Whispers

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    1.12.08

    A Space Cowboy Looks At 20

    No, this isn't going to be a bad parody of a wonderful Jimmy Buffet song. At least, I won't be typing with a bad parody of a wonderful Jimmy Buffet song in mind. Neither will it be an homage to a popular anime. Neither will it be a thick, strongly-typed, wordy, convoluted introspective on a none-so-dramatic life of your average 20-year old.

    Now which one of those did you believe? Hopefully not the last one. What does "average" mean, anyway?

    ...Wait, 20?

    Age is something that is funny to me. My experience with age thus far has been as such: the older you get, the notice and implication of age changes in sort of a... hm. A situation that I can't find a mathematical analog to. Preposterous. Something having to do with an inverse proportion. The older I've gotten, the less age has made a difference... in some respects. I work on professional efforts in Second Life on behalf of the ESPRMC and meet with Drs. Houser and Thoma and talk to them just... no, not casually, but not nervously and not reluctantly. I go on trips with amalgams of demographics, nerdy model United Nations trips to Atlanta and find camraderie everywhere. And yet - perhaps this is where the implication comes in as opposed to the notice - I realize what my age means for me, if not to me. 20 years. 1988 to 2008. It'll be 2009 soon, then 2010. 2015... 2020. I'm in college now, I might be here a semester and 2 more and 2 more and... then what? Maybe I'll get to go to Germany... maybe. It's looking like a stretch as of late, but things always do. What if I live to be 80? What if I don't? A quarter of a lifetime gone getting ready for life?

    Gladly, not. Verily, some of this life has to be called development, and thereby might be called little more than "getting ready" for life, but I feel like I've lived a goodly amount across that pair of decades. (Pair of decades - isn't that idea astounding?) And to think I get to do it at least 3 times moreover - assuming that conversative estimate comes to pass - what a world. What a gift.

    What a world. A space cowboy looks at 20. All these things I say, all these people I see, all these things I learn, thoughts I happen upon.

    Happen upon, you might ask?

    It's funny you should question. Especially since you didn't and I questioned for you. I don't know if we ever think up things... replace up with of. Maybe there's just a huge body of thoughts and possibilities and considerations and combinations flowing through the veins of that collective consciousness like life-blood. Perhaps we tap into that reason with our minds, and our gray matter is pumped full with life by those thoughts, those imaginations, those happenings behind the ether of the universe.

    Read: behind.
    Does it all make sense now? No, of course not. Don't worry, it doesn't for me, either. That's the fun part, dragging you along as if I know something.

    I just like trying to figure it out. With an audience.

    11.11.08

    The Metaphorical Back-burner

    I don't guess I've ever precisely understood why that turn of phrase is so ingrained in my vocabulary, given its context of origin. Everything cooked was on a stove top or in an oven. You keep the back-burners on low heat and say, simmer something, or reduce something while the searing, the boiling, etc. is going on up front and center. So something "on the back-burner" in your head, in your life isn't a priority right now, right? It's taken a back seat. It's not in the limelight for now.

    You aren't focusing on it, for various valid reasons. That's probably the simplest way to put it. Have you ever noticed that it is very difficult to explain idiomatic expressions, or anything like them, without using other idiomatic expressions?

    Strange.

    Anyway, "Our Feature Presentation" is on the back-burner as of late. That was the point of this little discourse. I wish it weren't. Simply put, I find that those little bits of information, those little glimpses on life at large that I once recently would have presented to you there now send me into a ballooning realm of new imaginations and introspection, and all that heavily-worded metaphysical jazz you are so used to finding here at the heart of "Dinosaur Eats Man." So here I am.

    I am shortly to make my way to the 1:00 to 2:15 Tuesday session of Physics 106 - General Physics with Calculus Pt. II. I hope he addresses our tests. He send out an e-mail saying that he dared post numbers as far as grades on WebAssign, even though he was wary of doing so because he very often makes initial mistakes be it in regards to the key, to Scantron handling, or somewhere else. But he did. And mine came up as a 73.2. Unglaublisch! Sie mussen nicht rechts haben. Calculating based upon the hearsay that he scaled the test grades 17 points from the get-go, I conclude that I would have had to miss 7 out of 16 questions to bekomm a 73.2. I don't think that happened.

    This is me being selfish, doubtful, and speaking Germinglish. This is me clicking "Publish Post" and going to class.

    5.11.08

    One Night in the Life of Someone Other Than Ivan Denisovich

    I am sitting in front of a Starbucks Coffee on MacFarland Boulevard, it's 8:54 p.m., I'm sipping on a grande Pike Place Blend, it tastes fresh, I'm actually listening to "I Ain't Mad At Cha" courtesy of 2pac and Danny Boy, I've got my camera with me, I've been taking pictures a lot recently, I'm wearing those same old brown Reeboks, I could really use some new ones, also I'm wearing my older pair of camo-print cargo shorts, my Mellow Mushroom t-shirt, it's actually from the Mellow Mushroom near the campus of USA in Mobile, not the one here, I'm not even sure if the one here sells shirts, but I figure they must, and I'm wearing the green sport coat that I got at the thrift store a few weeks back, at least I think it's a sport coat.

    Maybe it's just a jacket. I never washed it, is that gross?

    The song just ended, and it's moving on to a new one, that is, iTunes is, I just have it playing through my library on shuffle, and I don't think I'll skip this song, it's "We Will Rock You [Fast]" by Queen from disc 1 of "Queen on Fire: Live at the Bowl," that's their concert at the Milton Keynes Bowl in the early 80s, I don't really remember exactly. Is it Keynes or Keyes? I'm not sure of that either, but I'm sort of on a roll, so I don't figure I'll stop and check.

    I came here tonight to do something that you might call "unwind" if you use all this exposition as your main evidence, but really I would say I'm pretty unwound as is, I've been feeling this way for some time now, at least in so far as you would consider the larger part of today to be "now." You know, I typically don't like it when I include two words in quotation marks so near to one another, but I don't think I mind this time around, because it was just necessary to convey the right connotation. Though really, I wish I would always write such that I never needed to utilize such denoted connotation, ha, how oxymoronic is that? I promise I wasn't even trying.

    There are two people playing Go Fish with each other at the table 8 o'clock from my position, and they are smoking, I believe both of them are but I don't plan on turning those degrees to look right off the bat. I have never minded, don't mind, nor will I ever mind smokers, but it is sort of frustrating that I am down-wind from them. At least I hope I am, otherwise I would be left to come to the conclusion that they are rude, or no, just inconsiderate, or no, at the least oblivious. And oblivious is certainly fine, I would never blame someone for that. Is that fine?

    I really like this song, even though I know I've heard it a million times. It's about halfway through Daft Punk's concert on the Alive 2007 tour at Cocachella, and I know I didn't spell that correctly, but I also know that if you really care to know you'll just go look it up for yourself, and that will be okay because you're on the computer if you're reading this and Google is just as far away from you as it is from me. Theoretically, at least. These two EMTs just ran out of the Starbucks a moment ago, got in their ambulance, and headed up 15th street, I guess east? Though really, I shouldn't say that, I don't think they were actually running, it was more of just a brisk walk. I don't blame them. Hurrying is hurrying no matter your pace, I say. And it wouldn't be my blame to blame, so to speak, in the first place. If there were even any blame. Though I don't suppose it would be too hard to imagine a case in which there would be blame to place: say a victim is stricken with some terrible injury, mortal if not treated in a hospital setting, and he or she has a finite amount of time before dying from the injury, and that amount of time is slighted thanks to the brisk walking of the driver of his or her ambulance, as opposed to running, that is to say, what could have been running. In that case, that very unnecessarily detailed and hypothetical case, I suppose if the EMT driving the van just so happened to later divulge his brisk walk to the ambulance from the Starbucks Coffee on MacFarland Boulevard to say, a loved one of the deceased, then there might be blame to place, maybe. But who's to say?

    The flower said I wish I was a tree
    The tree said I wish I could be a different kind of tree
    The cat wished that it was a bee
    The turtle wished that it could fly
    Really high into the sky
    Over rooftops and then dive
    Deep into the sea
    And in the sea there is a fish
    A fish that has a secret wish
    A wish to be a big cactus
    With a pink flower on it
    And the flower would be its offering of love to the desert
    And the desert so dry and lonely that the creatures all appreciate the effort

    I hope you didn't mind that indulgence. Am I a horrible person because I am happier now that the people who were sitting to my 7 o'clock left? I hope not. Or was it 8 o'clock? I just checked, it was 8, and the funny thing is, I don't really think I've turned in the time since they've left, I guess I just misjudged, but that's no matter, because to be honest with you I was considering calling it 7:30 in the first place, but I thought at the time that to be a little too specific for something such as calling a person's location in clock format.

    I can't really decide if I have a surprised reaction to so many people visiting this Starbucks Coffee at this time of night. If I'm not surprised, I think I am entirely neutral. I act like it is entirely packed - it really isn't, but there is a long line. It's like people went mad when they realized they didn't have to go to the Ferguson Center for Starbucks Coffee, though I guess it would be outright silly and infactual to say they ever had to. Still, there is something about coming to a Starbucks Coffee location to do the deed of... you guessed it, drinking brewed coffee. That's honestly pretty much the only think I drink from here now. It is wonderful! I won't deny having treated myself to a pair of or a few Pumpkin Spice lattes since the season has been right, but brewed coffee alone is the trend I seem to fit.

    That expression wouldn't make since if I weren't Joseph Florence, if this weren't "Dinosaur Eats Man," if you weren't my reader, and there are probably more necessary factors to consider, actually.

    I guess the reason I typed all this was because I really just needed to say something, and I couldn't really think of anything of any one particular nature to talk about. I don't mean that in so much as I felt like I needed to oblige my blog itself, or even you, readers. Sorry if that sounds harsh to mention despite it being the truth, I just didn't want to lead you in incorrect understanding. Rather, I just sat here and typed because Joseph really needed himself to do so.

    I need to write an e-mail to some one concerning tomorrow night's AIRC meeting since we are going to have a par-pro driven debate of Chinese and Taiwanese relations, and I need to look over more problems before I take my physics test tomorrow, and I need to do work in Second Life before I end up having nothing to bring to the table when I meet up with Dr. Thoma, Tyler, and Andrew tomorrow. Technical difficulties. This research project will continue after a word from our sponsors. But for just a little bit longer I'm going to be here. Because it is cold, and my coffee is really not hot anymore, and "Suffragette City" by David Bowie is playing over my headphones, not the speakers above me, thought it did play over the speakers the last time I was here, and because I might get more coffee before I leave, and because something inside me feels like I need - read: need - to take a picture or two of something, goodness only knows what, before I leave.

    The EMTs just came back. I hope no one was hurt. I don't guess his brisk pace affected anything but how quickly he could make it back to Starbucks Coffee on MacFarland Boulevard to get back in line for some beverage. I hope he gets just plain brewed coffee. This was a good cup of Pike Place Blend. There's someone else smoking at my 8 or 7 or 7:30, but he's making it a point to blow it far away from everyone downwind. His companions, who just arrived on the scene from inside, don't seem to be so considerate. And this smoke smells worse. Maybe there's just more of it. By the way, his brisk pace could have also affected, even if no one was hurt, how quickly someone received reassurance of the fact that they were going to be okay. But they are, I assume, so all is well. I hope he doesn't get called again.. at least not before he makes it out with his drink.

    I really love Enya and I can't wait for Christmas and I want to play Rock Band.

    "Hiroshima (B B B Benny Hit His Head)" just came on. Headphones again, a shuffled iTunes library, not the speakers. I'll listen to the album on the way back home.

    Home?

    29.10.08

    Running from the T-Rex

    "Don't ... move."

    You may well wonder what happened to the man. Eaten? Trapped underneath a Ford Explorer? Cowering inside a bathroom stall? Torn to shreds inside a remote power facility?

    E) None of the above

    October has been a busy month. Truth be told, blogging has taken up shop in the back of my head, waiting, biding its time.

    Luckily, the ideas, the thoughts, the wondering and observing have not ceased. I have no reason to think they ever will, but that is likely just wishful thinking.

    Both "Dinosaur Eats Man" and "Our Feature Presentation." It's November come around the corner, and you know what they say, "Revenge is a dish best served cold."

    Brew some coffee.

    -----

    To offer some consolation for coming here only to find a shallow explanation and nothing to grab hold to, here's a glimpse at what I've been up to.
    That's right, you guessed it. It's the top-down pin planner view of a Cyclone II series Altera field-programmable gate array! I used it to successfully implement a four-bit addition and subtraction unit that I designed using both VHDL and schematic capture in Quartus II. Fun stuff, I tell you.

    Fun stuff.

    7.10.08

    Braving the "E-storm" or The Way I (Think You Ought To) See It #4

    Ahoy-hoy?

    Welcome to http://dinosaureatsman.blogspot.com. That's hyper-text transfer protocol, a couple of notifiers and delimiters, a header, a domain, and a classification. All brought to you by the cooperative efforts of several different magics. DNS, HTML, yadda yadda yadda. I know what you're thinking. "Is this going to be a bunch of our endeared author flaunting some empty knowledge of a bunch of acronyms that are totally unimportant?"

    Oh ye, of little faith. Forgive my indulgence; the comma was included for dramatic effect.

    What I speak of is what makes the world go round. What makes your Dow Jones Industrial Average do that thing it does. What keeps you seated in front of an array of a vast array of pixels for a big chunk of your day. What puts Paolo Conte's "Come di" out at a more than moderate decibel level for your pure enjoyment. What lets me see what's going on, at any given time at 024 HWY 69 & MIMOSA, at 008 15th and McFarland, at 030 McF & Rice Mine, and at 004 LWS & University across my Tuscaloosa Metropolitan Area.

    I speak of what has so commandingly placed humanity on the precipice of its greatest leaps and bounds forward. I read an article saying that human evolution is leveling off thanks to the growing homogeneousity of dispersed population. That and agriculture. Me and my Dell Latitude D830 beg to differ. I believe our fingers will grow stronger, perhaps even more adept at doing all those... "fingery" things than they are now. I believe our minds, given enough time, will adopt a more structured interpretation of natural and cognitive phenomena thanks to the digital world we have imposed upon our senses. (Read: don't mistake what I mean by digital - it's high or it's low, on or off, 1 or 0, +5V or 0V, Vcc or ground.) I believe, mayhap even most likely-ily, that our eyes will take leaps and bounds to keep up with smaller things. Faster things. Far less discreet things.

    But I am no geneticist. No human developmental anthropologist. Not even an engineer... not yet.

    We live in an age where more world than is reachable by sea is reachable by strokes on a keyboard. Where the face of a child who might never have known the rest of the world, or vice-versa, is captured in a resolution more refined than many of us can see in the first place and entrusted forever to the annals of the internet.

    Mind you - let me borrow that spring board, Mr. Louganis - I don't think the internet has limits anymore. You know in "Terminator 3" (I'm going to assume everyone watched the sub-par threequel just like I did) when they figure out that the whole ploy was to get them to survive Judgment Day inside the mountain, and Connor makes the comment about how Skynet was not some machine they could deactivate, but that it was software, existing all throughout the world. That's the internet. But surely it has ventured past classification. It is nowhere (read: now here.) In your pockets, in the memes in your head, in your cell phone conversations, in your car's technical read-outs, in your shoes! It is our world. And what a world we have crafted for ourselves.

    We live in an age of limitless potential... think about that for a while.

    I do not frown on any aspect of the information age. It is our beast, should we not take it by the horns? Turn it where we would have it go? Should we not utilize being able to quickly and effectively communicate at all times? Bounce ideas around, question concepts, resolve conflicts in the most open forum possible?

    I think so.

    We live in an age of limitless potential. I said that a moment ago, now let's come back to it. You would assume I infer that the internet, that the machines of our information age have granted us this condition. I beg to differ. We have always lived in an age of limitless potential - this I call the age of man. Simply enough, we've just got one of them fancy new-fangled playgrounds to romp around on, instead of one of those step-by-step jungle gyms littered with pebbles from back in my day. I tell you, back in my day...

    28.9.08

    Your (first) life is how you script it

    Dear Blog,

    I'm sorry for "neglecting" you for a while, even though I know you don't see it that way. You know what your purpose is, and you are patient with me, and I appreciate that to no end. You don't mind the time I've been spending with http://ourfeaturepresentation.blogpsot.com - you understand its place and yours. I entrust to you, "Dinosaur Eats Man," the most essential and unique bits of who I just might be. There is no other place for them.

    Thank you for being the window between wherever it is inside me these thoughts are born and the rest of the world... that is, the portion that gets on the internet thereof.

    You're going to help people, because you're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, people like you!

    Your author,
    Joseph

    -----

    Dear Reader,

    Thank you for taking the time to filter through my inwardly directed musings to find your place here. Sunday, September 28, 2008 reads my computer calendar. 12:57 PM to the minute. Personally, it is hard to believe that October is so nearly here. Midterm grades, project presentations, 5+ and 0 Alabama football games, a Halloween carnival, and more? Did I leave out the bears? Oh my.

    My days are full of Boolean algebra and essential prime implicants. Of cheddar and potato chowder and Caesar salads. Of capacitance and resistivity.
    Neuer Wein und Zwiebelkuchen and adjective endings. Tests for linear independence and Gauss-Jordan elimination. Boardroom meetings and Second Life. What about my first life? Is that what all these things make up, really? Or do they just fill the gaps between every bit of my real life? I don't see how. I don't imagine there are gaps.

    I imagine this is who I am on any given day... I am perfectly fine with that. I have my friends, my love, my thoughts, my imaginings, and my video games even, but I'm a student, growing, trying to get somewhere, and I am perfectly fine with reaffirming that fact every day. I am lucky, because nowadays, nowadours, nowadweeks, I seem to find myself perfectly fine with a lot of things.

    And that's fine by me.

    Apparently, I ought to co-op with a company in my probable career field sometime in my undergraduate course. Who knew? I don't think it makes much sense to stress too much about it now, not this semester. For one, I am in no position to worry about anything but grades. It makes more sense to think of co-oping right before a summer, but... do they have interview day in the spring? I don't believe so. I'm sorry to ask you so many rhetorical questions, reader. I will surely find all the answers soon enough.

    More than apparently, there is next to nothing stopping me from studying abroad sometime in my undergraduate course. I'll admit, being this... well, lucky? Privileged? It nearly makes it feel like a responsibility. And what a lovely prospect... a semester or a summer in Germany. It is really hard to imagine, but I imagine when the time comes, I will be but a few well-placed steps from making it happen. What a world, and what a world could I come to know.

    I hope you enjoyed this "update" on your reluctantly nimble author on hand. You can feel certain that I enjoyed it. It feels good.

    Don't be a stranger. And don't miss "Our Feature Presentation." I would call it a lot more modular than "Dinosaur Eats Man," albeit perhaps less... in-depth? But no...oh heck, go read for yourself.

    Cheers,
    Joseph

    -----

    Dear Life,

    Keep up with the unpredictability. I am enjoying it. Keep putting that soreness into my legs and arms the day after I visit the rec. center. It reminds me that you are there. Keep up with the unpredictability... but don't change the color of plain white light bulbs: that soft, orange glow. I need that. Keep up with the unpredictability, but don't change the way I puzzle myself every time I see myself in the mirror.

    Be careful,
    Joseph

    16.9.08

    Dr. Sidewalk or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and (Realize I) Love the People Around Me

    For to whom some detail of this writing may have been previously divulged: forgive the chance in title, the change in topic.

    For your analyses, I present to you my humble return to the blogosphere. Somehow, I half expected that word to pass the spell check, but I don't mind that it didn't.

    For Wednesdays.

    -----

    It takes a lot to walk on a sidewalk. It takes more to retreat from its solidarity, its order, and its utility and return to the grasses, the dirt, the rocks. The paths beaten, only soon to become another sidewalk.

    It always happens to me on Tuesday mornings. Tuesday and Thursday mornings, both. I am enjoying my walk across a fair portion of the campus towards Gordon-Palmer Hall. I am breathing in the air as it sits on top of the quad, nearly full in its stagnation and thickness with the growing heat. I am realizing what a spoiled treat it is to be headed to my first class of the day at 11:00 a.m. I am wondering how far we will venture today in MA 237 - Applied Matrix Theory (An Introduction to Linear Algebra, I ought to call it). I make a turn here, a cross there. I cross at the cross-walk in front of the natural history museum, taking up a tiny bit of that particular CrimsonRide bus's time once again. I turn left ahead and then... there it is.

    The sidewalk.

    A simple sidewalk, ample width, serves its purpose well. Traverse the space across the driveway between two buildings, make it from the quad to Hackberry Lane. Plain and simple. If only it were...

    I loathe this sidewalk. I think it, in particular, out of every sidewalk that has ever been planned, lain, or walked upon, out of any that ever was, is, or ever will be, reflects all that is wrong with human kind.

    We are inconsiderate. We are self-centered. We are meek. We are pushy. We are selfish. We are vengeful. We are oblivious. We are pretentious. We are kind. We are distraught. We are walking, hurrying, wasting time, all of these things at once! They all happen there, there of all places, each slab upon concrete slab.

    I have not made an effort to seek out this knowledge, yet I make a reasonable assumption. There is a large biology lecture that concludes in the Biology building on Hackberry Lane at 10:50 a.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays. There are also a number of math classes, with varying capacities, that end at the same time inside Gordon-Palmer Hall.

    That's where they all come from.

    Three, four, sometimes somehow five abreast, barreling towards me like a freight train at a leisurely pace with a meager gait. On the sidewalk. Moving in a totally unpredictable zig-zag, worthy of scholarly research and analysis on the criterion of completely naturally showcasing chaos theory. On the sidewalk. Brazen behind their wide, wide, extra-wide rimmed sunglasses that render no face to share a smile with. Behind their backwards baseball caps, backwards visors, upside-down backwards visors that must have the properties of race horse blinders. On the sidewalk.

    -----

    You would think that my mind would have the capacity not to toil with such anti-confrontation. Can't you easily walk on the dirt, Joseph? Can't you easily weave your way in and out, back and forth since you're walking a mile a minute anyway? If it offends you so deeply towards the bone, why don't you just take the sidewalk by the concrete and walk on it? This is just foolish and self-centered. You might easily be asking all of these questions, thinking these thoughts. You might not. I only suggest them because I've considered them myself, you know? I didn't pull them out of thin air, and I certainly don't know what you are thinking. If I did, oh if I did...

    The fact of the matter is, it's not about the sidewalk. I'm not even so sure it's about the people, but we'll get to that later. It's about me. It's the fact that no matter how many times I walk the gauntlet, and stare down a trio of friends from yards out, I will always move. Do I think I should? Me knee-jerk reaction is to say, "No, of course I shouldn't move. The sidewalk is just as much mine as it is theirs, and we all learned in kindergarten that you stay to the right of things. Go through the right door, go up the right side of the stairs, drive on the right side of the road. You should stand your ground." But the fact of the matter is, I hold a certain very contradictory fact in very high regard: you never do something unless you want to. Plain and simple. No one - read, no one - makes you do anything you do. You make the decisions. You eat the food, you type the letters, you take the steps, you smile or frown, just you. So if I stop and get out of someone's way, it wasn't the whim of some celestial demoralizer. It's me. I decided it was best.

    Why?

    -----

    I might have found the way to give us our answer, albeit in a very grandiose, self-righteous-sounding way. We all know good and well that if I'm already worrying about it, I'll make plenty of explanation to the contrary thereafter, so I continue. It reads:

    The way I see it, compassion is a double-edged sword. Righteous and edifying, yet a curse, two in one.

    Am I saying that I am a saint because I don't extend the reality to you that sidewalks are two and three people-wide for a reason other than you walking in tan-tandem with your friends? No, I am not. Am I saying that I bear a heavy burden on my shoulders for taking the steps to leave your walk back from class undisturbed? Again, most certainly not.

    What I am saying is this: I can't recall ever having pointed out to someone that they are "in my way" when coming upon them on the sidewalk. No matter having to make my way out into the street, pausing for a moment, or taking a different step altogether. I doubt I ever will. I don't consider this a virtue, I don't think my unknown peers around me should thank me for this courtesy, either. Rather, I wish anyone who takes the time to notice it at all, or its ends, even, will recognize it for what I do - a window, facing one of my deepest natures.

    -----

    I am going to take care of you. I am going to worry about you. I am going to sacrifice comfort, ease, and prudence for you. (And most of you know how much I love to be on time.) Even if be it only ever in the most subtle ways, I am going to do something for you, and I always will. And I will expect nothing in return.

    -----

    Here comes the worry. "How could you spend pages explaining how wonderful you are and not expect us to find you self-centered, self-righteous, self-over-zealous?" Oh, but your folly is there. The fact that I posed this question myself, and straight-away, nonetheless, shows just how I did expect this. I do expect it... I think. Yet I feel like even if that response strikes you, you'll keep reading, you'll see me again, you'll meet me, you'll have an extra eye on me, and then you'll know that if I had any intent to bring accolade upon myself, to make my portrait in your minds gleam, I would not be the same person doing all of these things.

    Why do I bring it up, then? Because I worry that none... scratch that - that too few of you see any return from this nature, from this essential, though perhaps tiny, part of who I am.

    What can I do to make me worth your while? To open another window on me for those of you who don't run into me on the sidewalk on a daily basis? What can satiate this deep worry in me?

    -----

    I can blog.

    30.8.08

    You got some 'splainin' to do, Lucy!

    I haven't blogged in a long, long time. I can't really say why.

    That's not a "can't" in the sense of "it's sensitive information;" rather, it's an honest can't - I do not know. Soon enough, though, the storm is coming. Truth be told, a pair of real storms are coming - Gustav and Hanna. Apparently they mean business.

    Note a third on your forecast: Joseph. Alright, fine... there has to be an "I" storm in the meantime. We'll say Icarus will appear and disappear silently in the far Atlantic. Most important is me. I am a growing storm, my eye is a strong foundation, my spirals reach far and wide. I am tall. I am fast.

    I am coming.

    20.7.08

    Internet Relay Chat

    From July 4, 2008.

    I don't think this fact is one I have ever necessarily tried to avoid, but if you'll talk to me, I'll talk to you. I love to talk. I really always try to refrain from pontificating, unless its just what you've asked me to do. Or unless I've made it perfectly clear that it's no certain truth, no objective knowledge, rather just the way I see it. But I'll be happy to tell you. Happy to explain, happy to regale, happy to advise.

    In some ways, my appreciation of a good meal is distinctly and especially harbored by its power over the people who partake of it. And not in sustenance. Ask my brother-in-law (the me of Hannah and Caroline and Me) and he will tell you (at least so I assume he might), that somewhere even if in the back of his head, he looks forward to family dinners out as a chance to do some well-deserved catching up, whether only about movies I haven't seen, or about my thoughts on our HUMC past, present, and future. Ask my girlfriend (the lady leading the life behind A brief history of life) and she will tell you, though she has in the past grown weary of my sometimes groundless anchorage to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, that she well appreciates the time "alone" we can enjoy, the time to expound and unwind we find seated out around town. Ask my mother (... my mom - no internet connection to draw here), and she might confess her undying lover for the nights we spend every so often at one of dozens of Mexican restaurants... or Olive Garden. Because it is there that she feels I will really talk to her, and though I promise - to you, mom, and to all my readers - that this is nowhere near necessary, it does make it easy. No TV to watch, no internet to lose myself in, just us and the stuffed chicken marsala.

    And I do love it.

    In case you didn't know it, I work at Movie Gallery. As is likely the case with many late teens and twenty-somethings in the odd job world, it took me a while to settle in. It took me longer to find my comfort zone. Then... I got dangerous. Started watching new releases before they were released. Asking question instead of dodging them or reluctantly answering.

    Funny thing is, I sound like I've gone through a drawn-out, 3 stage egg larva pupa metamorphosis. Reality: I've been there exactly a month; I know because I had to change my password today (real talk).

    I told you, I love it.

    Snoop on me gabbing with customers, or waxing poetic with my philosopher peers, or blogging to a faceless digital mass, and I might not sound like anyone you've ever heard before. No one is always the same someone to everyone.

    I don't know if I went anywhere with that; if I did, where I went, or even if I meant to in the first place. But here we are. Care to talk?

    30.6.08

    Not My Cup of Tea

    I have a feeling the original literal nature of this phrase is likely now a little more dated than all of us would like to think. Maybe some of us more than others. Personally, I love tea. Not just plain-as-plain tea used for brewing the native beverage of the South, either. (For a discourse on my capitalization of things such as earth and South back and forth in different contexts, see "Arbitrarily Pre-Purposed Post #001.") Black teas, white teas, florals, blends, infusions, all sorts. And no, you don't have to see out the confines of establishments such as Starbucks Coffee to get a good cup of tea. Often times that is a step too far. As far as you really ever need go is your local grocery store. If you are very, very lucky in life, you might not have to go any farther than your backyard. But I digress, (as often).

    Tazo, the brand of the teas you would enjoy upon visiting a Starbucks Coffee location, invites brewers to "steep [their bags] for 5 minutes while contemplating your favorite eternal mysteries." Then, enjoy. I've come, even if stereotypically, to know a good cup of tea as a gateway into definite relaxation. Something can be said for the physically therapeutic effects of a hot beverage, but I've time and time again enjoyed the same experience at the rim of a cup of iced tea. Once again, that is not thanks only to my Southern heritage. Yet let me note, most obviously, that a cup of tea is not every person's cup of tea.

    I have come to be something of a coffee man as well. That I can neither doubt nor deny. I have not concluded whether the dark, often harsh brew of those tiny black beans from across the globe can draw out quite the same ends in me which can teas. A good cup of coffee is wonderful. Again, don't be sucked into thinking any monster the likes of Krispy Kreme, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks Coffee, or even McDonald's is a necessary evil to face to get a worthwhile mug-full. Look everywhere. Look in your churches and your offices. Look in your own kitchen.

    What entrances me most about these drinks is not the brews, nor the potencies, nor the flavors therein, but rather the intrinsic, hidden quality I have begun to showcase this whole talk through. Their powers to unwind. To comfort. to familiarize, ice-break, or uninhibit. To whisk away. To bring tumbling back. You know, that vision that every coffeehouse lounge has for its patrons, but all too often falls short of for lack of person, lack of mood, or perhaps most certainly, lack of drink. Not everyone can dig on a coffee or a tea.

    An ice-cold Coca-Cola Classic out of a glass bottle. A Yuengling Lager from that signature green bottle. A styrofoam cup filled with plain tap water. A far too ornately decorated glass filled to the brim with Luzianne tea, brewed in the sun, sweetened. A ceramic mug steeping a short white tea, with a sprig of mint floating around at the top. A sleeved paper cup of freshly-brewed coffee berthed of twice-roasted South American beans, with room for something that will never be, because you take it black but you like it that way.

    Everyone has their cup of tea.

    You know in "Back to the Future Part II," when Marty and Doc end up back back in 1955, and the Doc pulls out a suitcase full of money from every decade or so that he might ever find himself in? From some reason, this sticks with me. It was all for being prepared.

    What I want is a briefcase with whomever's cup of tea I need at any given time right inside. Whatever you need to get to that point of zen, of calm, of passion. I've got it.

    My name is Daniel Joseph Plainview Florence. I am a drink man.

    You drink your cup of tea. You drink it up!

    29.6.08

    Death and All His Friends or The Way I See It #3

    Every life is framed by two mysteries. Only one of them, birth, is considered a miracle. If you are a religious person, birth brings a new soul into the world from its home with God. If you are not, the miracle is that a single fertilized cell in a mother’s womb can divide and subdivide a mere fifty times to produce a complete new person. A blob of protein and water somehow knows to shape itself into eyes, hands, skin, and a brain.

    This nine-month transformation keeps accelerating, so that by the end a million new brain cells are appearing every minute. At the moment the newborn emerges, like a space shuttle undocking from the mother ship, every system that needs to function independently - heart, lungs, brain, and digestive tract - suddenly realizes that the moment is now and not a moment later. Organs detach from total dependence on the mother, and with astonishing precision they begin to act as if they had always been on their own. In a split second life chooses to live.

    The other mystery that occurs, usually decades later, death, is very different. It brings to an end all the things birth struggled so hard to achieve. A thread heartbeat crosses an invisible line and becomes still. The bellows of the lungs, which have pumped some 700 million times, refuse to pump even once more. A hundred billion neurons cease to fire; a trillion billion cells throughout the body receive the news that their mission is over. Yet this abrupt finale is as much a mystery as birth, for at the moment life ends, 99% of our cells are typically still functional, and all 3 billion codons, the individual letters in the book of human DNA, remain intact.

    Death comes without the miraculous coordination of birth. Some cells don’t even get the news for some time. If the dead person is revived within ten minutes or so, before the brain gets permanently damaged by hypoxia, the body’s machinery will go back to work as if nothing had happened. Indeed, death is such a blurry event that eyelids can continue to blink ten or twelve times after a head is severed from a body (a grisly fact discovered at the foot of the guillotine during the French Revolution).

    Death is something that, on some level, I feel as though every man lives to fight. Looking at the span of a “good” lifetime, ranging wildly from 50 to 100 years upon this planet, no length is significant, notable, recognizable even next to the lengths of our eras, the length of our written history, or very much less the “length” of time. (Please note: the humpty-dumptyism of the previous sentence and its constituents is something I will not tackle here.) Our lives as humans, depending on several factors, including, but certainly not limited to race, gender, finance, geographic location, and familial situation, are composed by everything from fighting wars, to teaching our young; from fleeing persecution, to finding new people to persecute; from eating, drinking, and being merry, to contemplating life’s eternal mysteries; from “wasting” hours with the wonder of the internet, to spending years taking in the sights of the world firsthand; and from studying at universities towards hopeful careers, to spending every waking hour of every day looking for sustenance just to make it to the next.

    I believe the very last of those spells it out mostly plainly. Most recognizably. Most succinctly. No matter your situation, your calling, your hopeful destiny, you are waiting on death. Fending it off. You might fear it. You might have been running from it for years, on your way even now to hide out in some mountains for a while. You might be enticed by the prospect, knowing that the greatest extremity from your condition now as… alive, would be to be alive no longer. You might embrace death, “knowing” the promise it has in store for you, enjoying the life you have been granted along the way. I could spend the rest of my days before my own demise, here, at this keyboard, entrusting from a list to http://dinosaureatsman.blogspot.com an individual description of every single way that death is viewed by every mind on Earth, and I would not make it a fraction of the way through. That is one beauty of death to me.

    I am not sure just how I would categorize myself according to any certain criteria regarding death’s regard. I do not deny it, but I am perplexed by it. I do fear it, but am not governed by this fear. Rather, I am governed by the very truth this life is endowed with by death’s toll…

    As best as I may ever know - and should I have to say, as best I should ever wish to know - this life is all I have. It is the most precious gift imaginable in the scope of all existence, or all that existence ever could be, and though I feel I am truly indebted to no one for it save my mother (as an unavoidable, cosmic, existential life-debt seems far too steep a condition to live with at all), I am thankful for the chance to live it every single day that I do.

    I am no one but myself, therefore my assumptions about the rest of humanity around me are free to run wild, yet I can hear someone say, to some effect, “Isn’t it a bit dismal to think of this life and this life alone as all you’ve got, seeing especially as how you’ve just got done explaining at how relatively insignificant it is? Isn’t the promise of everlasting life in heaven a little too much to brush off? Isn’t the perfect union of nirvana something too good to deny? Doesn’t the limitless potential of reincarnation just balance everything out too well to overlook?” My answers to you, whoever you might ever be, are, “No,” “no,” and “no,” respectively. But if you’ll take care and note, I haven’t actually done any brushing off, denying, or overlooking of any sort. No, I have not.

    I have no way of knowing what will come at the first minute of my twelfth hour. In fact, I know very little, if anything, of just who I will be when that time does come. What I do know, will know, is what I will have had up to that point. A full and lived life. And after that?

    I have never searched for a promise for another life to give reason to this one. To me, that would be cheating this life of what it deserves a priori. I have never spited this life for being the only one I have been given so far. I meet every day, still thankful, hopeful to make an impact on the life someone else has been given to live. They might be living for a totally different reason. Putting forth a different means to a different end. Perhaps even living a totally different life. That I do not know, on a person to person basis, nor could I ever truly come to find out. What I can know, and do take the care to know, is this: I am here. So are you. Be my friend and I will be yours. I will teach you something and you can share something with me, if you want. Let me show you my world and I, with humility and awe, will look upon as much of yours as you will show me.

    I believe. I do believe.

    I watched “Finding Forrester” tonight and took advice from Sean Connery’s William Forrester. I cracked the spine of a book upon my shelf and let it take me somewhere inside my own head. Once I got there, I committed what I found to this page. The book was “Life after Death: The Burden of Proof,” authored by Deepak Chopra. I have not finished this read, nor come anywhere close, but if I find anything else inside me along my way, I’ll be sure to let you know. The excerpt is in italics above.


    I owed you a full review of Coldplay's "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends," but I will confess I had fun misleading you, if I did, with the title above. I promise it is coming soon. I am striving to first know the album like the back of my hand.

    6.6.08

    The Way I See It #2

    The way I see it, global warming is real. As real as the liquid crystal display you're intuiting these colored pixels on. As real as the clothes you are wearing (or for my more free-spirited readers, the clothes in your drawers or closets). As real as the fingers you're typing or clicking with. Real real real. Read me again. Global warming is real. The globe is warming. Earth is getting hotter.

    The way I see it, global warming is real. So is global cooling. That's just not happening right now...not quite yet. When I was a high school senior studying biology, I was lucky enough to a have an associate presenter come and give the tried and true "An Inconvenient Truth" presentation. The real deal. One turning point of their presentation, some cold hard fact the presentation relied on came in the form of a graph, mapping the average approximated yearly temperatures for Earth for the past, say, many years. Tens or hundreds of thousands of years. The graphs was very informative and very easy to read. Temperature versus time. It conformed to a very simple path... plainly-put, a zig-zag, deviating from a given medium, parallel to the x-axis. The presenter carefully led the graph up to the present day, noting the highs followed by the lows, and so on, and so on. until she reached the last high...a smidgen higher than most of the earlier highs. I hate to be blunt, but these really were cold hard facts. I don't plan on explaining any further...I'd hope I don't need to.

    The way I see it, this sort of thing is silly. Very silly. Excessively silly. Just like the vast majority of all the other measures we see propagated in the fight against global warming. I can't really make any grounded statement against such measures; my argument was going to be that all we really need do is never forsake the normal counter-measures against pollution and waste that we seem to never afford what their convenience deserves. Turn off the light when we leave a room? I'll just have to turn it back on later. Ride the bus across campus instead of drive? Then I'd have to see other people. Recycle everything I can instead of commit it to a perpetually deteriorating, possibly to be burned off landfill? Nah, my recycle bin doesn't make quite as good a basketball goal as does my trash can. I'm no environmental imbalance analyst, but I'm fairly sure I can intuit a lowering of carbon emissions and a step "against" global warming from all of those. If global warming is something we're supposed to be fighting in the first place.

    Keep in mind, like I said, I'm no analyst, and I can't really make any grounded statements. It's just the way I see it.

    4.4.08

    I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.

    Sometimes I really do wonder about all this stuff floating around in this head of mine. Every day, something new. Sometimes I fear that more of my head is filled with the lyrics of hundreds, maybe thousands, of songs than it is filled with anything else. That sort of scares me, but then I start to think (and the fact that I can think about it shows that my head isn't filled up yet, right?) about just how my mind is working up there. Maybe I have infinitely much space for song lyrics to fit, for the "...if I don't get some shelter, ooh yeah I'm gonna fade away..." and the "...you know she was a dancer, she moved better on wine..." and the "...Monday warrior: mean mean stridw; today's Tom Sawyer: mean mean pride..."

    On top of that, I have plenty of brain left to worry about ducks (specifically ducklings, but we'll get to that later) and cats and squirrels and the air in the trees and the trees on the quad and the quad on a new summer's day. Has it really even been summer yet? I don't know. It's felt like it at least.

    Today I took something like a nap on a park bench twiddling my thumbs the whole time through.

    I want to be a sophomore and still be here and still be in the computer-based honors program so I can be a part of a research project, spend hours in the library, spend hours hunched over a terminal so I can create something and feel invested in it and feel important in that way. Doesn't that just sound miserable? I hope not.
    I want to sing. I play Rock Band, sure, but what does that amount to? I sing in the shower, in the car, in the room (especially letting you know that I'm never gonna give you up, let you down, run around or desert you). But I ought to make something out of it, oughtn't I?
    I want to read. I have so many books to my name that I have still failed to grace the pages of. That is a shame. I am waiting on the summer to convict myself to pages upon themselves.

    Most of all, I want to get hold of who I really am.
    I find myself a two-face at the worst times. Sure everyone acts a little different around the different people they know. Other times, a three-face maybe? More than that?
    It isn't always in a bad way, either, just.. how do people become the people they are for the rest of their lives? It is just mind-boggling. I want to always be able to joke about some of the things I do, I want to always think about the things I do now, at least on some level, but... I want to be someone fit for being an adult, too. Trust me, if I think of myself as an adult now, it is only on a very small scale. I don't think of myself as ready for nearly anything! Except to take those first few important steps.
    I'm trying to do that every day. I know I'm going to crash when I have my first real job interview. I know I'm going to crash when I first really live truly alone. I know I'm going to crash when I first feel old, when everything that comes with being older comes around. Of course I'm scared, shouldn't I be? I hope it's alright, because I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon.

    Will you come with me? I hope so. I need some friends, some ears to talk to, some hands to hold, some hearts to be free with.

    I promise I'll try and tell you more soon. I've been in a sort of "rut," I suppose, wherein my mind has just been rolling to any number of things, and have found it hard to express them, I guess. Maybe not even express, because it's not like the whole world surely need hear everything my crazy brain can come up with, right?
    But I like sharing, I do.


    26.2.08

    I woke up and I drove to work on the wrong side of the road

    Work. You could call it that. I work at the University of Alabama Office of Information Technology's Computer Help Desk. The HelpDesk. Don't spell it with a space.
    Nine hours a week - more or less - I help people.
    I help people?

    "Hi, I'm having a problem with my e-mail..."
    "...Hm, well, I bet I know exactly what your problem is. Could I have your bama user name?"
    "Oh, okay! It's ... jqpublic."
    "Alright, thank you very much. ... Yes, it shows here that you've passed the soft limit of your disk space. See, the way the account systems are setup on bama, everyone is allocated 50 megabytes of space. Once you hit this, you won't receive e-mail messages or be able to delete the ones you already have."
    "Ohh..."
    "Right. What I can do now, or rather, I actually just did, was increase your quota, for a length of 2 days, from 50 to 60 megabytes."
    "I see...."
    "This will allow you to move messages into your deleted items folder again, and afterwards execute the Empty Trash function - the button is located just in the top left-hand corner of the WebMail interface."
    "Right, right..."
    "Basically all we can advised to keep this from happening again would be you deleting any messages you don't want to keep, and to keep an eye out for messages with especially large attachments, such as pictures or documents."
    "Oh okay!"
    "And that should take care of everything."
    "Well thank you very much!"
    "You're very welcome. Have a nice day."
    "Bye.."
    "Good-bye."

    Did I just help someone?

    Sometimes I get the impression that the people who call wish they could have the last two minutes of their life back. All they wanted was for me to do whatever was needed for their e-mail to work again, and then get back to whatever it was they were doing. These people probably aren't the majority, but they are there. I don't expect anyone to be thankful or impatient or understanding or ignorant, I really have no expectation anywhere on the spectrum. I just assume they want help...they might not even need it. But why else come, save wanting help? So I do. And I always let them know they are welcome. And I do hope they have a nice day, because why shouldn't they?

    Sometime last week, or at least I believe it was last week, I learned what a work-day felt like.
    Wake up at 6:56. Get up at 7:04. Clothe, pack, comb, walk out the door, walk to Gordon Palmer Hall, take over for Mark, close Firefox, open Safari, open Remedy, open Adium, wait for a phone call, perform a quota jack, wake up, tell a faculty member to reconnect their monitor themselves before calling PC Support, don't forward a caller to Mr. Merritt, walk to class, discuss the recent news, listen to topics concerning American sub-cultures, make a pertinent comment, listen more, walk to class, discern the method of using Lagrange multipliers to find sets of normal vectors, work a few problems along with Dr. Wang (that's "wong" like wrong, not "wang" like tang), walk downstairs, and help the hours away until 4:45. 4:45 rolls around and it's Make Busy time. The doors lock themselves and the University shuts itself down at 4:45. It's a wonder to behold, really. Then I walk home.

    And the day is over, isn't it?
    That's a work day, I realized, and I don't mind it. I wouldn't mind doing that, coming home, having my meal for the day, catching up on the news, doing my homework, talking to my family and/or my lady for a spell, then resting to do it over again. So maybe if I can do that now, I'll be able to do more then, whenever then ends up being, and whatever the days consist of then, and whoever I'm working with then, and whoever I have with me then.

    Maybe.

    I am studying to be an engineer. I first discovered I was happy I made that decision when I read through the engineering code of ethics prior to finals last semester. I learned what it was all about by learning what we have to keep up with, what our responsibilities are. We help people. We help a lot of people at once.

    "..."
    "UA HelpDesk, this is Joseph."


    26.1.08

    Old friends make you wonder.

    Work it make it do it makes us harder better faster stronger.

    Is college weird? Is our whole education system weird? Think about it.

    Age 5, at the latest: kids are put into a class to learn "social skills," how to listen to teachers, and how to share. They snack, play with toys, and count numbers. If they are lucky, they will be with the same group of 30-50 kids for the next 6 years, and form some sense of companionship.

    Age 11, perhaps: the same kids might move onto a middle school, and have several classes every day, be segmented into class groups, and play school sports. If they're lucky in this circumstance, their good friends will have carried over into the same student body. If they're lucky, the class won't have begun to split along the lines of cliques...yet.

    Age 15, or thereabouts, most likely: our "young adults" have shifted into a new space, high school, that's the real deal. Depending on your circumstance, you'll be with the same group of people you've been with since grade K, or you'll be with a whole new group of people, or you'll be with an unholy amalgamation of people, some of whom you know, some not. I've used the word "lucky" pretty loosely in these descriptions, I have no right to deem any path as more lucky than another, but I thought I would anyway.

    [Speaking of, do you know what really grinds my gears? The fact that it costs a lot - a lot of money to go to public school. At least it does everywhere I've seen.]

    Age 18, hopefully: if a kid is lucky - and I will use "lucky" here because I believe it with all my heart - they will get to do whatever they want to at this age. If they want to attend a university, they are lucky if they get to. But think about what happens when they do? They get a great opportunity, but who do they get to experience it with? New people - a great opportunity in that, too, but what happens to old friends?

    I had a friend, his name was Johnathan Barnett. The fact that I just used the word "had" should tell you something.

    We were as much friends as friends could be, in some sense, I believe. I suppose we really got to know each other..when? I can't even really remember. Early on. But middle school - that's 6th through 8th grade - those were the wonder years. Walker's Icy World on Center Point Parkway. CVS Pharmacy and Civitan Park on the way. Fireworks, pounds of fireworks in the street. Hours of billiards, Marvel vs. Capcom II on the Sega Dreamcast, and what else even? It's all a dear memory in my head, yet its so hard to flesh out the details - and I don't even want to, because its all there as it needs to be.

    Then we went to high school, together, and it was pretty good.

    Then we went to different high schools.

    Are we still friends? I like to think so. But I can't honestly say if I am doing him or either of us an injustice in saying that or not. I don't know if its ever comfortable when we talk, even though I really always hope it is, and try to make it so. Do we really know that much about it either?

    We didn't get to open up to one another about what came around in high school, did we?
    Am I stupid for worrying about it?

    This evening, I got a call from Owen Kidd and he told me that Stephanie Broome was here, wondering if I was anywhere around. I popped over and saw him, her, and Brian Jones. They are all friends or former friends or acquaintances of mine. I don't know why I'm so specific - they're friends. I can hardly even remember how long its been since I first met Stephanie. It was elementary school.

    We've always been friends.

    The first thing she said to me was "It's been a long, long time."
    Yeah, it really had. I don't even know if I could quantify the time it had been, has been since we'd talked much at all. I don't know the extent to which I would have sought out keeping up with her more than I already had before tonight.

    I've told a lot of people that are close to me that I'm always weary of seeing people that I hadn't seen since middle school out in restaurants, or at stores, or just on the road. Because do you really miss them? Have you really missed them?

    It wasn't at all the same at night, but part of what hooked me was that I felt like Stephanie was actually sore for it to have been so long. To have missed what once was, even if it barely was in the first place. She was always a great friend, however much of a friend she ever was, which in the scale of things probably wasn't much.

    To be honest with you, maybe that's why we stayed friends. Because we stayed around. We were "lucky" (reference "lucky" above) to know each other all the way through high school.
    I'm not really sad. We chatted a bit about the typical "I haven't seen you in a while" things, and then we were just there, and then we parted our ways as she went on a tour of campus with Brian and her boyfriend.

    And then I came home and blogged and was happy for the friends I have to make memories with now. I was happy for the girlfriend I can confide in, prod my mind open with, and hold on to. I was happy for the mind I have been given to think about these sorts of things with.

    And I wondered about friends of old. I didn't draw the lines between everything that deserved to be connected in this little blurb, but I didn't figure I needed to either. Everyone's been there.

    Or maybe we still are.

    14.1.08

    Where In The $#@! Is Carmen Sandiego?

    Isn't that what we all want to know?
    I remember a few years ago, it wasn't very many, when The Chief died. From the "...Carmen Sandiego" television series, that is. I hear she was on many, many things, and I feel certain I've seen her in other roles, but I'd never remember her as anyone else. I'd never care to. It's not really the same with Lawrence Fishburne as Cowboy Curtis, but that might just be in light of only having seen "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" in seriousness in the past couple of years. It's not even his role as Morpheus. It's...I don't really even know.
    She was The Chief.
    It was funny to me that you never knew what you looked like - maybe that's because you were actually, for once, just supposed to be you instead of you as someone. But everyone knew what The Chief looked like, even if only her torso or head. She was always on screen. She gave you your leads. She told you what was up, what was down.
    I never found Carmen Sandiego. I played "Where In The USA..." and "Where In The World...," both care of Broderbund, on our old, old Packard Bell PC. I played them both a lot. A whole lot. However, the closest I ever got to her was being in the same city at the same time, but then one of those cronies would take the heat, easy. I can't say I hated it though. What would it have been like if you'd found Carmen Sandiego? Sure, she would have busted out of jail in short time, and put you right back on the chase, but would it be the same? I don't think so. You never knew, you never knew who was going to be in which city, and what seemingly insignificant description you'd have to rely on to suddenly pull an entire flight map out of the blue. It didn't really make sense, but it didn't have to. That was the point, you wanted to catch Carmen Sandiego, because she kept stealing the most ludicrous things, and no one knew where in the world she was, but did you really? Or did you just want to keep chasing until you knew everything else there was to know aside from where she was always hiding, or what you could do to catch her once and for all?
    That's a good question.
    Lynne Thigpen died at 54 almost 5 years ago now. A brain hemorrhage killed her.
    I am not depressing. People die all the time. She was The Chief, though. ACME Detective Agency.

    If you know me, you're probably thinking that this is all some really drawn out, elaborate allegory for the human interaction with the great ideas and truths of the universe, our place in the grand scheme of things, our continuing uncertainty as far as what we are supposed to do or know, or just...well, if you were to think that, you'd probably catch it all. If you knew me, you might think that.
    You might not be wrong, but as far as I know, I'm just talking about Carmen Sandiego.

    2.1.08

    The Way I See It #1

    I'm pretty sure "The Way I See It #n" is copyrighted by SBUX, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a blog is not a commercial venue, or anything of the like.

    The way I see it, no god (or God, or Allah, or YHWH, or whatever) exists. There is no god. There is no need for religion. I do not think religion is inherently a bad thing; rather, I think the positives can easily outweigh the negatives. However, I believe religion is an accessory thing, and if one is seeking a simplified, "true" life, then they must do without it, or no, they must simply recognize this fact.

    The way I see it, our universe is at hand. And on the macrocosm, we, as known humanity, are a wholly insignificant fraction of a greater whole, an immeasurable whole. Fact of the matter is, we don't live on the macrocosm. The "universe" we inhabit is just as relatively insignificant as we are. But around here? We're kind of a big deal.

    I've never really understood people who feel the need to stress the insignificance of humanity and life with everything they say. It has always sounded to me like each is merely trying to rationalize their lack of care...about anything. That's fine by me, it's not my prerogative to try and turn your life into something it isn't. But I am of the opinion that since humanity is a pretty self encompassing entity, and since we are pretty much the top dogs (aside from the occasional tiger, alligator, sting ray, snake, spider, or tiny virus) around, we deserve to be contemplated, to be valued, to be bet against the rest of the universe.

    The way I see it, Darwin hit the jackpot. Everything I see around me, every thought about life, about the universe, about our purpose - I believe it can be examined very thoroughly and appropriately against the backdrops of evolution and natural selection. This is why the universe (or at least our universe) exists as it does now (perhaps finally). This is why there is no need to create some man in the sky to be a creator. The existence of everything we know, as we know it, to me just makes sense.

    The way I see it, what might exist in the universe that transcends our own existence, what is unreachable, what lies in the dust of nebulae just the same as the strings in our hearts is no god, is no inexplicable entity. It is merely a force, a body, an ether even, if you will, that we have yet to appropriately classify. It may well be the very nature of this substance or value to remain unclassifiable. I say substance to expose a commonality to all things. I say value because this tentative truth might like closer to the solution of the grand unified theory than even I might expect.

    The way I see it, what exists instead of any god is this matter, this force. This force makes the planets orbit in anything near circles. It makes all bodies approach "perfection" in the form of spheres. It made this "random" world around us. It accounts for our cognition, limited might it be.

    The way I see it, there is obviously something profoundly impossible to comprehend about our cognition, our consciousness as human beings. I would approach considering it via solipsism, being unable to comprehend the means of our very comprehension being paradoxical, but I feel it unnecessary. Rather, our bodies, our complex nervous systems are the end product of evolution towards life able to tap "directly" into this force, this substance, this reason.

    Now you might see. The very reason we achieve comes from this "gods" nature as pure reason, as sense, as order. As humans, homo sapien sapiens I should say, we have evolved to this point and are now able to connect with this "force" at a most open level. No longer are we the fruit of a gardener's hidden labor, we are the end result of a construction with the blueprints fueling our thoughts even now.

    The way I see it, we see all that we need or ever will need to see. Gravity is invisible to us itself, yet we embrace its existence to vast and necessary end. So to is our "god," the universe's essence, yet every thought we ponder is but a manifestation of this reason, ever searching, driving to take the next step forward.