When I'm down and blue... Rather be me than you

Oct 23
2011

Children understood at a very young age that doing nothing was an expression of power. Doing nothing was a choice swollen with omnipotence. It was, in fact, godly.
And this, she now realized, was the reason the gods did nothing. Proof of their omniscience. After all, to act was to announce awful limitations, for it revealed that chance acted first, the accidents were just that - events beyond the will of the gods - and all they could do in answer was to attempt to remedy the consequences, to alter natural ends. To act, then, was an admission of fallibility.

— Steven Erikson, Dust of Dreams

tags: Steven Erikson Malazan Book of the Fallen

Oct 06
2011

Ethnocentrism

Are there places that don’t think they’re the best? Are there people that are really like ‘you know what? We’re okay. But those guys in _____, those fucking guys kick our asses.’ I don’t think so. I understand there’s a fine line between pride and blind raving nationalistic fervor, but it’s not a line that anyone who isn’t an imbecile crosses accidentally. There’s also a fine line between chopping an onion and chopping off your own hand.

It’s like.. Be proud of who and what you are. Unless you’re ‘x.’ Then feel bad and pretend you’re from somewhere else. Can’t have it both ways..

Sep 29
2011

My brain sucks

Someone once told me that the ability to see and act in a perfectly logical and rational manner wasn’t necessarily a good thing - not necessarily the way things were “supposed to be.” After all, she reasoned (paraphrasing,) if that was the proper way to be, we would be that way. I wish I agreed with this - rather - I do agree with this, but only because that’s how I myself am and I think we all would like to believe we’re doing the “right” thing. Because whats the alternative? That we’re some sort of unevolved cretin, I suppose, and that’s really not a comforting notion.

So here I am, at time dominated by emotions and sentiments which I can sort of understand, rationally, to be rubbish, but remain nonetheless shackled by them because the sentiments and emotions resonate within me while the logical understanding doesn’t, to the same degree.

Still, I mean, consider this: I’ve fought with my girlfriend about stupid things - not stupid because there wasn’t any validity to the issue, (although that too has been true in the past,) stupid because I did not want to be fighting. But I did so anyway, as it felt like the appropriate thing to do. And that makes me feel shitty. Shitty because (why am I using because so much? It feels cumbersome,) I didn’t want to and knew I didn’t want to and did so anyway.

So I’m trying to make myself a better person by not reacting to emotions on a whim, even when that feels like the physiologically correct thing to do. But what kills me inside is the thought that.. maybe I’m just a dick? Maybe there are people who don’t have to make a concerted effort to not have dumb problems? I guess at the end of the day, you’re not going to change who you are, you’re just going to change how you act, and that’s really fatalistic, I know, but I can’t help but imagine that to ultimately be true.

“Well what difference does it make then?” None, I guess, which I why I don’t really spend much time brooding on the subject, especially when so many of my friends are so consummately POSITIVE and I implicitly feel like I’m made to understand whatever issues I have to be failings of my character. Again, yes, probably, but then what the hell is the best way to put “best foot forward”?

Sep 18
2011

The real miracle

I think, after 22 years of enduring an endless parade of blithering self-indulgent morons, that the only reason that Helen Keller managed to be so dedicated, persistent and positive is because she happened to be oblivious to the fact that she was surrounded by billions of worthless people.

Sep 17
2011

Oscar Gamble

tags: new york yankees

Aug 29
2011

As the Irene hoopla mercifully dies down..

Let us not credit ourselves, or thank the fates that we managed to pull through this one, for the most part, unscathed - no, we should be focusing on the fact that this whole debacle has demonstrated a certain ‘lack’ within the contemporary human spirit. There are several ways to taxonimize this ‘lack,’ but I guess it’s just easier to describe it by way of pointing out it’s principal characteristics. The first and most disturbing of these is a fundamental boredom. This boredom, to be euphemistic in calling it that, is best evinced by how many people were buying into every piece of hurricane hype thrown at them. Whether this was accomplished by taping their windows, despite being more or less landlocked, or even constant sardonic reminders of the preposterousness of the situation by way of cheeky facebook statuses and the like, the point remains that many, many individuals let this storm take over their lives. It stands to reason that the fact that this happened is the result of some degree of wishful thinking - these individuals hoped to WILL irene into a monumental force by channeling their otherwise wavering energies into it. People, generally, have nothing going on - how else to explain any manner of proliferation of mind altering substance? I’m not absolving myself of this, I mean, I’m just saying, we drink, we smoke, we trip, we roll, etc.. because we don’t want to be where we actually are, doing what we’re normally doing. And that’s what a hurricane and an earthquake offered new yorkers.. A total immersion in a ubiquitous binge, and a sanctioned one, at that. One does not have to read too deeply into the myriad of facebook statuses since the ‘storm’ has abated to find a hint, if not more than that, of disappointment. Watch any news broadcast, specifically, the weather channel broadcast with the streakers, and anyone can gather a sort of grim determination to legitimize the ‘threat’ by means of discrediting those who weren’t taking it seriously… Whatever the personal effects of this hurricane were on you and your family.. To be truly horrified, one merely has to step back and assess how decadent and deplorable we’ve become as a civilization, and that will not prove a difficult task, because ‘fans’ and ‘supporters’ of a prolonged extraordinary disaster were and are everywhere.

tags: Hurricane Irene New York City

Aug 28
2011

Yes, make yourself useless to humankind. Only thus will you survive, even when what survives of you is naught but your bones.

— Heboric Ghost-hands, The Bonehunters

tags: Steven Erikson Malazan Book of the Fallen

Aug 23
2011

Grossed out.

Whenever some even moderately precipitous event happens, like this wack earthquake that I just mistook for a strong wind, I really have to stay off all social networking sites. Everyone has some variation of the same wack status or whatever and is seemingly unaware of the fact that they’re not clever, and not original. I go off the grid for at least two days. Lest I hate every single person I know.

Happiness

I have found that happiness is generally what, in one way or another, people are seeking. The problem is that happiness only works as a fleeting sentiment - it only exists as a vaunted thing if we’re walking the precipice of it no longer being around.

And that’s the problem - we seek to lock down that which, were it to be locked down, would not be desirable in the slightest.

Our happy moments are about as poignant as our profoundly unhappy ones.. Losing spurs me on to the thought of winning, and that motivates - but what does the ACT of winning do? Not the idea of it - the actuality of conquering… That leaves us bereft of purpose, at least for a moment.

And so, in considering that no happiness will ever truly be everlasting if it’s worth a damn, one should, shit.. I should, take solace — right?

How come I don’t feel any better?

Aug 22
2011

Walking the same speed as someone is just an obnoxious experience. Especially when that someone is gross.

Aug 21
2011

So Apollo 18 is the new fake documentary wankfest a la Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity… etc… except this one’s in SPACE!! This “genre” is the firmest proof that the film industry is completely blown. Make an uninteresting movie, but then make it nauseating to watch - bang! Cash cow. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Forget about the fact that you can say that the DirectTV ad featuring this guy portrays essentially an Asian minstrel and, beyond all that, is an affront to the concept of humor - it’s a total fucking rip off of the adidas ad with Dr. Ken!

Listen DirectTV, you can’t fucking make a bad commercial when you’ve already stolen the idea. That’s unacceptable. It’s reprehensible. Shit, that’s immoral. I do admire the arrogance of the adidas guys, they know they have the better commercial, and more cache, and so they don’t even bother getting this Whale bullshit pulled off the air, because really, it only reminds people of the adidas commercials.

tags: Ken Jeong

Rubbernecking

How, as a society, have we accepted rubbernecking to be an inevitable evil? How have we reached the point where we can, without batting an eye, discuss that we were stuck in traffic because of rubbernecking? It is the stupidest fucking thing that we as humans deal with on a regular basis - other fucking idiots who feel the need to actually slow their vehicles to a crawl to gawk at a car accident, or even worse, a car just pulled over and disabled. Are these people lemmings? Have they no concept of what it means to be a thinking member of civilization? Are they aware that they’re literally causing huge traffic pile ups just so that they can ogle a car with its hazard lights on? Who do you think you are, Uatu? Do you serious not realize the ramifications of your utterly mindless and totally reprehensible actions?

And for some reason this is ok. This is just one of those things one has to deal with. Fuck that. I’m about to start acting like Michael Douglas in Falling Down. I will seriously have to control myself so as to not run up to a car where someone is stopping to observe an accident or something and gouge both of that person’s eyes out with my thumbs. It just took me near an hour to take a 6 minute drive because everyone on the highway was going 2 miles an hour looking at a disabled vehicle ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY. How is this possible? I don’t even get the mechanics of it - do people do it on purpose? Befuddling.

Aug 14
2011

This possum is an imbecile. Look at this idiot? What’s up guy? You drown in 2 inches of water? You stupid bastard.

Aug 12
2011

If I wanted you to understand, I would have explained it better.

— Johan Cruyff

tags: Johan Cruyff KNVB