I am unemployed, have $11k worth of excess inventory, was knocked across four lanes of the 405 by an idiot in a Lincoln Towncar and had to spend $5k on bills yesterday. But by this time of the year I've usually been unemployed for six weeks, can probably turn that $11k into substantially more over time, and both me and the bike came out of our misadventure in pretty righteous shape. Not only that, but their appraiser is coming by this afternoon and since I don't need to be 40 miles away 5 days a week, I can afford to kick it a little and build the beastie back up right. It rained on Saturday and the air is kind of clear, I can have lunch with a buddy and I'm starting to make all those calls you make when you've been working impossibly hard for 4 months and have lost touch with everybody. Shit, I even had time to play some PS3 last night. And I don't have to drink Hollywood Catering's coffee anymore. Fuck yeah.
Sitting in SFO airport drinking what Hunter S Thompson would call breakfast. Chased an interesting interview with a quantum physicist in SF who ties in to the theatrical project and who has fired me off like a high energy particle to collide with others. This state of yours is pretty great so far.
I know, actually, way too much about Hunter S. Thompson's eating habits, so I'll quibble very slightly with you -- HST daily ate a massive breakfast in the classical vein; he loved breakfast. Defined, of course, as the first meal of the day. So usually around 3-4pm. And naturally he had to have some whiskey or rum with it. But still. Anyway. I gotta have some payoff for reading all of his insane rambling letters and journal entries.
Ah yes I remember the full list cited somewhere (Great Shark Hunt?) or an article. Newspapers, grapefruits, a sharp knife, eggs, sausage, rum, ice, bloody Mary. It was the breakfast of a man who was going into battle. Edit: "Breakfast is the only meal of the day that I tend to view with the same kind of traditionalized reverence that most people associate with Lunch and Dinner. I like to eat breakfast alone, and almost never before noon; anybody with a terminally jangled lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor every twenty-four hours, and mine is breakfast. In Hong Kong, Dallas or at home — and regardless of whether or not I have been to bed — breakfast is a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess. The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert... Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music… All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked." - HST
Walking to my bicycle parking spot after classes, I held my ears as three fire engines sirened by. As the fire engines approached the traffic signal, they made a loud honking, like a tyranosaurus might sound during coitus. After they passed, a man who had been standing next to me said, "When you die and go to Hell, that's the music they play all the time."
Thanks a lot. I was just that guy that sits in a restaurant alone, reading his phone and then laughs way too loudly. I wanted to say to the table next to me, "no, you don't understand... someone just compared a fire trucks siren to a t-Rex climaxing." Then they'd all understand and we'd laugh together, but I still wouldn't share my sushi with them.
Today I'm in South Carolina, Myrtle Beach to be exact. I'll be calling on an account that is worth about $5 million. Tonight, I drive up the coast to Wilmington North Carolina. Tomorrow morning I meet with an account worth $1 million. I project that next year my goal will be around 30 million in revenue. Therefore, in two days time I will have brought in roughly 20% of my 2015 goal, if I'm able to close. It's a big couple of days for me. My hope is to get the signing today, head up a bit early to my hotel in Wilmington and go for a run along the river walk at sunset. Then, I have some additional work to do, mostly compliance training. After that, a late dinner, probably sushi and then I'm headed to see cW, unbeknownst to him at the place he works. They have fantastic cocktails! I will return late tomorrow night, pick up my daughter and drive to Michigan. We will likely get a hotel room at the halfway point. I'm excited to see mk, b_b, ecib, and the others in Michigan this Saturday. This will be a fun, but busy week.
edit got the big deal!!!!!!
I don't get to choose my car, it's given to me by the company. It used to be a Taurus, but they decided to give us more fuel efficient cars and now it's a Fusion. We get to have the car until it reaches 70,000 miles, then we get a new model, or the option to buy it at a large discount. We drive so much that this is basically every 2 to 3 years. It's a pretty awesome perk of the job, what's really cool is that they don't regulate that we can't use it for personal use. But the absolute best part is that I don't have to pay for the gas. But, if I were able to choose the car I drove it would most certainly not be a Ford Fusion. I did enjoy driving the Taurus, it was a very smooth ride, the seats were comfortable and it was spacious. However, if I had my druthers I'd be in another car. Not sure what really, just not this.
Got a few things this week, since I've been gone. 1. Sent in my application to Colgate a couple days ago; now it's just a waiting game until December. Super excited to see how this turns out! Although apparently they still don't have a financial aid thing that I sent in back in mid-October, so I'm gonna have to call the admissions dept. when I get a chance. I hate phones. 2. I went to my first proper teenage party on Hallowe'en. I didn't actually expect to; I was invited to this party by a friend who usually has pretty mellow gatherings. But this time she invited some of her other friends (i.e. not in our shared friend group thing) and they were more into the partying thing, so we basically danced to loud pop/hip-hop for 3ish hours. It was especially awesome because I was the only guy there out of maybe 20 people, so I was flirting it up all night. Of course I didn't actually get any numbers because I couldn't bring myself to because I still dig my ex and she was even at the damn party, but, y'know. Still fun. Anyway, it got me thinking I could see myself doing this in college and now I'm super excited to go all over again. 3. Speaking of my ex: God, our relationship is weird. Let me know if any of you want the full story, but suffice it to say we hang out basically every day and flirt relentlessly, but I don't think either of us is sure whether either of us wants to get back together. 4. Speaking of college (from back in point 2): I can't wait to go to college because I want to play baseball again. I played six seasons (so like 3.5 yrs?) back in elementary school, in the local youth league, but dropped it in middle school because my fear of getting hit was crippling my batting and basically making the whole thing not fun anymore. But I recently read a book (which I think I've mentioned elsewhere here - maybe in a 3-word story?) called The Art of Fielding that revitalized my interest in the sport, and I read a couple essays on it, and of course then came the World Series, and now I really really want to play again. It strikes me as a singularly beautiful game, and of course when I got out my glove the other day to field a couple grounders and check out how my chops were, it felt profoundly right. So that's exciting. 5. Today my best friend got back from a college trip and there was no food in his fridge, so for lunch we walked to Subway in the rain. (Despite the totalitarian ambitions of our principals and parent council, the head of high school where I go to school (which is K-12) is fantastically lax and basically lets us do what we want. It's awesome.) It was really nice and gave us a chance to catch up, so that was cool. I would advise everyone reading to take at least one walk in the rain, sans umbrella, with a good friend at least once in their life. All right, that's all I got. If you got this far, thanks for sticking with me. I'm off to write an essay on Conrad's Lord Jim.
Good with Colgate, I hope you end up getting in and all that good stuff. It's a cool place from what I've seen of it. Baseball is my favorite sport, and I think flagamuffin can agree with that. It isn't a perfect game, but it is a beautiful one. I hope you end up getting back into it, it's something I've been thinking about too but that time has passed for now. Even just playing catch with somebody is a nice experience. Don't get used to be the only guy at a party, that's a luxury. I think.
December is fast approaching! I have a bunch of big deadlines in a couple of weeks and I'm starting to feel the pressure. It's been making me more productive, though. Last weekend and this weekend I am with my family, who flew in to Canada. Great to see them again after what felt like an eternity. This Saturday we'll celebrate my birthday, which is tomorrow. As a gift to myself, I wanted better audio gear, so I got the Audio-Technica ATH-M50x for cheap on Massdrop, and I'm gonna look for a proper desktop mic, something like the Yeti Blue or the AT2020 (any tips, kleinbl00?). Totally unrelated sidenote, but does anyone here have an opinion on poststructuralism? I was introduced to the concept yesterday and I'm not sure what to think of it.
I came across this video a couple years back. It's gold. I seem to remember that it's possibly nsfw near the end. Maybe.What is poststructuralism
Love the sound quality. Even my own voice sounds really nice on it. Preface: poststructuralism is really hard to explain. I'm kinda hoping someone can help me with it. I'll try my best though. So in my political ecology class, we've been talking about how power relations influence ecological issues. Natural resources give power to those who extract it. For example, a large oil company will use the profits from natural resources extraction to lobby for policies in their best interest, which allows them to retain or expand their power. The premise of political ecology is that almost all ecological problems are a power problems, because the gains and losses from these problems are distributed unequally. To keep with the oil company example, Ecuadorian indigenous people had their habitats relentlessly and irreparably damaged due to environmental damage from Texaco's oil extraction. These local people couldn't get the large company to pay damages, and they weren't getting any bit of the profits either, because they didn't have any power to exert over them. When they tried to fight back, Texaco sent hired militia on their ass and put the protesters in jail for obstructing a project of national importance (militia paid with oil profits, ironically). Structuralism says that we need to look at such a case as a result of larger structures. It is not the individual who has full control here. Rather, the individual is heavily influenced by the structure already there. It's like a game of chess: the pieces can move, but only within the game's rules and constraints. Early Marxism (AFAIK) was about this too: capitalism creates an inherently unequal playing field. While a lot of people disagree about how he wanted to change inequality (he wanted revolutions and communism), he thought in a structuralist way about society. The consequence of this is that responsibility is taken away from the individual and put on the system. Now, my first response was "structure's nice and all, but it can't account for everything, right?" Turns out that I'm not the only one who thought about it that way. Post-structuralism is a response to structuralism. While I haven't read any of these authors, it often linked to Foucalt, Nietzsche and Derrida. It's not a rejection, but a critique of some of its assumptions, taking the theory in a different direction. Think of it like calling indigo 'post-purple': it still looks similar, but it is just different enough to call it by a different name. What I think they're trying to say with post-structuralism is that while it is a good idea to look at structures, we must take into account that everyone perceives these structures differently. Language is the most used example of this. When you write a piece of text, it can (and will) be interpreted differently by every reader: the meaning changes from person to person based on who they are. Language is not a thing that is objectively true, detached from humans. Rather, it is a social construct. In turn, language shapes our way of thinking, too. In turn, language shapes our way of thinking, too. The concept of 'nature', too, is a social construct. What you think of as nature is heavily influenced by your anthropocentric view. For instance, do a quick Google Image search of the word nature. Out of all these images, how many of them feature humans? I counted only two. Even though we're obviously a part of nature due to our influence, we often think of nature as places where humans aren't. So we go and find ourselves some 'wilderness' in national parks, which are highly controlled areas if you think about it: only certain activities are allowed, those that fit our image of what a national park ought to be. You always see this image of Moraine Lake, for example: But you never see the parking lot that is just to the right of this picture, because it doesn't fit our image of nature. And because we never include people in pictures of nature, our concept of nature becomes devoid of humans. It's a feedback loop. More general, I think the theory argues that because so much meaning is dependant on the receiver, that you can't really speak about the structure like structuralists want to believe. There is no objectivity in anything that deals with meaning. And because we base our knowledge of concepts like nature on our image of it, these social constructs influence how you think about concepts. The what-are-the-implications part is where I'm the least certain, though. I have another lecture tomorrow, about the implications this has for science, so I'll see how that will go.
My initial reaction was "sounds like a bunch of navel-staring semiotics." Then I spent 20 minutes bouncing around Wikipedia to conclude that "it sounds like a bunch of navel-staring semiotics." I've never read Derrida. I've read people describing Derrida and they make him sound like a jackass. I have read Nietzsche and I have no qualms whatsoever stating that he was a stone-cold jackass. Sorry for responding to your essay with terse doggerel, but you're describing a corner of philosophy that makes me hate philosophy.
Yeah, that's sort of the underlying problem I have with this idea. Am I not getting it completely or are they talking out of their asses? Some of the articles talk about the dominant ways of thinking in science, and while that is a legitimate question, they then talk about scientists having a hard time accepting their way of thinking - a red flag for me. There's parts of the idea that I think does hold up as more than navel-gazing. Thinking about how structure / society influences your decisions is an important part, for example. Language definitely shapes the way you think. What appeals to me is that it questions basic assumptions about how we think about the world. It basically implies that anything beyond STEM science is heavily influenced by how we think about it, and that we need to take a serious look at our biases (I might be reading too much into it though).
I thought about this, and I'm less full of vinegar. Here's the problem: If someone puts forth ideas, their ideas can stand on their own merits. If someone puts forth a classification system to discuss all similar ideas, the individual ideas cease to matter - it is the characteristics those ideas share in common that becomes the subject of discussion. I can't recall a single good idea Nietschze had. But I read 'em. Derrida? Derrida I've only seen talked about and what people say annoys me. So by slamming Derrida under the label of "poststructuralism" I'm given a handy way to evaluate Derrida without having to read Derrida, and I don't think that does anyone any good. If you're a philosopher, and you want to talk about all the different people who have said similar things, a label like "poststructuralism" is useful in shop talk. But if you want to hear ideas, it isn't. After all, "convertibles" covers everything from the Geo Metro to the Ferrari California. One of those I'd like to drive. The other? Not so much.
Yay! I think "post structuralism" in poetry would probably relate to the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, and/or nonsense, and/or Dada-ist poets. Not too well read on those. Also, "de constructivist" performance pieces.
My general casual rule of thumb is that anything "post-" something else pretty much exists only to critique that other thing which invariably came before. With that in mind it becomes almost too easy to dismiss "post-" movements as "all commentary and no original, and therefore not as creative or interesting." Duchamps was a post-. It also seems like a potentially lazy way that historians use to categorize a movement when they aren't quite sure what else to call it. So burn the label. - Dada would approve.
JOIN US. So like, I just finished IJ, and I'm super stoked about it cause it's been a several month long process and I had planned to do it a few years ago. Let's chat about it when you're done. No spoilers, I promise, just some stuff I would have done:
Take hella notes. Windows are an important allegory, so pay attention when they come up (I didn't as much as I should have), and re-read the first 50 or so pages whenever you finish it. Don't really stretch your noggin trying to put the story together too much, it was pretty much made to be intentionally distracting to the linear progress of events, and there's plenty of resources you can find afterwards that tie it together in a linear fashion. Resist all temptation to look at them while you're reading it, though. And just enjoy it, it's an amazing novel. It really drives home the place and purpose of literature in modern times.
Got 100 pages in, restarted, got 100 pages in again, saw the thread of you and _refugee_ mentioning addiction. Surprised neither of you mentioned mental illness, so far it's had anxiety, depression, mania, paranoia. It seems like this book doesn't want to leave any state of consciousness untouched.
I would highly, highly suggest you finish it, it gets much better as it goes on, and is more actively engaging. You are totally hitting on very good points that are thoroughly interrogated throughout the entire novel. I think what I get from DFW is less of a compartmentalization of the various states, but a fluidity and equivocation amongst them. Addiction gathers all of this as a focal point because of the addiction is a universal state, a process which everyone is undergoing (in the novel), and being treated for. There are rituals, rote practice, un- awareness, over-awareness as manifested by an addictive state of being. While it is handy to not read as cases from the DSM, I will probably keep this in mind whenever I re-read it, there are plenty of things lost on me the first go-round.
ugh. I know that feeling. I would def love to hear your thoughts after you're done or even before that!
Figured I'd poke my head back in and say I'm right around page 666 (Though I'm well behind in the footnotes). Definitely didn't think I was going to make it this far, but I'm slowly chugging through. It's weird to think that it's been lurking in the back of my mind for pretty much the entire last month...
You're definitely getting through it faster than I did! I do have to say that some central stuff happens in some of the footnotes, though, so don't get too far behind.
Having the audiobook helps. I got up to the footnotes that start turning into chapters and then decided I'd put them off until I had time to sit down and read through them for an afternoon. Being an expert procrastinator, that afternoon has yet to materialize.
It will be a lovely afternoon. Also, I can't for the life of me listen to any audiobook except for nonfiction or very casual fiction, I too easily lose track of what's going on and can't like, build the story in my head that same way as I can when reading. I keep seeing the stream of words in my head, and am not translating it into like, a metaphysical space where I am processing the symbols themselves, or letting my imagination run along with the novel, if that makes any sense. It seems to work fine for most everyone else, so it's just me, but the best I can do well is podcasts, cause they have a conversational tone to them that makes it easier to sort of put on the backburner and enjoy. I wish I could do it a lot more easily, I have way more time to listen than to sit down and read.
Re you and _refugee_: So apparently this book is classified as "post-modernism", which I only learned about when veen mentioned the topic a week or so ago. I'm not sure if that label is given for the overall philosophies or the actual writing style of the author. But if it's the latter, it reminds me a lot of video games: in the sense that you find documents throughout a level giving you the optional backstory on the setting and characters (A la). I'm given the impression that the book is a merge of a traditionally written story and the side-stories that may not fit into its chronology but make for fun writing exercises in the process of the central storyline. The same way an author might draft character profiles before starting on the main work, I feel like DFW takes those same accessory stories and drops them into both the footnotes and the main body of the book. It may be an odd observation / guess, but I can't help but wonder to what extent the book was deliberately designed in advance and conversely how much was written without pre-meditated purpose.
According to his editor, DFW thought that everything in the novel was necessary for the work as a whole. Post-modernism operates partially in response to stream-of-consciousness modernist lit, wherein the authors (Joyce et al) admittedly vomited onto a page in order to authentically capture, without editing, the essential element of literature, the authorship and the artist's mind-gaze, so I would hesitate at thinking it is just a flurry of homeless ideas. Also, he admitted to using the footnotes as a way to disrupt the narrative and any linearity you even have. Confusion is only natural and this is part of the experience of reading the novel. You will not gain much by following just the plot while reading. The joy is simply reading the work and the thoughts pouring out. There's a world of difference between post-modern philosophy and post-modern literature, but DFW was aware of both as the son of a philosopher and he incorporates some hard-line philosophy into his work, however, post-modernism in literature is also (partly) about the relationship of the author to the work, the reader, the voice, and other literary forebears. This is not to say these things were not taken into account beforehand, but previously was not so endemic in the writing. The "asides" and plots tangential to the main thread is an stylistically classic example of post-modern literature. Italian Neorealism also contained some concurrent stylistic choices (though obviously the gaze is literally controlled by a director, so there are essential differences, but this video helps visually elaborate similar stylistic choices), namely a focus on the world inhabited by the characters and not simply treating them as background actors (or "figurants", DFW ruminates on this at a later point in the novel. the relationship of the characters to the main plot is very very important, and pay attention to that. Not necessarily what they are doing in the plot, but their relationship to the plot. ie, how many of them make choices, what choices does anyone make, are any of them drone-like in response to the robust environment around them? are you even watching the main characters of the actual story?) The term for such a splayed-out world is an Encyclopedic Novel. The ability to not just regurgitate common narratives, but instead investigate their origins and the fractionation amongst the belief systems, and where the knowledge to build these ideologies comes from is central to this stylistic choice (he does this a lot with his elaborations on trope-y sayings ("One day at a a time") the context of their meaning and assmiliation). It is not a whimsical one done idly. This is a driving force amongst post-modern lit to discuss our relationship with knowledge and information, which I believe to be an important aspect considering we now live in such a fractalized and information-rich society. In video games, I would say that that is less of an meaningful choice to establish an idea in the narrative, but to generate further environmental and emotional investment in the plot and characters. Not to say that they are not indebted to literary and film influence, but I don't think they have sufficiently matured to the point at which you can say either "This is an art form that encompasses all possibilities of the form" or "they contribute to the understanding of their place in society" It's difficult to try and parse out exactly "Why" each character and plot is weaved in, but they have some significance and meaning, and a lot of times these digressions are used to reinforce and elaborate on particular themes (of which there are a lot in IJ), to provide counterpoints, or different interpretations. Don't sweat too much trying to tease apart a plot, you will miss half of the real reason why this novel is so enjoyable and thought-provoking, and going back afterwards and finding a timeline of chronology is easy to (do not do this while reading). Really think about who's eyes you are looking through and what contains meaning in all the information. DFW did not just put the puzzle pieces on a table and say "figure it out", post-modernism is looking at the pieces, realizing most of the shapes don't even match or are redundant, then wondering about the economic system that brought the puzzle to the store you bought it from, what the worker's lives are like who made the thing, and if they've even know what or will ever see for themselves the Eiffel Tower on the front of the box.
... It's difficult to try and parse out exactly "Why" each character and plot is weaved in, but they have some significance and meaning, and a lot of times these digressions are used to reinforce and elaborate on particular themes (of which there are a lot in IJ), to provide counterpoints, or different interpretations. Forgot to say, finished the body of the text last Friday on a plane-catered-coffee-fueled 150-page binge. Now I'm going through the footnotes, since I skipped most of them when I wasn't listening with a book handy. Figured you might appreciate #61: More thoughts will arrive at an undetermined point in the future. I'm still deciding which of the remaining mysteries / questions I'd like to think more about.The term for such a splayed-out world is an Encyclopedic Novel. The ability to not just regurgitate common narratives, but instead investigate their origins and the fractionation amongst the belief systems, and where the knowledge to build these ideologies comes from is central to this stylistic choice (he does this a lot with his elaborations on trope-y sayings ("One day at a a time") the context of their meaning and assmiliation). It is not a whimsical one done idly. This is a driving force amongst post-modern lit to discuss our relationship with knowledge and information, which I believe to be an important aspect considering we now live in such a fractalized and information-rich society.
An après-garde digital movement, a.k.a. 'Digital Parallelism' and 'Cinema of Chaotic Stasis,' characterized by a stubborn and possibly intentionally irritating refusal of different narrative lines to merge into any kind of meaningful confluence, the school derived from both the narrative bradykineticism of Antonioni and the disassociative formalism of Stan Brakhage and Hollis Frampton, comprising periods in the careers of the late Beth B., the Snow brothers, Vigdis Simpson, and the late J. O. Incandenza (middle period).
Haha, much appreciated considering i feel like a a mostly ham-handed moron most of the time, and I so don't feel totally like this is an very accurate run-down.
I'm not even sure what to report. I'll stick with food and liquor for the time being. Picked up a 6 pack of Short's Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster the other day. It's a gorgeous beer that I've had once before on tap. Double White Belgian IPA, heavy on citrus flavor, surprisingly light on the herbal hops, or peppercorns I've come to associate with belgians, and double IPA's. I've adopted the 'beer and a bump' methodology of drinking lately, sticking to a single beer and a small glass of something light to dark brown, with an ice cube. Maker's Mark has been a key feature, in small, long lasting glasses. I'm still plotting a stew for my Grubski post, and I keep changing my mind. A Greek/Mediterranean lamb stew with focaccia sounds great, but then so does a white bean chicken chili, done with white pepper, roasted garlic and a load of wine. And then we talked about various traditional African gumbos in anthropology this morning, and a millet thickened beef stew with bitter herbs and honey-mead sounded awesome. So, I have no idea. At this point I usually spin a globe and pick an inspired dish from wherever my finger lands when it stops.
I've been swamped with work and friends while trying to play some Kerbal Space Program before it enters beta here before the end of the year. Looks like I am going to have to do an "accelerated upgrade schedule" for some major software. And I had a hardware fault that justified paying the serious coin for 24/7 support and 4 hour part drop shipping. I have to winterize the yard tomorrow, and on Sunday I am going to do an outreach event and show the sun to people in front of a library with my telescope. I'm beat, excited, thrilled that I can do this job and get paid for it, and in all life is good.
I had an awesome day yesterday with a friend. We hung out on Pearl Street and it was the first time I'd had positive thoughts about Boulder in a while. The Haagen Dazs helped with that, I'm sure. It'd be way more bearable if more friends like her went to school here, but, alas. She was only up here for a few hours and she could already tell where I was coming from in terms of getting sick of the place. In any case. OftenBen! I believe it was you that was considering getting a Pebble. I've had mine for about 3 days now. First impressions are pretty good. It took a bit of poking around to customize to be just right, but I love doing that shit anyways. I can play my music from my phone/ipod on it, play tetris, get lots of notifications from different things, set alarms, etc. etc. Would I recommend it for $150? Absolutely not. For the $50 that I got it at? Hell yeah. Here's my bomb Persona 4 watchface:
How do you like the control interface? Is it pretty responsive? I'm essentially waiting until I can get a pip-boy, which I'm imagining will be soon. I'll have a wrist mounted smartphone-type-thing, and a google glass like thing with an earpiece. I'm not sure how much further I can augment my reality comfortably past that, but we'll see I'm sure.
Pretty responsive! The buttons require a tiiiny bit of extra pressure to push in, but I like that anyways because I have my watch usually pretty close to where my wrist and my hand meet, and I wouldn't want the buttons to get pushed on accident. What's pretty cool is that I can connect my phone to my external speakers and then remote control my music around the house with a few wrist taps. Edit: Oh, and you can set long-presses for buttons to make them shortcuts. I have the top button for notifications, and the bottom go straight to my music.
Biological assay sensitivity typically far exceeds the range of biological noise. My life is full of efforts to isolate cause and effect from false positives. Also, I suspect that my thinking works against me. Nature does not fear complexity nor interdependence. Yet, I am charged with looking into the causes of observable difference, and worse, reproducing the difference by operating upon an isolation that is largely rooted in perception, which is necessarily caged by the limits of human comprehension.
I want to live in a small cabin on the best fly-fishing river in the world, get my groceries emailed to me and read the entire corpus of human thought.
Watching Dead Man on Netflix - Jim Jarmusch directs with johny depp. I just realized that Johnny depp always has epic hats. Pirates. Fear and loathing. MOTHER FUCKING ALICE IN WONDERLAND. HES THE MAD HATTER. Maybe he just has a funny shaped head. Someone make an imgur album with all his hats.
Because of you guys last night I dreamed I met Taylor Swift (as in, I met her because of an article posted to Hubski, which by the way I haven't yet posted to Hubski because who cares besides me and 8bit) and she gave me a hug. I also dreamed about a crazy bitch former friend who told me she was driving up her bandwidth bill because of spending too much time on Hubski. Even in my dream I had to wonder if she knew what my username was. I go "home" - back to my little portion of the NE tomorrow - but really I head right to Philadelphia to spend the night and do some baking with a friend of mine. Back to my actual residence and my poor kitten Saturday. I also dreamed about a cat my parents had who is long dead. In my dream he was just a fluffy kitten.
Waiting on a response one way or the other from a company for who made it to the final round of interviews, which will be a week from Friday. Trying to find motivation for my engineering work but it's really hard. Watching No Reservations and hearing the story of a guy in Laos who lost limbs due to an unexploded bomb from the American campaign in Laos from before he was even born. Feeling kind of angry about that. It's hard to justify doing engineering work to make some guy/girl rich when there's so much suffering in the world.
Waiting on a response one way or the other too. Wish you the best. Love me some Bourdain by the way.
I'm well and truly in the full flow of my masters work. The current projects I'm working on are 6 short composition studies, which will be developed and go on to make up a 10 minute composition; a 6-10 minute collaborative, projection mapped short film; and a critical research essay. I'm enjoying it all, but still concerned about my plans and prospects for when I graduate. In a dream world I'd move to Vancouver and get some sort of music and/or sound job. I've started going to the climbing wall recently. I used to do it a lot as a kid. My parents were Venture Scout leaders so I got to go on all sorts of cool adventures. I'm eating much better than I ever was at undergrad, and rediscovering my love of cooking. I wanted to be a chef when I was younger so it's cool to get back in the grove. I'm also scouting out an open mic evening to attend and give my voice its first live public appearance. I guess things don't seem too shabby when I type it all out like that.