Thursday, December 14, 2006
Please call stella!
Yo, lots going on this week. I have some good bloggin's in store for y'all, but I haven't had much time lately to get it all down. Until then check this out, it's an accent map of English speaking people of the United States. It takes people from different parts of the country's and has recordings of them reading the same passage. It gives you a good idea of the accent of that region. I haven't played with it too much, but I have listened to the speaker from Utah and North Carolina and I had a good laugh. Anyway, check it out. The map covers the whole world, looks like a really awesome site.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
On kittens
So I got a temporary job working at my pop's company while they're doing end-of-year inventory. It's mindless work when it's actual work. I usually stand around and wait for somebody to give me something to do, and when I'm working it usually involves moving dusty bins of obsolete parts that nobody knows the purpose of from one palate to another.
Apparently the parts are from a company they bought out three or four years back. And they can't just throw the parts away because they have to uphold the warranties that the former company put on their products for another seven years. Never mind the fact that nobody around here has any idea whatsoever how these parts are supposed to even work. So they move them from one corner to another where they can take up space and continue to be ignored.
Normally I would point and laugh at this system of mass inefficiency that is a microcosm of the current state of Corporate America as a whole, but in this case it I personally benefit to the tune of $10 an hour to move boxes around in this ridiculously huge shop (like a million square feet or something) where there are so many people that as long as I'm moving a box or throwing something away people will think I'm doing something productive and will mostly leave me alone. Plus I still get to openly mock the system. It's a win-win.
So anyway, on Friday I was hard at work moving around bins and boxes when I heard something rustling around in some boxes in front of me. I moved some stuff out of the way and found myself a kitten. It is a cute little thing with brown fur and black stripes. It couldn't be more than six months old at the most. Anyway, I tried to get it to come closer to me so I could pet it, but it avoided me like the plague. It wandered off somewhere and I didn't see it again for the rest of the day. It was pretty much the most exciting part of my day.
Anyhow, hopefully it'll turn up again sometime soon. Maybe I'll try and chum it over by me with food or something, that'd be fun.
Apparently the parts are from a company they bought out three or four years back. And they can't just throw the parts away because they have to uphold the warranties that the former company put on their products for another seven years. Never mind the fact that nobody around here has any idea whatsoever how these parts are supposed to even work. So they move them from one corner to another where they can take up space and continue to be ignored.
Normally I would point and laugh at this system of mass inefficiency that is a microcosm of the current state of Corporate America as a whole, but in this case it I personally benefit to the tune of $10 an hour to move boxes around in this ridiculously huge shop (like a million square feet or something) where there are so many people that as long as I'm moving a box or throwing something away people will think I'm doing something productive and will mostly leave me alone. Plus I still get to openly mock the system. It's a win-win.
So anyway, on Friday I was hard at work moving around bins and boxes when I heard something rustling around in some boxes in front of me. I moved some stuff out of the way and found myself a kitten. It is a cute little thing with brown fur and black stripes. It couldn't be more than six months old at the most. Anyway, I tried to get it to come closer to me so I could pet it, but it avoided me like the plague. It wandered off somewhere and I didn't see it again for the rest of the day. It was pretty much the most exciting part of my day.
Anyhow, hopefully it'll turn up again sometime soon. Maybe I'll try and chum it over by me with food or something, that'd be fun.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
On existentialism
"Seek first to understand and then to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand: they listen with the intent to reply. They're filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's lives."
"Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is."
-Stephen R. Covey
"To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. You cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to solve it for you. There's no writ of inquest or calling of witness to provide answers. No servant or disciple can dress the wound. You dress it yourself or continue bleeding for all to see."
-Frank Herbert
"Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is."
-Albert Camus
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
-Oscar Wilde
People that lament that life is meaningless and has no purpose want meaning and purpose to be imposed on them as opposed to taking the initiative and giving their life purpose. We're thinking too much. I could learn a lot from my dog. Dog's live in the moment, their purpose is to meet their needs for right now. For instance, he currently needs to take a shit, but wont do it inside because he knows if he does there are negative consequences. So right now my purpose is to be courteous to him and take him outside so that he can relieve himself in a better place. It's a deal we have. In exchange for him not shitting in my house I take time out of my day to walk with him.
Currently my purpose in life is to walk the dog twice a day, and feed him when my parents don't have time. I have no job and no friends in the area that I just moved to, which when I think about it is depressing, but at least I have a purpose: keeping my dog from shitting in my house. A purpose I am currently ignoring in order to ramble here.
I don't know if any of this made sense, but it was an effort. Existentialism is fun to talk about, a good conversation piece, but other than that it's a waste of time.
I'll elaborate.
I'm not saying that existentialism isn't important, or that I myself don't like it. However the more broad and open ended you make the question (why are we here? What is our purpose?) the more useless it becomes in terms of finding an answer and actually accomplishing anything.
Now existentialism on a personal level can be helpful to us. It can help us get our priorities straight. A parent's purpose for existence is to provide for their family, a student's purpose for existence is to graduate, and my purpose for existence is to walk my dog. What is my purpose? Is a good existential-type question that with a little time for introspection and discussion can garnish useful answers.
I can't tell you why we're here as a species, nor why we have this odd case of self awareness. I'm sure if I were to pose such a question to you it would be just as difficult for you to answer. There are simply far too many possibilities and far too many questions that have to be answered as a prerequisite to even being able to come close to an answer. We could talk about it for hours, weeks if we were inebriated enough, but it would be impossible to come to any sort of conclusion. At the bare bones of it all none of us really know.... why? That's where faith kicks in I suppose. Not necessarily religious faith, although it can manifest itself that way, but the faith that there is an answer to why we are the way we are where we are.
People that lament that life is meaningless and has no purpose want meaning and purpose to be imposed on them as opposed to taking the initiative and giving their life purpose. We're thinking too much. I could learn a lot from my dog. Dog's live in the moment, their purpose is to meet their needs for right now. For instance, he currently needs to take a shit, but wont do it inside because he knows if he does there are negative consequences. So right now my purpose is to be courteous to him and take him outside so that he can relieve himself in a better place. It's a deal we have. In exchange for him not shitting in my house I take time out of my day to walk with him.
Currently my purpose in life is to walk the dog twice a day, and feed him when my parents don't have time. I have no job and no friends in the area that I just moved to, which when I think about it is depressing, but at least I have a purpose: keeping my dog from shitting in my house. A purpose I am currently ignoring in order to ramble here.
I don't know if any of this made sense, but it was an effort. Existentialism is fun to talk about, a good conversation piece, but other than that it's a waste of time.
I'll elaborate.
I'm not saying that existentialism isn't important, or that I myself don't like it. However the more broad and open ended you make the question (why are we here? What is our purpose?) the more useless it becomes in terms of finding an answer and actually accomplishing anything.
Now existentialism on a personal level can be helpful to us. It can help us get our priorities straight. A parent's purpose for existence is to provide for their family, a student's purpose for existence is to graduate, and my purpose for existence is to walk my dog. What is my purpose? Is a good existential-type question that with a little time for introspection and discussion can garnish useful answers.
I can't tell you why we're here as a species, nor why we have this odd case of self awareness. I'm sure if I were to pose such a question to you it would be just as difficult for you to answer. There are simply far too many possibilities and far too many questions that have to be answered as a prerequisite to even being able to come close to an answer. We could talk about it for hours, weeks if we were inebriated enough, but it would be impossible to come to any sort of conclusion. At the bare bones of it all none of us really know.... why? That's where faith kicks in I suppose. Not necessarily religious faith, although it can manifest itself that way, but the faith that there is an answer to why we are the way we are where we are.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Seeing things as I am
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
-Anais Nin
Yeah yeah, that's me trying to be deep.
So I can't sleep a wink. I watched some MSNBC Documentaries and then a little bit of Meet the Press, which is usually good for a snore, but then I started reading. Usually a half hour of reading can knock me right out, but lately it just gets me all riled up and restless.
Anyhow, the book I'm reading is called Dog Days and it's authored by Ana Marie Cox. The story is somewhat entertaining, and it's an easy read, and I've just realized that this has absolutely nothing to do with what I want this to be about, onward.
After reading a bit I got this crazy idea to dig up my old journals from my gradeschool years and take a gander. Now I'm further from being asleep now than I was before the Sunday Night Football game.
The first one I cracked open had the date 11-29-99 scrawled at the top. Dude! Seven years ago! I was 13! I read the first paragraph and was struck by a lead pipe of irony.
"I was looking for a book today, and I found one of my old journals. It was from when I was in the 6th grade! And I read it and found out that I was a really corny guy back then. So I decided to start a new one."
I can't help but laugh at that passage, because if I were starting a new journal today I'd probably write that same passage over again. The more things change (CLICHE WARNING! Unless you have a strong stomach I would urge you to skip to the next paragraph) the more they stay the same.
But I'm not going to start a new journal. For one writing by hand is just too slow for me to handle anymore. Also, this has sort of become my journal, but hopefully this is a tad more readable.
So anyway, I've been reading through the entry's, and the first thing I realize is that I wasn't as mature back then as I thought I was. Also, for as smart as I was I could be awful dense, like the time when I was trying to get ahold of a girl and nobody was answering the phone, so I dialed *67 to block my number on the caller ID and called her again and that time she magically answered, I made the astute observation: "she sounded like she didn't want to talk to me." If I could go back in time I'd bop my younger self on the nose. Come to think of it, that'd make a fascinating plot for a teenpop sci-fi novel, but I digress.
Around wintertime of '99 and early '00 I was really good at keeping my journal up to date, with entry's almost every day. At the same time I was having a rather tumoltuous relationship with a girl that had just moved to town from Kentucky. She had severe baggage; I was overbearing and needy, it was a perfect fit. Reading over this again after all these years is actually quite entertaining. I went from being the kid that would write "boobies! yay!" to "the world hates me, I cannot go on!" to "I love her so much, I could never be without her" and back again. Through all the drama and teenage excess I can kind of watch myself grow up through it all, which is probably the most interesting part to me.
Anyhow, I'm thinking about transcribing some of the journal entry's and posting them chronologically so that both of my loyal readers can enjoy the tales of middle school adolescent drama seen through the eyes of a slightly bored and severely convused 14-year-old. We'll see what happens.
JK
Yeah yeah, that's me trying to be deep.
So I can't sleep a wink. I watched some MSNBC Documentaries and then a little bit of Meet the Press, which is usually good for a snore, but then I started reading. Usually a half hour of reading can knock me right out, but lately it just gets me all riled up and restless.
Anyhow, the book I'm reading is called Dog Days and it's authored by Ana Marie Cox. The story is somewhat entertaining, and it's an easy read, and I've just realized that this has absolutely nothing to do with what I want this to be about, onward.
After reading a bit I got this crazy idea to dig up my old journals from my gradeschool years and take a gander. Now I'm further from being asleep now than I was before the Sunday Night Football game.
The first one I cracked open had the date 11-29-99 scrawled at the top. Dude! Seven years ago! I was 13! I read the first paragraph and was struck by a lead pipe of irony.
"I was looking for a book today, and I found one of my old journals. It was from when I was in the 6th grade! And I read it and found out that I was a really corny guy back then. So I decided to start a new one."
I can't help but laugh at that passage, because if I were starting a new journal today I'd probably write that same passage over again. The more things change (CLICHE WARNING! Unless you have a strong stomach I would urge you to skip to the next paragraph) the more they stay the same.
But I'm not going to start a new journal. For one writing by hand is just too slow for me to handle anymore. Also, this has sort of become my journal, but hopefully this is a tad more readable.
So anyway, I've been reading through the entry's, and the first thing I realize is that I wasn't as mature back then as I thought I was. Also, for as smart as I was I could be awful dense, like the time when I was trying to get ahold of a girl and nobody was answering the phone, so I dialed *67 to block my number on the caller ID and called her again and that time she magically answered, I made the astute observation: "she sounded like she didn't want to talk to me." If I could go back in time I'd bop my younger self on the nose. Come to think of it, that'd make a fascinating plot for a teenpop sci-fi novel, but I digress.
Around wintertime of '99 and early '00 I was really good at keeping my journal up to date, with entry's almost every day. At the same time I was having a rather tumoltuous relationship with a girl that had just moved to town from Kentucky. She had severe baggage; I was overbearing and needy, it was a perfect fit. Reading over this again after all these years is actually quite entertaining. I went from being the kid that would write "boobies! yay!" to "the world hates me, I cannot go on!" to "I love her so much, I could never be without her" and back again. Through all the drama and teenage excess I can kind of watch myself grow up through it all, which is probably the most interesting part to me.
Anyhow, I'm thinking about transcribing some of the journal entry's and posting them chronologically so that both of my loyal readers can enjoy the tales of middle school adolescent drama seen through the eyes of a slightly bored and severely convused 14-year-old. We'll see what happens.
JK
Apply directly to the forehead
So it's been around a month since I've posted, a lot's happened in that month and very little has come of it all. I'm posting again because I haven't been in the best of spirits lately (please don't feel sorry for me, I don't) and I was going back over my posts on Turkey Day and I noticed that I update this blog more often when I'm in a better mood. So instead of thinking logically and noticing that I update more because I'm in a better mood I'm going to force myself to post more in order to make myself be in a better mood.
I'm somewhat optomistic. Already I seem to be a bit happier, my social anxiety disorder is ebbing a tad. I'm getting ideas for projects and blog topics. Problem is it's 11:30. Why can't I get motivated like this around 10 AM?
Anyhow, due to my new bloggin' spirit I'm worried there will be a negative affect (effect?) on the quality of my posts, so please, bear with me while I sort my way through this.
JK
I'm somewhat optomistic. Already I seem to be a bit happier, my social anxiety disorder is ebbing a tad. I'm getting ideas for projects and blog topics. Problem is it's 11:30. Why can't I get motivated like this around 10 AM?
Anyhow, due to my new bloggin' spirit I'm worried there will be a negative affect (effect?) on the quality of my posts, so please, bear with me while I sort my way through this.
JK
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Pompous pundits that are hurting America
I used to watch the Fox News Channel (fair and balanced? HA!) and feel lucky that the left side of the political spectrum in our country didn't sponsor (or at least we didn't take them even semi-seriously) pompous windbags that skewed fact and manipulated emotions in order to spin their viewpoint in a way that makes them appear as not just opinions, but as facts that no red-blooded, flag-toting American would ever imagine questioning. Frequently they will bring on guests that have an opposing viewpoint, but when they do they make sure to have a couple right-wing hitmen of their own in the wings to properly gang up on the guy and interrupt him so often he has to yell in order to get a word in, which in turn makes him look like a douche.
So like I was saying I was feeling somewhat smug that liberals didn't support this type of pundit when I stumbled upon one: Bill Maher, host of HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher. That guy is a Grade A Douchebag. His perches in his power chair and spouts off commantary that is aimed more at getting what turn out to be light chuckles from his audience as opposed to making any kind of sense. His solution to a guest that has an opposing viewpoint that brings up any evidence that he can't find an answer to is to yell and holler and call George W. an idiot. I used to like to watch him on Politically Incorrect on ABC when I was 15, but then I grew up. His comedy is drab when it isn't completely unfunny and is often borrowed and/or rehashed from somebody else. Hell, the guy can't even cause controversy on his own terms. In 2001 he said on air regarding the War on Terrorism: "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." Afterward companies pulled sponsorships and his contract was not renewed by ABC, and at the same time he was awarded received the President's Award (for "championing free speech") from the Los Angeles Press Club.
Seems pretty controversial right? It would be, except for the fact that Maher was only repeating what his guest, Dinesh D'Souza, had just barely said. On the other side he can take credit for another controversial remark where he said that "...dogs are like retarded children."
I know what the conservatives are thinking: "At least our pompous windbags are upstanding, moral gentlemen." To that I have three words: Those Who Trespass. None of these guys are perfect, so let's not try to justify and/or dignify anything here.
Nobody comes out clean in this argument. It's all a load of crap that just needs to go away. Why does the modern political landscape have to be so damned mean? We need open and honest debate in this country now as much as ever. So let's stop demonizing those that disagree with us. Let's stop questioning their mental state and patriotism. Let's compromise and actually try and find solutions to our problems. Let's get rid of all this hot air and start talking again.
So like I was saying I was feeling somewhat smug that liberals didn't support this type of pundit when I stumbled upon one: Bill Maher, host of HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher. That guy is a Grade A Douchebag. His perches in his power chair and spouts off commantary that is aimed more at getting what turn out to be light chuckles from his audience as opposed to making any kind of sense. His solution to a guest that has an opposing viewpoint that brings up any evidence that he can't find an answer to is to yell and holler and call George W. an idiot. I used to like to watch him on Politically Incorrect on ABC when I was 15, but then I grew up. His comedy is drab when it isn't completely unfunny and is often borrowed and/or rehashed from somebody else. Hell, the guy can't even cause controversy on his own terms. In 2001 he said on air regarding the War on Terrorism: "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." Afterward companies pulled sponsorships and his contract was not renewed by ABC, and at the same time he was awarded received the President's Award (for "championing free speech") from the Los Angeles Press Club.
Seems pretty controversial right? It would be, except for the fact that Maher was only repeating what his guest, Dinesh D'Souza, had just barely said. On the other side he can take credit for another controversial remark where he said that "...dogs are like retarded children."
I know what the conservatives are thinking: "At least our pompous windbags are upstanding, moral gentlemen." To that I have three words: Those Who Trespass. None of these guys are perfect, so let's not try to justify and/or dignify anything here.
Nobody comes out clean in this argument. It's all a load of crap that just needs to go away. Why does the modern political landscape have to be so damned mean? We need open and honest debate in this country now as much as ever. So let's stop demonizing those that disagree with us. Let's stop questioning their mental state and patriotism. Let's compromise and actually try and find solutions to our problems. Let's get rid of all this hot air and start talking again.
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