Labythan feels good all over
Archive for September, 2009
Sep 29th
I downloaded all of the “Star Trek the Next Generation” episodes from a lan party recently.
The following episodes rule:
3-26/4-1 Best of Both Worlds
7-11 Parallels
6-25 Timescape
4-05 Remember Me
6-12 Ship in a Bottle
7-25/7-26 All good things
5-18 Cause and Effect
That is all.
Sep 28th
I’m at work. The office is creaking because it is really windy out. Last time the metal roof sounded like this, was last winter. Winter is coming, earlier this year than most.
I haven’t had that special spark that motivates me to like my work lately. In fact, I have been pulling off a pretty good ‘relax and do nothing’ in most facets of my day. After talking to Tyler as I bring him to and from work (he has a suspended license at the moment) I realize I could just sit back and absorb life, or I could take a proactive stance at things like cleaning, finishing projects, my cunsulting gig I have been wanting to do for years, and other things.
I went to work this past Saturday, and fired up some old CMS I was writing to run vidavim.com. The plan was to use it to power labythan.com. But it isn’t good enough! Its clunky and hard to use. I couldn’t make the website I wanted. So I had to fix it. And I spent 4 solid hours with time blazing by working on it, and it felt great. I haven’t had that feeling from a project since I broke up with Katy.
Basically, I’m saying, I feel energized and productive. I theorize that this is caused in part by the seasons – summer has always been 4 or 5 months of relaxing and doing nothing productive. Fall was almost designed to finish yard work, and winter for self improvement (my business!)
I want to put in a fence, get the shower fixed, clean up the ash in the back, clean out the garage, fix the hearse, fix the jetta, fix my car… projects up the wazoo! Sounds like fun!
Sep 21st
I had a dream a few days ago. I was volunteering for some kind of event and it was time for lunch. I pulled a taco out of a cooler which was filled with lunch like food my parents brought. When I got the taco, a group of about 100 people came to the picnic style tables where we were doing stuff. I decided to put the taco on a plate and put the plate under the table (the front of the table had a tablecloth preventing the people from seeing underneeth it). I then watched in horror as a very overweight woman (450 pounds) used her foot to get the taco out from under the table and eat it. That was my lunch! Why would you steal that! I was right there in front of you!
I finally have something interesting to write about. It seems a lot of people in the world put their faith in others to form their opinions for them, and usually fear the unknown and are most interested in what is good for them (or in the cases of small towns, what is good for the town). They get these opinions mostly from church and the media. However, some people make their own opinions, and thus don’t rally behind any religious belief or media enterprise. The problem is the great majority of people who have made their own opinion don’t have anything to rally behind to define them, other than say the ‘liberal movement’. And the problem is that many people don’t actually stand for every part of the liberal viewpoint any more than all republicans believe in the neocon viewpoint.
Then there is the absolute opposite of religious viewpoints that some people adhere to. It seems that everything has to be completely black and white – either you are religious, or god doesn’t exist. Either god made the grand canyon, or millions of years of erosion did. Either a miracle cured your cancer, or diligent work by doctors did. Either something divine provided you the food on your table, or the hardworking people of the world who you paid to grow and transport you the food did.
What if you made a real church of science and philosophy, where its ideas were defined logically much like a philosophy class? Maybe not a church, but some kind of belief structure with a defined set of goals, revolving around accountability, creativity, tolerance, and life betterment? Where everything that was discussed was open to interpretation and based on logic, where members of the church could present any philosophical, educational, anecdotal, theological, or moral idea instead of a sermon (provided the speaker, subject matter and speech notes were approved by a committee prior to speaking in order to filter out irrelevance and bias)? We would believe in things like the right for each person to think for themselves, have any sexual, political, or religious view they want, and the courtesy to refrain from pressuring people to adopt their own irrational views. We could review stories from all sorts of well known religious texts and philosophical works and hold homilies based on any text, regardless of its underlying spiritual bias.
The cornerstones of this ‘church’ would be:
- It is wise to admit that you don’t know for sure how the world, or anything else, works
- Everyone deserves the freedom to believe and act how they wish, as long as it doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s ability to believe and act how they wish
- It is paramount to exercise your mind to be more than just a byproduct of your impulses and feelings – this is what separates people from animals.
- Official views of the church should not reflect the views from any particular group of people over the other, for example, the church can not have an official standpoint on the will of a creator or religious figure
Imagine that, real, physical integrated church where all ideas both ancient and modern were valid, not just the ideas based on one text from 2000 years ago. Something that could draw in Atheists, Pagans, Muslims, Christians, Republicans (real ones, not the neo-cons), Liberals, all races, all sexual orientations, everything!
Sep 18th
I find when I am enjoying life, I write alot less, almost as if I only write when I wish to change something about my self of my environment. However, I value my journal for an insight into my thoughts at any particular point in my life, so it seems silly that I would only write when I didn’t actually enjoy life. How will I remember the good times 10 years from now if I don’t write about it?
Overall, life is good. Money is still hard to come by, bills are hard to catch up on, but overall, times are good.
Joe and I have hung out a few times in the past month or so. I held a party a few weekends ago where I made a bunch of tacos, and then subsequently went upstairs and hugged the porcelain god for a few hours, while Joe took over catering food. The next weekend, the two of us and Steve Spaulding went to the glencoe lan party, played a few games of Heroes of Newerth Beta, and pirated a ton of movies, as well as the entire series of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The party where I was puking Halloween 2008 style, Carrie was over. Everyone loved her company and had a lot of good things to say about her the next day. She also was very thoughtful and kept checking up on me. In case you haven’t gathered, I think Carrie is a huge sweetiepie. As of September 14th, we made it official that we are going out, even though in reality we’ve been ‘dating’ almost every other day since the end of July.
I went to ICP last night for the “Bang, Pow, Boom” tour. I have never seen ICP themselves in concert (just Twiztid), and let me tell you, I have never seen so much Faygo in my life. They had probably 300 3 liters of it which they sprayed all over the audience almost the entire time. It was like being showered in cheap store brand soda. Mix that with mosh pitting, and a sold out show, and it was crazy insane.
I’ve been watching the TV series “True Blood”. Right now, I am half way through Season 2. The show strikes me on a bunch of different levels, notably likable deep characters, but it also tackles a lot of social issues involving racism and what it means to be a person. That and vampires are freaking cool, and most episodes have a sex scene of some sort. I have watched movies with plots I hate (Porkys, for example) just for the hope that the movie will possibly be redeemed by a nudie scene. So, nudie scenes + philosophy + supernatural badasses + redneck intolerance = awesome show.
On a more depressing side, I have lots of responsibilities and bills. My headlights all over my car are broken, my car needs an oil change, my car’s spoiler is still unreplaced, basically my car is falling apart. Tyler doesn’t even have a car at the moment, as he lost his license in a racing down the freeway incident. I’m about 1 month behind on every bill, I have a few parking tickets to pay, and I still have plans to put in a fence this fall before winter hits.
I’m dealing with alot of passive aggressive behavior from people I put my trust in just a few months earlier. I have this feeling like by default people expect that if they act nice to me, I will ignore their responsibilities or faults. From a stress standpoint, almost nothing really gets to me, I am pretty good at regulating my feelings, but from a fairness standpoint, I just can’t sustain a lifestyle where people tell me how to act or owe me large sums of money with no apology or proactive action to resolve the debt. I don’t care what you do with your life, just let me live my life and pull your own weight.
Of special note is the fact nobody ever cleans the kitchen. Thats a whole rant in itself.
Tyler has noticed a bit of subtle cumulative mooching from some friends of his too, its for this reason he has been hanging out with Karl and myself with Jeremy/Annah/Carrie lately. These people take pride in their ability to pay their own way. I think it is interesting how opinions of people change over such short periods of time – thats why roommates and spouce relationships are probably so difficult, because the expectation is that you maintain a positive relationship regardless of circumstances with these people.
All in all, life is good.
So, as they say, another day, another dollar. 