a topic related to that last sentence, people who believe in cryonics bother me. Even if you could freeze yourself and be revived later, why do you think you're so important that people would want to bring you back? You're no Albert Einstein. Idiots.

I want to run away with you tonight

Here's an opinion I have that people tend not to like:

Homosexuality is a biological malfunction. But, it's also highly beneficial to the human race. Since the planet is so overpopulated, gay people are exactly what we need right now. After all, they can't reproduce, and often adopt orphaned children. People jumped all over Dr. Laura's ass when she said the same thing, but if it's not a biological malfunction, what is it? The purpose of life, on a purely instinctual level, is to reproduce, and gay sex doesn't really fit into that.

Last night was pretty boring. I met some people that were clearly on meth... face all covered in sores, teeth missing. They asked me for a ride, but there's no way I'm going to get anywhere near somebody on meth. I feel for the homeless, but I'm not sure I feel the same way for people who get addicted to drugs and become homeless as a result. There's a certain point, the moment you're putting the pipe to your lips for example, that you need to remember that what you're about to do is going to make you an addict. If you don't, well, it's nothing to do with me. There's a huge difference between marijuana and meth. Both are addictive, but you never really see people go homeless over pot.

My latest attempt to become vegan has failed, just like the last time. It's distressing, because every time I put meat to my lips I think about how I would like being raised for slaughter... I'm not opposed to the idea of eating meat, but I'm against the idea of imprisoning something just to kill it later. Maybe I can start eating meat that comes from animals that were hunted. That seems a little more fair. Maybe I should look into hunting. That doesn't seem hypocritical.

I was talking this morning with my coworker, Skip, and the topic was the things Obama is doing that we don't like. Keeping rendering on the table and keeping people imprisoned without charging them. That's annoying. He suggested that what we needed to do was take to the streets and be heard, and that the nation's youth would do it, but I'm not so sure. We're too lazy.

Man, do you know how long it's been since I've heard this song? Like 12 years.

As far back as Vietnam we should have learned our lesson
But we closed our eyes and sent our sons away

In an unordered list.

• "Alright." That's not how you spell it.


• The entire bad_service community, and everyone who has ever posted there. If you can't understand why the common retail job is hard and causes people to give bad service, then you're retarded.


• "Irregardless." That's not even a real word.


• Republicans. They just don't care about anyone but themselves.


• Zoos. Animal imprisonment.


• Any form of gun ban. Bans only affect people who obey the law... idiots.


• Headaches.


• Opera.


• For that matter, all bourgeois art. Abstract art is in here. So is the majority of sculpture.


• Stress.


• Residue.


• Joni Mitchell's version of "Woodstock."


• Waking up to an alarm.


• Waking up with a song stuck in my head.


• Boxxy.

Sitting here, absorbing salvation
It's clear I'm lost and blind
Why can't I decide?