In the movie, Garden State, one of the main characters says to the other, “You gotta hear this one song. It’ll change your life.” That song is from the Shin’s Oh, Inverted World, which I’ve been slowly growing into over the last few days. I wouldn’t say the album is life changing, but it has put me into a strangely nostalgic mindset. Somehow, it’s made me step back and see that, for years now, I’ve been living like I’m an old man.

I care about my dead career, my car, taping TV, and a bunch of other thoroughly aimless bullshit that, if left unchecked, will eat enough years to leave me looking back and my life with nothing more to say than, “What the fuck did I do.

It wasn’t always like this.

There was a time when everyone I knew would drop by each other’s apartments with no time table nor plans to speak of. We would end up watching crappy TV together, and inevitably either stay too long or fall asleep right on each other’s floors. There was always a stream of people in and out of wherever we were, and there was always nothing going on in a number of places.

Now, it seems that the apartments have turned to houses, and everyone has grown into adults. Phone calls that used to be made on the road simply to establish where everyone was, now they need to be made 3 days in advance and with a purpose and definite timetable to frame any and all plans. We used to pick each other up and drive together. When was the last time that you picked someone up to go somewhere? When was the last time that you had four people in a car that weren’t either children or another couple?

Don’t ask me, because I couldn’t tell you. I can’t even remember the last time I called anyone just to hang out without including a meal, or the last time someone dropped by unannounced, nevermind someone falling asleep on my floor. I have no idea when the last time I went to a full-on house party was, or the last time that someone wanted to aimlessly spend time with me without plans or time limits purely for the company.

Maybe that’s what growing old is all about. Maybe it truly is about loss. Maybe it’s about losing interest, and having others lose interest in you.

Then again, maybe I should throw the Shins out the window and put the Slayer back in the player.

I’m getting a big, blue fucking mowhawk. Then, I’m coming to your house during the dinner hour.

Ok. Not really. My career is dead enough. I can’t believe that I now use career as an excuse for not doing stupid things.

Shit. Save yourselves.

Bad I: You Get What You Pay For
A Chaintech AV-710 sound card with an optical output would allow a person to watch DVDs from their Home Theater PC with perfect Dolby 5.1 sound. And $27 seems like an amazingly good deal, until one spends 5 days trying to get more than 2 speakers to work. On the fifth day, when I finally got the center speaker to play music for the first time, I literally jumped up and down shouting, “I CAN GO TO BED! I CAN GO TO BED!”

Bad II: You Pay For What You Get
This morning, there was beautiful orange sunrise over the water that I caught over my shoulder while driving to work. I thought to myself, “I’m leaving this to go into a windowless basement for the next 8 hours?”

I felt like a fool until I stepped on the accelerator and thought, “Mmmmmmmm Turbo.”

Bad III: You Get Nothing and Like It
Dearest Netflix, I’ve been waiting for 7 days for new videos, now. Cut porking me and send the goods.

I am unsatisfied. My beard is getting on my nerves, but not enough to shave it off. I’m not happy about my complete decline in muscle mass, but not enough to go to the gym and do something about it. I do nothing more with the weeks than count the days until Friday. It’s a winter rut, and I’m too lazy to do anything about it.

I think this must be some dumbed down, leftover form human hibernation.

Optimism
The warm weather and rain in the last few days have caused moths all over the South Shore to assume that it is now spring. Their unbridled optimism has sealed their fate.

Pessimism
I heard on the news that some cheerleaders got drunk and did some, as one newsman said, “salty” cheers before being suspended from school. I found it surprising that although there was no criminal action, the kids’ names were given out on the air. What was even more surprising was how vehement the female news anchor was about a 10 day school suspension not being enough of a punishment for the behavior. She actually went on to say that the kids should be “banned from cheerleading for life.”

Seriously.

My questions are these:
Since when did simply getting drunk become enough to put a kid on the morning news in a major metropolitan area?

What the fuck is wrong with us as a society that now when kids make a mistake, we feel that the mistake should follow them around forever?

What made that news anchor so angry? Does she hold the sport of cheerleading in the highest esteem? Is she so bitter or beyond reproach that she has completely and utterly forgotten what it is to make a mistake? Or, is she regularly attending AA and wishes she could sit down with Johnny. Jim and Jack and throw some salty cheers at that unloving prick of a corporate suit she married. Man, she should’ve married Arty. With that motorcycle and fringed jacket, man, he knew how to live…but I digress.

When people feel the need to puritanically punish others(i.e. the punishment is much larger than the crime) or have extremely hard line views, I have to wonder how many hookers they lived with in that coke den before they found the “right” way to live, or how many they secretly want to live with now.

I went to visit my Uncle and Aunt on their farm in Maine. Despite hitting the road at 8 AM and spending 6 hours round trip in the car, the trip felt rushed.

When I was a kid, my cousins and I spent hours and hours playing hide and seek in the hay lofts and running around the fields mooing at the cows. When I was young, it was a place for imagination and adventure.

This year, while looking at the empty space where a gate once stood to keep in cows and horses that were long gone, I was overcome with the feeling that I didn’t belong there anymore. It wasn’t that I didn’t think that I belong with the people there anymore: I fit in with them just fine. It was the place that seemed to reject me.

The farm held too many young ghosts running around those overgrown fields and swinging on those non-existent gates to make me feel like I belonged there. It was almost like touring a grade school, where the textured surface of a kickball elicits not only fond memories, but the sense that youth is lost.

There’s a lot of talk in the news these days about the violent video games that kids are playing these days and how some religious organizations are against them citing that violent games will produce violent children.

Today, I realized that the people that are against these games have in the front of their houses of worship a cross, on which a man is nailed, graphically bleeding from his wrists, side and head.

If the people are confronted with a giant, bloody, dead man where they go to find peace, shouldn’t they either be violent themselves or severely skewed in what they can or can’t say is too violent?

As a huge fan of Slayer, death metal, and violent video games for well over 20 years, I can proudly say that video games have had little affect on how I interact with the world. Give me a gun in a video game, and I will pop an enemy’s squash like a melon. In real life, though, I have yet to knife, shoot, mame, run over, set on fire, choke, or in any way laser beam a human being.

Does anyone ever think that maybe a little death metal in the ears or grenade throwing on the screen will prevent some fist throwing in the school yard? Actually, the best players of first person shooters that I have met are the most docile away from the screen. Maybe video games and metal are actually cathartic.

Guilt, pressure, and your local priest statistically have a better chance of damaging your children than Judas Priest or a video game. Do the math.

Movie reviews #226458322
Man on Fire (action): Tired story of the washed up mercenary that turns himself around and saves the day. C (as in crap).
triggermen (action): 2 hours went by and I had no idea why. P.S. Donnie Wahlberg sucks. C- (as in crap minus).
Harold and Maude (drama): I’ve heard people love this movie. I didn’t really get it, but it had a lot of funny quotes and some funny parts. B- (as in not that bad).

Jay
My friend Jay came in to Boston from Sweden for 23 hours on his way to visit his parents in Georgia on Saturday and didn’t tell anyone that he was coming in except me. I think it was payback for having been in the U.S. for three weeks the last time he was here and not having more than 2 hours for me. It was unexpected, and nice.

While waiting at Terminal E and sipping my Dunkin Donuts coffee, I remembered why I like being at the airport: everyone is happy, hopeful, and well, huggy. I can stand and watch people come in for at least a couple of hours without getting the least bit bored. This goes double for the international terminal because the varied cultures of the happy greeters, and the high proportion of exotic looking people coming through the gates.

Jay came in at 6PM Saturday, ate at Grumpy’s, met some friends, and hung out, leaving little time for sleep before heading for the airport at 6:30AM Sunday morning. I give the visit a harried thumbs up.

On the way home from dropping him off at the airport, I encountered the exact opposite of the friendly, hopeful air of the airport at the tolls. There was a fat middle eastern guy with a grey moustache and not-blue-blockers-but-might-as-well-be-sunglasses in the booth. I pulled up, and handed him a $5, and fully expected $3 back. Not only was I surprised to find out that the toll had been bumped up to $3 for passenger cars, but that I only got $.50 back.

When I stared at him in dismay he barked, “4.50″ in a way that typing cannot do justice (but, of course, I’ll try).

I just stared confused and eeked out a confused, “What?”
“Dillehd pletts. Fwad fifteh!” he barked.
“Dealer plates?” I said confused.
“Dillehd pletts. Fwad fifteh!”
“I’m not a dealer, man, this is a loaner while they work on my car at the dealer.”
“Dilled pletts. Fwad fifteh!”
“I’m not a dealer. This is a loaner.”
I stared. He stared.
“Jeem! Check cahd fod dillehd pletts,” at which point Jim came out of the booth and said something ingenious like “Yep. Dealer plates.”
“Dillehd pletts. Fwad fifteh!!”

At that point I realized that this guy was happier with the letter of the law than the spirit, and that for me, the price was not the problem, but this guy’s attitude. It was at that point that driving away was well worth $1.50. Once I had gotten a mile up the road and all the fantasies of perfect snappy responses and choking had faded, I hoped that this guy’s attitude somehow bit him in the ass. Then, I left him behind.

Mouse
For the last couple of weeks, I refused to believe it, but we have had a mouse in the house. I don’t feel good about killing small animals that I don’t intend to eat, so neck snapping traps were out. I mean, it wasn’t the mouse’s fault that he was searching for food in a place that I claimed as my territory. Due to my lack of urinating in every corner of the apartment, the mouse had no idea that I claimed this area as mine. It was merely occupying some small portion of an area that I arbitrarily claimed as my own based on an arbitrary monetary system that it knew nothing about. So, how could I kill it?

My GF bought these clear plastic traps that only open in. Each had air holes, and could be emptied by simply flipping the trap over allowing the door to swing inward fully, releasing the mouse. I stuck a piece of peanut butter coated Wasa (Swedish mouse trap!) in there, and set it in the laundry room overnight.

While I was out with Jay, the ingenious little invention trapped our mouse. Although it was only an inch long, my GF really, really, really harbors some serious issues against mice. As she slept behind closed doors, I released the little thing into a field near my apartment. I think that she closed the door to be as far removed from that mouse as possible, while I, on the other hand, stared at it in wonder, and thought it was really, really neat.

I wonder if my propensity to move mice from the house and snails off of the path is an indication of a big pussy or if it’s more big-heart Buddhist. Then again, in trivial matters, “why” is inconsequential, so who cares?

This year I didn’t vote, but I don’t think it matters. For the last 12 years I’ve written in Ross Perot, as I see it as a vote for entropy. This year, with Kerry set to win Massachusetts, I thought a vote for entropy was a waste of gas.

I was surprised that middle America is retarded enough to vote King George the Religious into office for a second term, but not that surprised. I was surprised at how many people who seemed devastated by the loss.

To those people who find Kerry’s loss devastating, I have this:
1. Politicians lie for a living.
2. Don’t pin your hopes and dreams on a professional liar.

Diana! Venga!
I think I’m becoming a beach person. I spent from 9:30-3:30 on the beach both Saturday and Sunday. During the day, when the sun is shining, everyone one is happy at the beach. Children run and play, people smile, and the sounds of the surf are accented by the sounds of children playing. Mix that with a large Dunky’s iced coffee, a good book, and a generous slathering of sunblock, and the day gets very close to perfect.

And if the traffic gods smile on this perfect day, I park for free.

Movie Reviews #126405
Serendipity (Chick Flick): John Cusack plays one of those screwed up puppy dog guys that chicks love, and bla bla bla. I don’t really remember it, but it was pretty good. I say B.

Kill Bill II (Action): If Serendipity was for the girl, Kill Bill 2 was for the boy. There was action, grossness, and plenty of squinty-eyed tough guys. If Kill Bill 1 was a Kung Fu tribute, this was more of a trubute to the american western. For all the kick ass action, and for putting a real live Delorean in the background of a shot for no other reason than style, this gets an A-.

Superstition Ain’t the Way I
Last night I had a nightmare where there were spiders and snakes all over the ground, and I couldn’t get to my shoes. All around me were old graves, but the stones were containers holding human ashes. When the wind kicked up the ashes blew into the air. I somehow got into a Cadillac and drove to some friends house, but they lived on the edge of a swamp. I drove the car out onto a rickety pier, and was concerned that the car was going to fall in, so I backed it into the mud a little.

My GF and I got out of the car and went to the shack where my friend’s lived, but once they let us inside, I realized that they all looked different and had horrible teeth. There was an old lady with way too much makeup sitting on the couch with them, but she walked out of the room when I showed up.

Suddenly, I was sitting on a bench in another room of the shack with my GF, and the daylight was streaming through a picture window behind us. There was a piano in the room and a few people mulling about. Then my grandmother showed up (she’s been dead for more than 10 years). She looked great, but her face was stuck in a smile from an old picture we have of her.

When I jumped up to greet her, she whisked me across the room and started asking all sorts of questions about what sort of woman my GF is. I extolled her virtues and practically gushed to her about how great my GF is until she seemed satisfied with my answer. Then, my grandmother and I danced. Suddenly, I was observing the scene, and my grandfather walked between the observation point and the dancers. He was sullen, but blank, and once off camera, he was gone.

Ok, now the strange part. In my dreams, my grandmother is the harbinger of death. When I dream of her, I get the feeling that someone is going to die. It’s one of the few superstitions that I have tried to shake, but can’t. I think it’s because I called her out of the blue a week before she died suddenly of an aneurism, and when one of her sisters died, I dreamed of my grandmother laying in bed with beam of blue light joining her body and head instead of a neck.

So, for a week after I have these dreams, I wait for the other shoe to drop before dismissing it.

Superstition Ain’t the Way II
From a deleted scene in Serendipity, I give you this:

Close your eyes. Because you are still reading, you’ve proven that you are horrible at instructions, so let’s start over. I want you to imagine a desert. In the desert there is a cube. Close your eyes for a few seconds and really picture it before you move on. Do it this time.

You should now have an idea of the size of the cube, what it’s made of, and where it’s located in relation to the sand. Let’s move on.

In the desert there is also a ladder. Close your eyes for a few seconds and picture the ladder.

You now know what it’s made of, you know it’s position, you know it’s size. You have visualized the ladder.

In your desert there is now also a horse. Close your eyes and visualize the horse.

To find out what in the hell this all means, hold your mouse over each of the following: The Cube, The Ladder, and The Horse.

My cube was made of metal, regular sized and hovering a foot off the ground. My ladder was wooden and like a magic trick, wasn’t leaning on anything. The horse ran right between the observer and the cube really quickly.

Last week my 92 year old grandfather was rushed to the hospital and his family was called in on the premise that he wouldn’t live through the night. It was almost the same thing as what happened to my old friend Clarkie, except before that day, I hadn’t seen my grandfather in over two years. Due to the toll his age has taken on his brain, I don’t really think that he would recognize me, but I’m not sure if it makes me a bad person for not visiting him anyway. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, but that’s the way it is.

So, all week I’ve been calling in, dropping by, and being generally available to my family for whatever I can do to make things easier. I couldn’t do much, but at least I could be there. Within a few hours of merely being there, I realized that just being there wasn’t enough. It was then that I realized that I should try to be present. And that is hard. Hospitals wear me out. Encouraging an unconscious person that he is strong when others are telling him to let go on the off chance that he might hear me wears me out. The uncertainty of death wears me out. Trying to look like none of this wears me out in case it is wearing someone else out truly wears me out.

Then, I skip the gym, I have nightmares* and weird dreams, and I don’t feel like writing anything. And I wonder if I really did a good job. I know my Dad did a good job. He always does. I know my Mom did a good job, because when someone is dying, I swear I have never seen anything like her. She is utterly remarkable. Whether I did a good job, or whether there was even a job for me to do is up for debate, but I gave it a shot.

And day after day, my grandfather’s 180 bpm heart rate has gradually fallen to a normal level, my family is a little more relaxed, and I feel like writing again.

The two things that I learned from this are: that death is never certain, and no matter what your opinion happens to be on euthanasia, if someone’s father is dying, don’t tell them that if you were a nurse you’d put him out of his misery. It’s really fucking insensitive.

And if you do, I will not only want to order you a very tall glass of shut the fuck up, but I will note that you are not allowed anywhere near my hospital bed if anything should happen to me.

If you happen to be standing around my unconscious, headless body in a vat thinking, “Jon wouldn’t want to live this way…” I have instructed one of my oldest friends to not only emphatically tell you “Oh yes, Jon fucking would want to live this way” but to bleed any possible inheritance bone dry to keep me breathing. I have also instructed him to add several secret backup switches and jam a multitude of feeding tubes down my throat just in case any of you might be lucky enough to get to one of them to shut me down. I have also given him permission to jump on the hospital bed, if necessary, as long as it is done in a dramatic, non-gay way. However, no matter what he might tell you, he is NOT authorized to draw on me in any way. This includes moustaches, big eyebrows, glasses, or any messages with arrows pointing to any oriface.

Can you dig?

*I had one dream where someone was trying to drag me behind a boat in a shark infested ocean, another where seemingly normal occurrences were nightmarish but looked normal, and a third where a caterpillar was writhing on the drain of a moldy shower while a centipede near him looked as if it would attack me.

As men, we like to consistently think and act like twelve year olds, but there are distinct stages that a man goes through in life. To easily ascertain what stage any particular 12 year old is in, one must simply observe his purchases at the local drugstore. Today, I hit stage four.

Stage 1: “They’ve sealed a tiny Spiderman in a cheap plastic case and it costs $1.99 to free him! I’ll free you, Spidey! (shake shake) You got no candy in there, Spidey? Sorry, Spidey. No candy, no savey. Now, where’s the candy and the Mad magazines?”

Stage 2: “Ahem. I would like to purchase some of your finest $1.99 cigars, my good man. You want an ID? From me? As my finely groomed moustache shows that I am clearly of age, I will not be providing ID today. Plus, my spouse has retained my ID at the local cocktail party, and I am currently unable to retrieve it.”

Stage 3: “I would like to purchase this package of gum, these mints, this magazine, these batteries, these sunglasses and oh perhaps a package of those con-doms behind you, please.”

Stage 4: “Ooh, now that is cool. I need to get me one of these babies. Excuse me, could you unlock the Rotary nose hair clipper case?”

Stage 5: “Whoa. These glasses make me look just like Arnold fucking Schwartzenegger. Hasta la vista you punk kids. Excuse me, how much are these? $4.99? Young man, in my day, for $4.99 you could take a young lady out for a night on the town including dinner, break dancing, and a round or two of Pac-Man, and still have money leftover to fill the coal bin. I’ll just take the Depends.”

Skepp
On a ride around hull, we came across a docked tall ship flying a Swedish flag. As this is pretty unusual to see, we pulled over to investigate.

We sat for a few minutes watching the captain fish off of the back, hooking little more than the pilings of the pier. Despite being uncomfortably thin, and wearing a pony tail and a thick black beard, he seemed to be as small and hard as any of the stones that littered the beach. He seemed rather annoyed not only about catching nothing but the pier, but by the Bud drinking, visor wearing boaters pulling their Bayliners along side to ask him astute questions like “Hey, man is that an old boat or something?”

As we got tired of watching the uneventful life of the angry captain, and were ready to take off, I decided that I needed to find out why there was a Swedish flag flying on the main topgallant mast. I walked over to a bearded member of the crew, who was working feverishly to repair a rope. He obviously had very little contact with humans, and had trouble formulating the answer that the ship was a replica modeled after one that had been owned by Sweden, Finland, and Holland. Even though I knew that he was involved in a conversation that he was clearly uncomfortable having, I asked him a few questions more.

He told me that a section of the 500 or so volunteers that ran the ship would spend from a week to a month on board, sailing the ship up and down the east coast giving tours and sunset cruises. According to him, the ship could sleep about thirty, but that could get a little crowded for his liking. He himself had been on the ship for a month, but this was his last day, as he had to get back to school.

I for one, thought it would be pretty cool to sail on a ship for a week, but after seeing the manner of the captain and the introverted personality of the crew, a lot of the romance was lost very quickly. But, it had a Swedish flag. And you don’t see that every day. Especially in Hull.

Note: My GF is irritated that I didn’t mention the Finnish or Dutch Flags flying on the other masts. She is of Dutch ancestry and thinks that I’m Sweden-centric.

Found Inspiration
People can do wonderful things with web design and CSS. I do my best, but I am not one of them. The people who created CSS Zen Garden make me want to re-design the site, but I don’t think I’ll ever hit that level. If I could though, you would worship me. Wouldn’t you? Just say “Yes” and I’ll stop pestering you.

Found Another Blog
Big Whoop, right? Geese Aplenty

Found A Movie Review #2386253
Along Came Polly (comedy): This is supposed to be one of those feel good chick flicks where the ugly dude (Ben Stiller) gets the Girl (Jennifer Aniston). The only things that you will remember is A. Jennifer Aniston dirty dancing in a see through tank top, B.) A really funny character played by Hank Azaria, and C.) Jennifer Aniston dirty dancing in a see through tank top. I laughed a few times, but I have to give this the old C+.

Found a Little Problem
The IRS just sent me a letter to the tune of…

Dear Jon,
We think that either you or your preparer may have fucked up your tax return way back in 2002. We just got to it now, because we’re really…uh thorough and we’ve been told that old Georgie needs the cash.
Just send us $528.00 this month and we’ll call it even. Although, we may tag on some penalties. And some fees. And some other stuff that’ll cost you. But, hey you can afford it big guy! This is America!

Love,
The IRS

Crap hell crap.

Found A Worm
On my way to my car this morning, I saw a worm inching its way slowly across the parking lot. As I stared at it, covered in bits of gravel and following the longest possible course to the grass, I thought, “I should help.” I do the same thing with snails I find on the walkway. I pick them up and put them in the shade so that they don’t fry like the stupid crinkled up worms couldn’t find their way to the grass.

As I reached down to throw the worm onto the grass, I stopped. What if this worm was meant to die on the pavement? What if it were to end a bad genetic line of worms too stupid to avoid pavement on hot days? What if I was interrupting the natural food chain and robbing some ants or a bird of a meal? What if, like Eckels in Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder, I was imposing disorder on a natural order, and making a mess of the future? What if I end up living alone with 15 cats?

I thought all this in thirty seconds while staring at a worm. A worm. What am I a Buddhist? As I wasn’t sure if I had replenished my glove-box stash of Dunkin’ Donuts napkins to wipe the worm slime off my hand, I gave up and let the worm be.

In hindsight, this was probably for the best, although I later realized that I probably backed over it with my car.

From a Co-worker
“What do you have philosophical Tourette’s or something?” 

I might’ve taken offense if the guy didn’t play various Brady Bunch themes to accentuate his conversations, or use phrases like, “Well, I’m a two sneeze man myself.”

From the Boss man
“Thanks for staying late again.  Pick a day this weekend (whenever) and take off a couple of hours early.”

Giving employees time off on times that they don’t normally work may just be the most effective cost cutting measure of the future.

Upon arriving to our usual breakfast spot, we were, as usual greeted by the host. Today, he looked a bit confused and said, “But, you’re an hour early.”

Humans create patterns, and whether we think we notice or not, we integrate other people’s patterns into our own. We seem to do this on a vast scale, with minute patterns being brought to the conscious only when exceptions occur. If I could now only recognize the patterns without first having to see the exceptions.

I Talked philosophy with a guy at the gym who was twice as wide as me at the top and twice as thin at the waist. He was arguing with another guy about the only motivators that a human has are pleasure and pain. I butted in and didn’t agree, but couldn’t find a solid footing from which to argue.

The guy’s argument was very black and white and anything that seems too water-tight is something that I want poke holes in. What interested me was not the argument itself, but the attitude behind the argument. I think I can brake down the guy’s philosophy into 3 statements:

1. Do it, or don’t do it.
2. There’s nothing to whine about, just decisions to make.
3. Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen. (link)

I accidentally pinched my hand on the rack until it bled, and because the equipment at the gym is absolutely filthy, I decided that I should stop lifting before risking some sort of infection. If I had stayed a little longer, I might have thought of the cases of the masochist and the religious zealot, and asked what drives them.

Wait a minute. If the gym is that dirty, I probably should quit and go somewhere else.

Philosophy
There are primary properties of objects and there are secondary properties. Primary properties are properties of objects that exist irrespective of perception. An example of a primary property would be the square shape of a table. It is a property that can be proven to all observers.

A secondary property of an object is a property that is filtered through perception. An example of this would be taste or color. If I sat down with an alien, we could both come up with very different taste properties for the table, and the alien may see the table as being red, and I may see it as being brown due to differences in the way that our eyes view colors.

Now, if color is a secondary property of an object, then the property of the object requires that perception is present in order for the property to exist. If this is true, then what color was the universe before there was perception to perceive it?

Your first response will be some form of grey scale. But shades of grey are color.

I was confused. Hope you are, too.

Philosophy II
Who you describe as “I” cannot be merely physical. If we took out your brain and put it into a different body, most would agree that the new body is you and not the previous owner.

Who you describe as “I” is not purely spiritual, as if we wipe your memory (the sum of who you are), most would agree that the new person is still you.

“I” must be comprised of a physical and a spiritual part, right? In cases where brains are split down the middle, two distinct entities emerge. Now, if we could transplant each half into its own body, who of the resulting pair is you? If it were physical and spiritual, they both are you. Logically, the question is: How can 1 be 2?

So, if “I” is not merely the physical, it is not merely the spiritual, and it is not a combination of the two, how can we define the self?

The lesson was on A priori and A posteriori knowledge. A posteriori knowledge is knowledge that can be experienced. There is a keyboard under my fingers, and I have knowledge of it because I can experience it being there. A posteriori knowledge is that can be gained through pure reason. The example given on the tape was mathematics. We can deduce that 2+2=4, but we cannot directly experience the number 2.

At first I understood, and it make me think, which I think is the whole point of the tapes, right? Then, the lecturer asked, “Where does the number 2 exist? Where can we find the number 2?”

And my stupid brain kicks up, “Well it depends on how scared a man is…haw haw haw.” At that point I laughed every time the lecturer said “number 2.”

Everything’s a goddamned joke to you isn’t it, Mr. Dyer? I’ve got a good mind to slap your fat face! You are destroying your life with that…that…that GARBAGE! All right, Mister Sister, I want you to tell me… No, better yet, stand up and tell the class: What do you want to do with your life?!?!

I wanna Rock! ROCK! dun nana naaahh…

Where was I now? Something about poop, right? Bah. Damn.

Movie Reviews
Paycheck: If at the start of a movie, Ben Affleck is some sort of Martial Artist, press the little square button on your remote and walk away. D+.

The Last samurai: I liked it, the GF did not. It was one of those EPIC battle dealies about honor, and being brave against a superior enemy. Plus, there were tons of Ninjas attacking Samuris. Weeeeaaaooooooohhh. Ninjas are cool. My advice is to watch the movie, but don’t watch any of the DVD extras unless, of course, you are interested in seeing how self-absorbed actors really are. When they start referring to their characters as if they were real people, it’s time to go for the square button. B+

Country Reviews
I had a good conversation with someone on the nature of the U.S. last night. He claimed that we are not a nation of preemptive strikers, and that our current role in the world was not in line with the principals that America was founded on.

I claimed that the U.S. government is the most effective form of population control that the world has ever seen. By breaking the role of community and self-reliance in its people, it has produced a cattle like population who not only has its freedoms easily taken from it, but willingly gives them away.

Making a smart man think is interesting to watch.

When the temperature in Boston falls from 88F to 55F in a day, the erratic weather makes me wonder if there’s any connection to an erratic personality and an erratic environment. Then that got me thinking about order and the nature of order. I wondered whether there is an order that we don’t see, or if order is man’s way of defying the world which runs on chance and entropy.

I run on a disordered order. I will walk into a room and drop my coat on the floor. As civilized people know that coats go in closets, this looks like I’ve created disorder in the room. But if you come into the room, and put the coat away, I will wander around looking for the coat for 15 minutes in every place that I would’ve normally thrown it on the floor. In this example, who has created disorder? And with this example in mind explain order.

Please let me know, as I’m going to order some shrimp into a meal and eat the little bastards.

Movie Review #286
Love Actually. I couldn’t find anything in HyperMegaGlobalRentals, so I let the GF pick the movie. I had the choice of Sanda Bullock, Julia Roberts, or Hugh Grant. Grant me strength.

This was a chick-flick mish-mash of criss-cross plots that did nothing but jerk tears out of the GFs eyes. It did have one worthy moment in the film, and it spanned the first 5 minutes. To save dudes the agony, I will paraphrase: If you think love is dead, and the world is a mess, go sit at the arrival gate at the airport and describe what you see.

Ronin
My aunt does a lot of family history research, and digs up tons of family information. She sent some of the pictures she had found to my parents, who sat me down today to look at them. I started rustling through them, like a child through a book, not even realizing that I was doing it until my mother tried to slow me down.

It was akin to giving a first edition Dickens to a three year old.

There were pictures of people that had long since died that I had never known, leaving me outside with the impression that we all will only be remembered for 3 generations. That’s it. To anyone that didn’t know you, you are merely a picture, a person in a foreign fashion standing happily in a foreign time, completely unaware that the picture being taken of you will outlive you by many, many years.

I was thinking today that when I look at someone and hate the way they’re acting or the decisions that they’re making I’ll try to stop, get into their shoes, and say,

“It’s not easy being me,”

…Because even people who have seemingly easy existences are measured by events I will never know, held against a custom tailored yard stick that I will never see

I was also thinking that I should write a blog that is not only anonymous, but less full of shit than this one.

My Favorite card
My favorite birthday card was “Every feel like everyone thinks you’re a weirdo? [open] Just wondering.”

On Desire II
(slight continuance on this post.)
A guy kept coming to my desk asking me to say things in Swedish. He seemed so enthusiastic about it, that I brought him in a spare Swedish phrase book I had. After listening to him go through the medical conditions that he had (”Can you help me? I have diarrhea.”) for a relatively small number of days, he returned the phrase book genuinely finished with the language.

I thought, “The easiest way to cure a man of a desire is to present him with an opportunity to attain it.”

I think I will call this Theory of Realized Desire. As there is no such thing as original philosophical thought, it is not copyrighted. Rename it at will, and present it as your own. Now, can I answer the question, “Is it true”?

The Library
I hit the library and picked up Sartre’s Nausea, which I will hopefully read this weekend. I’m listening to Playboy’s Jazz After Dark, also a freebie. I wanted to pick up some crappy videos on such topics as country line dancing or Mt. Rainier, but I’m a little video’d out right now. I must say that I was fourth and inches on getting as many of the old In Search Of tapes that they would let me carry out of there, but I held back. This is probably a good thing.

On Desire

“C’mon think, I want you to reach back into those minds and tell us, tell us all. What is it that you fantasize about? World peace? [class laughs] Thought so. Do you fantasize about international fame? Do you fantasize about winning a Pulitzer prize, Or an Nobel peace prize, an MTV music award? Do you fantasize about meeting some genius hunk, ostensibly bad but secretly simmering with noble passion and willing to sleep on the wet spot?

You get Lacan’s point. Fantasies have to be unrealistic. Because the moment, the second that you get what you seek, you don’t, you can’t want it anymore.

In order to continue to exist, desire must have its objects perpetually absent. It’s not the “it” that you want, it’s the fantasy of “it”. So, desire supports crazy fantasies.

This is what Pascal means when he says that we are only truly happy when daydreaming about future happiness. Or why we say the hunt is sweeter than the kill, or be careful what you wish for - not because you will get it, because you are doomed not to want it once you do.

So the lesson of Lacan is living by your wants will never make you happy. What it means to be fully human is to strive to live by ideas and ideals and not to measure your life by what you’ve attained in terms of your desires, but those small moments of integrity, compassion, rationality, even self sacrifice. Because in the end, the only way that we can measure the significance of our own lives is by valuing the lives of others.”

-The Life of David Gale, 2003

We hunt for a laptop or a game or a turbo diesel. When given the option to buy, we walk away.

The Quote

“The two things that a man should never be angry at: what he can help and what he cannot help.”
-Thomas Fuller

I. The Man

• The only person that I have partial control over is me.
• I make the best possible choices that I can with the information that I have at the time.
• There are no good choices. There are no bad choices.
• I always have more than one choice, and the power to choose makes every action my own. Thus, what I do is what I have chosen to do, whether I like it or not.

II. The World

• The world is unordered, and unpredictable. It does what it will, and I cannot stop it, nor would I wish to.

II. The Past

• The past is a mental image distorted through both my perception and my memory.
• Given the distortions of this image, the past as I know it is merely an object in my mind that may or may not have existed.

III. The Future

• The future as I know it is merely a mental prediction, an unverifiable idea.
• I should not mistake this mental image for an accurate model.

IV. Present Tense

• If the past and future are merely symbolic, I have only the present tense.
• If I am only bound by the current moment, I am unbound, the possibilities are limitless, and happiness becomes the easiest choice to make.

The car was taken to the shop yesterday, which is good, but I’m hitching rides everywhere, which is bad. I’m trying to get a rental covered by the other party’s insurance, but the owner of the plow that cut me off is fighting like a bastard. So far he has not only told the insurance company that there was no damage to my car (the owner was not at the scene of the accident, so go figure), visited Gino and my car at the shop to view the damage, and has threatened his own insurance agent with bodily harm for putting in the claim.

To hear someone else’s agent say that they’re own insured can “go pound sand,” struck me as really funny.

So on the ride home yesterday, I found myself imagining the guy showing up at my door and me beating him with a baseball bat. Then, I’d go to jail. Then his brother would send someone with a sharpened toothbrush… Bla bla bla. Escalation, escalation, escalation. All over a fender bender. That all led me to thinking about a friend of a friend of a friend who got shot a number of times because he simply took some a-hole’s parking spot.

It made me sit there and think that life is pretty fucked up, and the feeling took a while to shake.

Expired Domain Scam
I just got a bill in the old snail mail from ICLS that made it look like dyers.org owed $35 for the next year. As I registered my domain for 5 years, I was rather confused. As I was looking it over, the logo and acronym reminded me of ICANN, which as you know, coordinates internet domain names.

Although it did not directly say that the bill was for domain registration, I had to really look it over to see “This is not a bill. By paying you will have your domain submitted to 14 search engines.”

As the logo, the acronym, and the price are very similar to legitimate businesses involved in domain registration, even as a technical person, the letter had me second guessing my registration for a minute or two. I can only wonder how many regular, non-technical folks with domain names that this letter may have duped into shelling out $35. As techies, we expect unscrupulous spam, but when it spills into the snail mail, it seems to be targeting a less technical audience, which, in my opinion, seems much worse.

Marriage Scam
Ever wonder if this legal horseshit surrounding ammending the Constitution to prevent gay marriage is actually a dog and pony show to encourage public outcry, drive up the demand for marriages, and create a larger tax base? Yea, me neither. I never want to do anything that is forbidden. (I’m talking generalities. Pleases do not construe this as me wanting to marry a gay dude.)

Birth
Har den aran, Jenny!

School
On two occasions in the last two days did people find the need to tell me how wrong or ridiculous I was in my blog. When I hear things like that, I think of a peeping tom ringing the doorbell and commenting on his subject’s outfits. It really makes me wonder if it’s prudent to post Shaving 104.

Work
11 years ago when I worked at the Gap, they said that I was doing a great job, gave me a great review, and offered me a $0.10 an hour raise. I calmly told the manager that she could keep it, as I found it was insulting, as it amounted to a whopping $4 a week before taxes. She laughed and told me to sign the paper so that she could put the raise through. I just told her once again that she could keep it, as it was insulting. With a shocked look, she said that no one had ever refused a raise before. I didn’t care about that. The chance to assert that I as not slave labor, was worth more than $4 to me.

10 years ago I, pulled a promotion per year and 8-12% raises per year for 5 years straight. That was good. I also wore a tie and wing tips, which sucked.

5 years ago, when I was working 50 hour weeks at the hands of a poor communicator and even worse task master, my review consisted of my boss asking me what I thought my job consisted of, and offering me a 4% raise. I calmly looked at him and said that I was leaving the building, and if I came back, we could discuss a real number, which we did.

Since then, it seems that times keep getting tougher and tougher. Round after round of layoffs hit us quarter after quarter, and raises have fallen to the level of being virtuallynonexistentt. The general consensus among the man on the street is that we are lucky to have jobs at all. I always thank my boss for whatever raise I get, but when your expected to bust your tail and put in gratis overtime work for less than a 2% raise, one begins to question his own motivations, and wonder how much lower his future expected earnings growth can possibly fall.

I can’t help but think that someone is making a big profit with my help, and at my expense. Did I change, or did the company?

At least I can say that I’m not folding shirts or lying to fat women about jeans running small. And I got that going for me. Which is nice.

Death
I think today was gang up on Jon day at work. I didn’t get the memo, so I wasn’t prepared. CC me next time, fuckheads.

(Reference for Dorks)

EMI Hates the DJ
I am hopping the daypop bandwagon again on this one. It seems that DJ Danger Mouse has released an album called “The Grey Album.” A DJ, some samples, and a whole pile of whoopdy-fuckin-do, right? In a way, yes. In a way, no. The concept of the Grey Album is that the DJ took a lyrics only version of Jay Z’s Black Album, run over the Beatles’ White Album.

Conceptually clever, it got my attention.

On another level, it raises Copyright issues. Danger Mouse did nothing but mix other people’s works to create what is referred to as a derivative work. Unfortunately, U.S. copyright law prohibits the creation of derivative works copyrighted materials. Last time that I checked, both the Black and White albums were not in the public domain. I thought the case was pretty clear: the DJ released something without permission. He should retract. Case closed.

But one thing seems to be bothering everyone: According to Lawrence Lessig (Copyright lawyer extraordinaire) there has been a law on the books since 1909 that allows anyone to cover an album as long as they pay a nominal fee to the original copyright holder. Record companies have defended this right for years.

But, samples are not covers, and thus not covered by this law.

And here is the true greyness of the Grey Album: Is a derivative work the same as a cover? Legally is it better to prevent something new from being created or is it more important to defend the original creator’s content? I suppose it depends on how you look at it, how much money you have to defend it, and which side of the remix you’re on.

Honestly, the Grey Album is interesting, clever, and listenable. This DJ Danger Mouse guy is good. But for people to act as if the artistic future of music is contained in the bits of these downloads is as far-fetched as thinking that downloading it makes you a rebel.

I would like to hear the original Black album to do a little comparison, but I’m sure that it’s probably, what we refer to in the business as, “pure crap.”

The Christians Hate the Jews
Mel Gibson put out a movie about Jesus. The Jews portrayed on the news were up in arms at the movie being anti-Semitic. To me, if Mel Gibson makes a movie about killing Whitey, it’s no big deal. If he wants to believe in Zeus, and remake Clash of the Titans, I don’t care (Do it, you bastards! DO IT!). It’s a movie. It’s based on myth (don’t get me started), and besides robbing me of $8.75, this movie can’t do anything to anyone.

If you took all the religion in the world and flushed them down the toilet, then what would be the problem? Who would be up in arms except the dude spending $8.75 without seeing one single laser, boob, or laser guided boob with women attached to them?

No one, that’s who. Except maybe the Laser Guided Boob Women of Mars who would say that the lack of laser guided boob women in this movie clearly shows discrimination against women with laser guided boobs.

(The number of times that boobs was mentioned in the last sentence should, to the chagrin of teenage boys everywhere, provide erroneous hits to this site.)

The Christians hate the Gays
Bush is backing a Constitutional Amendment to prevent gays from getting married. I am proposing a constitutional amendment banning marriage altogether. My friend’s Grandfather and I will draft the bill to downgrade all current marriages to “shacking up,” as in his own words, “It’s the way to go.”

I will also propose an addendum that makes “green on Thursday means you’re horny,” official and legal, binding hitherto, quid ominous dominus.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of minor issues standing in George’s and my way, namely:

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

So, it seems that you can’t willy-nilly take people’s rights away, and if a state grants a right that is not mentioned in the constitution, the federal government can’t infringe.

And I was so looking forward to Thursday. Ladies, I’m talking to you.

Hi-Ho the Dairy-O
Ah, my point: I gathered the above two stories from 5 minutes of the morning News. What depressing, sensational crash / fire / murder / rape did you see that made the time sitting in front of the TV less wasted than simply staring out the window? What did you gain by watching the News today except a broader distrust of your neighbor and a deeper sense of sorrow for people you’ll never know? And why was that so important to you that you need to go back tomorrow for another daily dose?

So the GF wanted to go over to the “fitness center” in the apartment complex today, and I thought that it might be a good idea, as I haven’t been to the gym in a week. The place is maybe 15 x 10 into which is crammed two treadmills, two elliptical machines, two bikes, and one of those all-in-one weight lifting machines. There is also a jumprope, but no room to use it, in case you were wondering.

As you walk in the door, the treadmills are to the right, facing left, and the bikes are to the left, facing the same way. Between them is a narrow path just wide enough to walk through. I think this setup is so that runners can pretend that they’re chasing the guy that stole their bikes, and the bikers can pedal faster to get away from the crazy person chasing them. That’s just my expert opinion, mind you.

Anyway, as we walked in, there were two people on the bikes. They were in their late 50s, and doctorishly eccentric. They were reading magazines and photocopies, which I imagined were medical articles which were as boring to read as their titles were hard to pronounce. The woman wore librarian glasses, and the man had one of those 70’s “I’m playing tennis today” headbands on.

The TVs were off, and with the exception of the whirring of the bikes, the room was dead quiet. Even though the door is 3 feet from the bikes, the bikers never turned to even acknowledge that the door had been opened, nevermind to say, “Hello.” It was weird.

We hopped on the treadmills, and found that we were mouthing things to each other rather than breaking the stern silence imposed by the bikers. Out of nowhere, the man biker yelled “HOW FAST CAN YOU GET THIS THING TO GO?!” to the woman biker, who yelled back “150!!” and starts going absolutely nuts peddling. After thirty or so seconds, the guy yelled, “I THINK I CAN DO 200!!” and peddled hard enough to make his bike shake in three directions. It reminded me of children running through the yard yelling “Look how fast I can run! Look how fast I can run!”

Then, they both settled down, and whirring took control of the silence once again, leaving me wonder if these people were seeking attention, or had no concept that other people existed in the room. Mostly, this complex thought manifested itself in a simple, “What the fuck?” rolling through my head at intervals as irregular as my breathing.

At the one mile marker, the guy that stole my bike seemed to have died, head band and all, and was slumped over his bike. The woman that stole the girlfriend’s bike was doing yoga in front of my treadmill in an attempt to possibly bring his spirit back from the dead. As there is a 3 foot path in front of the treadmills, and mats at the other end of the room, I began my wondering if I truly existed or if this life was merely an illusion. Again this thought process manifested itself in the simple “What the fuck?”

I began staring at the ground, which is rather difficult when running on a treadmill, but was much more satisfying than taxing my brain with the questions that this woman was raising about my existence.

Finally, the biker guy must’ve gotten his heart started again, and the two of them went over to the mats and stuck their asses in the air for a while I stared at the jump rope.

Now, I belong to Gold’s Gym, which is supposedly one of the cheesiest, meat-headed gyms out there, where people are supposed to flex constantly, kiss their biceps and yell “BooYAH!” at regular two minute intervals, while strutting around like peacocks in tiger-striped spandex pants. I’ve seen a couple of people like that there, and they’re big as professional wrestlers with half the fat. As the peacock to human ratio is very low, I find it to be tolerable, and not the least bit uncomfortable. I think if those people want to kiss their biceps and show off, good for them, as there’s probably some people there that might dig it. But, generally to those people, I am not on their radar:

No one is. They are generally entertaining themselves.

Even if I was (which I don’t think I’ve ever been), I’m near them for a maximum of five minutes until my sets carry me across the gym. This is the beauty of the big cheesy gym: There’s no sense of being uncomfortable, as there is anonymity in the crowd, and plenty of room to get out of each other’s way.

To me, it’s ironic.

The weather hit 40 this weekend, and I came to the realization that I am really, really tired of winter. I think that I feel this way at this time every year, but with the extreme cold of this winter keeping activity at bay more than normal, I think I feel more so. I’m antsy and lethargic. It’s like pacing.

I was trying to figure out a place to just go and sit that conveyed the relaxation of ocean or the solitude of the woods. It may be time to hop a plane and take a vacation. Unfortunately, my imagination provided me with no solutions outside of my house. There are probably places, but my imagination was as frozen as the New England air.

Then, I drove by a three year old walking down the street. He was walking ahead of the rest of his family by ten feet or so, and completely unaware of anything beyond his feet.

pick up foot…slam it down…bam…pick up foot…slam it down…bam…shake my body…wave my arms…pick my foot up…slam it down…bam.

He was not only completely happy with walking along, but was actually enjoying every step. And I wondered to myself, at what point did I cease finding pleasure in every single step?