"I'mma run a back-hoe, uproot that tree; I wanna know where the gold at. I want the gold. Gimme the gold, I want the gold."
THE MARRIAGE TRAP
6 years ago
Faces
4.12.09
31.8.09
22.7.09
I soak my head in the sink for a while
Warum? Plötzlich habe ich keine Lust in meinem Blog zu schreiben. Total unglaublich. Vor nur zwei oder drei Minuten habe ich gedacht, "Ich soll im Blog schreiben!" Und was ist jetzt los?? Keine Ahnung. Heute Abend ist es ein bisschen heiß. Mein rechtes Fenster ist seit ungefähr zehn Minuten geöffnet, und mein Tür geschlossen, und es ist ziemlich heiß. Ich möchte nichts trinken. Wasser? Auch sage ich, "Nein." Ich fühle mir momentan so dick! Das ist auch unglaublich. Man kann sagen, "Dass soll nicht sein." Aber hier sitze ich, mein rechts Fenster ist geöffnet, ich höre ein Jazzlied von einer Wohnung gegenüber das Mozartheim, ich trage noch ein Sprechzeug, und ich habe heute Abend zu viel gegessen, und ich fühle mir ziemlich dick. Also, was soll ich tun? Ins Bett gehen? Vielleicht. Spazieren gehen? Vielleicht nicht. Soll ich Käse essen, um heute Nacht zu träumen. An dieser Frage sage ich, "Ja, ich werde." Wirklich interessiere ich mich für Träume. Ich habe seit einer langen Zeit den Wunsch gehabt, dass ich mich meinen Träumen erinnern könnte. Na ja. Hoffentlich wird diese Käse etwas machen. In meinem Kopf oder irgendwo in meinem Körper.
Ich verstehe viel, die man in Deutsch sagt. Ich kann aber nicht so gut auf Deutsch sagen, was ich sagen möchte. Das ist naturlich das Problem.
Ich glaube, dass man wirklick ein bisschen gut Deutsch gelernt hat, wenn er den Unterschiede zwischen "das" und "dass" auf jeden Fall hören und deutlich sprecehn kann. Und das kann ich. Das ist etwas, worauf ich mich freue.
Tschau. Bis bald.
4.7.09
Thoughts in the Air
I thought this would be a neat starter to my trip. Nothing necessarily
cohesive. I am fairly certain I passed very near over Granddaddy's
place. The power plant caught my attention and I don't think I mistook
the Etowah River. Neato. There are two exeptionally well-behaved
children one row ahead and across the aisle from me. They are probably
more seasoned flyers (fliers?) than I am. The plane was apparently
underbooked - would that be the word? Very few passengers, so I moved
up a row from sitting next to this awful nice lady, a scuba diver, on
her way to celebrate her father's 90th birthday. I thought that was
great. Result being two seats to myself, easy take-off, and blue
skies. No sickness, no sleepiness, no real turbulence. And it's
already 1:32. For now, I resign myself to the dulcet tones of
Thriller. Well, Thriller 25.
cohesive. I am fairly certain I passed very near over Granddaddy's
place. The power plant caught my attention and I don't think I mistook
the Etowah River. Neato. There are two exeptionally well-behaved
children one row ahead and across the aisle from me. They are probably
more seasoned flyers (fliers?) than I am. The plane was apparently
underbooked - would that be the word? Very few passengers, so I moved
up a row from sitting next to this awful nice lady, a scuba diver, on
her way to celebrate her father's 90th birthday. I thought that was
great. Result being two seats to myself, easy take-off, and blue
skies. No sickness, no sleepiness, no real turbulence. And it's
already 1:32. For now, I resign myself to the dulcet tones of
Thriller. Well, Thriller 25.
Published from Charlotte Douglas International, 16:07 local time.
18.6.09
Hallucinating You
What I wish I could find the words to do would be to write about the
fledgling days of the vacation I am spending in Downtown (not Midtown)
Atlanta, in a cozy double in the Days Inn at the corner of Spring and
Baker Streets. What I wish I were doing at this moment, in some ways,
is "windin' [my] way down on Baker Street; light in my head and dead
on my feet." No doubt about it. I suppose a poignant example of
writing in this mode despite all this in my face would be the
countless flashes against the unwaivering fiberglass, the eyes too
preoccupied to take in the majesty of what I imagine must have been
real sunlight coming in around circling whale sharks and a playful
manta ray from anywhere except behind lenses and two-and-a-half to
three inch LCDs. Here I am. What I want is the balcony, the tingling
warm air, something cold every sip in a while, cars speeding past
stories underneath me, horns sounding, tires squealing, fenders
scraping. Sirens sirens sirens. Dim orange floating up, dissipating
as it bounces down concrete hallways well enough for giants. My
eyelids, so heavy. Fingers, so heavy. Every stroke like raising a
sledgehammer over my shoulder and pummeling some poor stake in the
ground. Mind racing, tailing Mine That Bird by a length and a half.
Why is there always something to say, I wonder? To think, imagine,
wonder, even? Maybe that's the very idea. The absence of an absence
makes it all happen, makes it precisely what it can be, all it can be,
makes this world this world as opposed to any other world, a world at
all. What a thought. Thought! The thought of it all. The music,
the itching, the heaviness, the sensation. The sensation. The
sensation.
fledgling days of the vacation I am spending in Downtown (not Midtown)
Atlanta, in a cozy double in the Days Inn at the corner of Spring and
Baker Streets. What I wish I were doing at this moment, in some ways,
is "windin' [my] way down on Baker Street; light in my head and dead
on my feet." No doubt about it. I suppose a poignant example of
writing in this mode despite all this in my face would be the
countless flashes against the unwaivering fiberglass, the eyes too
preoccupied to take in the majesty of what I imagine must have been
real sunlight coming in around circling whale sharks and a playful
manta ray from anywhere except behind lenses and two-and-a-half to
three inch LCDs. Here I am. What I want is the balcony, the tingling
warm air, something cold every sip in a while, cars speeding past
stories underneath me, horns sounding, tires squealing, fenders
scraping. Sirens sirens sirens. Dim orange floating up, dissipating
as it bounces down concrete hallways well enough for giants. My
eyelids, so heavy. Fingers, so heavy. Every stroke like raising a
sledgehammer over my shoulder and pummeling some poor stake in the
ground. Mind racing, tailing Mine That Bird by a length and a half.
Why is there always something to say, I wonder? To think, imagine,
wonder, even? Maybe that's the very idea. The absence of an absence
makes it all happen, makes it precisely what it can be, all it can be,
makes this world this world as opposed to any other world, a world at
all. What a thought. Thought! The thought of it all. The music,
the itching, the heaviness, the sensation. The sensation. The
sensation.
"Not with a bang..."
26.5.09
Write About Everything
The best advice that need never have been given. I can look back on times when, by some device, I felt free enough just to write. To write and write and write in something I shouldn't venture to call "stream of consciousness," and really, I should say, to type, not to write, though what is that but semantics? I write with a pen and paper, I type with a keyboard and a liquid crystal display, but I've written, no matter, haven't I? Wind-whipped nights with nothing but gallons of ink and hot brown earth, warm summer evenings with noise all around me, drowned by the thoughts in my head. Writing for me is such an experience, such an act, because of how intimate it is. For those lucky of us (I must say this as there are plenty of us in this world whose sight, hearing, voice, or much worse have abandoned them, and to them I cannot relate, no matter how I try.) Perhaps were I to go blind, a wonderful speaker would I be. Deaf, an artist. All in all, again, lucky am I, a novelist. No, I have committed no long stories to any bound volumes. I have only scarcely given birth to a character in a story, a ship on a voyage, a planet among the stars in my head. Yet I have penned many a letter, published many a blog entry, posted, in years of yore, many an entry in my LiveJournal. Many have been (un?)lucky enough to sift through my words; what some find littered with fluff, others find easy on the eyes and (sometimes) easier on the soul. You are (un?)lucky enough to find yourself now in a place where there is nothing else to do but just that.
This I would like to call, "What I Enjoy"
As myriad sounds
roll into my head and back out into the ether like waves,
those sounds you can't quite place, that fade, just as waves, if you let them,
those sounds which surround the silence and
choke it to death,
I sip my tea.
Unsweetened.
A sensation, a tightness, a lightness, a spice
in the back of my throat, having downed a glass.
It reminds me that I drank tea,
that I have a throat,
that my mind is working,
that I have a mind,
that my mind is working.
When you stop and let yourself realize it
you rediscover sensation.
Carpet on the sole of your foot,
plastic underneath your finger tips,
a dull cut in your leg as the weight of your thigh rests upon the corner of a keyboard tray.
Is this pain? Are a million, billion cells
crying out in agony?
Why won't I spare them?
I uncross my legs, and the voices are silenced.
I swallow, and the world around me is made new.
I blink, and the world around me is made new again.
When my heart beats, is the world around me made new
again?
Or am I?
16.5.09
It's like seeing an old friend for the first time...
A hoy-hoy, friends and passerbyers alike.
Welcome to Dinosaur Eats Man. New and perhaps improved, from your last visit. If you've never visited, I promise you, still new and perhaps improved. I say "perhaps improved" because, you know, different strokes for different folks.
They just resurrected Celebrity Jeopardy for Will Ferrell's hosting of the season finale of SNL. The best thing, no doubt, even seconds into it, that SNL has done in a long time.
I don't know why I imagined that I wouldn't stop and watch it all. I did. Quite the triumph. Moving on...
I'd like to take this opportunity to show you around this little Micro Dys.. er.. Blogosphere, to get you accustomed to your surroundings, because, at least starting now (read: hereafter), I'd like to think you'll come around fairly often.
Arriving, you were first greeted by our new mascot here at D.E.M., Grimlock. Leader of the Dinobots, the exceptionally powerful, often loners of the Autobots. "Me Grimlock no bozo, me king!"
Above, you'll find a section christened "Recent Tweets." To some of you, that will be pretty self-explanatory, to others, less so. Feel free to visit http://www.twitter.com and fill yourself in on the microblogging sensation that's sweeping the nation. Otherwise, settle with this brief synopsis: Twitter allows a community of individuals, spanning your average Joe to your not-so-average NBA star to your right-out-important public official, to communicate with one another and the community by and large in short messages (140 characters maximum). Some people use it to chronicle their personal lives. Some use it, as figureheads for companies, for some things like customer service. Some people... well, chronicle their personal lives... from space. Social media is crazy. Social media is CRAZY.
Back to Earth. (Witty, aren't I?) I generally tweet this and that. Let me know if there is something else you'd ever like me to trend towards, won't you?
To your left, People, a collection of other blogs, of people whose threads have at least once crossed (and likely will again cross) mine. If you can't find anything you like here, no doubt someone's story, someone's life, someone's whatever-he-or-she-puts-into-his-or-her-blog will tickle your fancy. I am lucky enough to know globe-travellers, family-raisers, trail-walkers, life-livers, all sorts of folk.
Below that, Places, a soon-to-be-updated collection of photos of scenes I come upon in my travels near and far.
And further still, Things, a perhaps somewhat bizarre collection of things all around the Internet.
Past, a rather standard archive of this blog. (Short for web log, did you know that? Probably.)
And here, where you are, the meat and two (or three.) To some of you, that will sound familiar... a label earlier bestowed upon a failed project of mine, "Our Feature Presentation." Pay no attention to the blog behind the curtain. Here you'll find what I hope will keep you coming back for more. I promise the next post won't be from the perspective of a pompous tour guide.
See you again soon. Soon. The caution tape is coming down, the velvet ropes scooted out of the way, the banisters polished, the candles lit, the wine poured, the phonograph cranked up, sweet sounds of Louis drifting across the ether to greet you...
Is this microblogging?
Funny, I just realized it's going to post my signature if I don't clear it. Can I? I wonder. Apparently so. You'll notice some freshness about this place. There are still a fee cobwebs in the corners, some light bulbs to be replaced and plenty of WD-40 to be sprayed. Still, maybe your hopes will pay off this time. Maybe mine will, too.
Recently, I've been contemplating what social media by and large has done, is doing, and will do to our society. More specifically, I've been trying to figure out where I can fit in. That is to say, where I can beat serve myself, what my 21st century digital appearance can do, should do for me. Maybe that sounds hoity-toity, I don't know. If so, consider this.
If one allows, his or her Twitter feed, his or her Facebook, MySpace, Beebo, LiveJournal, Flickr, blog, YouTube channel, DeviantArt account can become much much more than portals for thoughts, for words, for sights and sounds. In so far as there is anyone you communicate with on a regular basis via the Internet, these things easily pass reflecting you, they begin to comprise you, define you, change more than just your on-line experience, they change your experience altogether, because this new media is that powerful.
Maybe you'll "stir up trouble" in God's backyard because, "What did he say?" Maybe you'll surprise a friend with knowing something seemingly personal about you and they'll say, "You read my Facebook?" Who knows?
Stick around. The gears, they are a-creakin'.
Oh, what the hell...
-Sent from my iPod-
Recently, I've been contemplating what social media by and large has done, is doing, and will do to our society. More specifically, I've been trying to figure out where I can fit in. That is to say, where I can beat serve myself, what my 21st century digital appearance can do, should do for me. Maybe that sounds hoity-toity, I don't know. If so, consider this.
If one allows, his or her Twitter feed, his or her Facebook, MySpace, Beebo, LiveJournal, Flickr, blog, YouTube channel, DeviantArt account can become much much more than portals for thoughts, for words, for sights and sounds. In so far as there is anyone you communicate with on a regular basis via the Internet, these things easily pass reflecting you, they begin to comprise you, define you, change more than just your on-line experience, they change your experience altogether, because this new media is that powerful.
Maybe you'll "stir up trouble" in God's backyard because, "What did he say?" Maybe you'll surprise a friend with knowing something seemingly personal about you and they'll say, "You read my Facebook?" Who knows?
Stick around. The gears, they are a-creakin'.
Oh, what the hell...
-Sent from my iPod-
26.3.09
6.3.09
The Concert In Central Park
You might ask yourself, "Oh, Joseph, will your fascination with Simon and Defunktel ever cease, ever dwindle?" The answer, dear friend, hopefully not too much to your dismay is, "No, it likely won't."
I am unsure of precisely why I have found it so difficult to blog since... wow. I didn't realize until looking specifically now, but it's been a month and three weeks. How time does fly. I can't tell if that's a good thing or not...
I would say "Let's play catch-up," but that's bound to happen anyway. Instead, let's look on the horizons forwards and backwards.
- This weekend: work, en masse, on: a take-home examination in Theory of Probability; a MATLAB-based project for Applied Differential Equations; and a lab-report on storage elements and step functions for Electric Circuits. Not, however, a late celebration of German Karneval at 220 Reed Street, as I might have hoped, since...
- Yesterday: a visit to the Student Health Center to be diagnosed with a supposed case of acute bronchitis. Azithromycin for a little while. I'd rather not subject my attempts at recovering to another late night and indulgences of a Bavarian, alcoholic nature, so I will stay in and riddle my Friday night away more peacefully. To be quite honest, I sort of needed an excuse not to go, because it would have only led to a late-starting Saturday, and I have a hard enough time getting up Saturday mornings as things stand.
- Next Thursday: my last meeting before the break with Drs. Houser and Thoma and my parter-in-confusion Andrew concerning our ongoing attempts in Second Life. This is also going to be known as the "get on the damn ball, you screw-up" meeting. Needless to say, I will be spending a lot of time logged into our ever-changing ESPRMC sim during...
- Next next week: the break. Spring break. A week of breath-catching, old-(and-new?)-friend-seeing, good food, sleeping, and who knows what else. Time spent at home, which is never to be undervalued. Time spent contemplating just what three years old means, and how indescribable that is. In a good way. Also, probably a little bit of time laying out what to do with the results of...
- Back to that same next Thursday: officer elections for the Alabama International Relations Club (AIRC). I am excited at the prospect of being granted the responsibility of a leadership position and getting to help take the club places. Last night I stared down nominations for a club that, over the last year, I have grown to feel very vested in. I don't know where I would "fit best." I do know, however, that I can flourish whereever I am given the chance to do so, so here's hoping for the best outcome. I am also hoping that I will be lucky enough to travel with give-or-take 11 other representatives of AIRC...
- The last weekend in March: to the University of Virginia to VICS, the Virginia International Conflict Simulation. A favorite of past attendees. I am excited, even just by the prospect. I would have the chance, potentially, to serve as a mock-member of the New York Times Editorial Board, the International Criminal Tribune for Rwanda, or Carter's Cabinet during the Iran Hostage Crisis, to name a few. I guess that will potentially be the out-and-about highlight of the semester. Granted, I don't need to be concerned with, or searching for opportunities to travel, since...
- This July: I'll be going to Austria. That's right, real Western European, German-speaking, just-north-of-Italy, smack in the middle of nearly-the-other-side-of-the-world Austria. Klagenfurt, a small town capitol of Carinthia, to be specific. I'll be spending four weeks at the Universität Klagenfurt enrolled in intensive German language and culture study, followed by a week in and around Vienna, making my way to Budapest, Bratislava, and other roughly neighboring cities. I could write pages worth here on Klagenfurt alone, but suffice to say, I am excited. Hopefully...
Hopefully, it will be... great success.
In other news:
Student Government Presidential hopeful Kendra Key was defeated by a narrow margin in the most voted-in election in University history. Our new SGA President-elect is one Steven Oliver.
What does that mean, and why am I talking about it? Find out next time on "Tales Of Interest."
15.1.09
Confuddling
Such is the world. "We live in a crazy world," she said. I think. I might be paraphrasing. In the time since writing to you, I've gone and gotten another Google account and already used it tons more than the one to which this blog is attributed. Can blogs migrate? Maybe it doesn't need to. I hardly ever blog nowadays. Perhaps it is fitting to keep it tucked away in something like a storage closet. I am sitting in the living room with a Sam's Club legal pad, folded to the second page, covered with scribles about Model United Nations conferences of yore and fore, with my laptop, with two-fifths of a five bulb lamp, no shoes, a t-shirt, a pair of blue jeans, a half-cup of cold home-brewed Pike Place Blend Starbucks Coffee, and no company save Paul Simon. I could be Paul Simon. I wish I were. No I don't. I am Paul Simon. "Still Crazy After All These Years." On "Negotiations and Love Songs 1971 -1986." I can't tell if there's a lot on my mind, or only a little. Some friends, some acquaintences. Some responsibilites, some prospects. Some obligations, some yearnings. Did I say two-fifths? I did. You would be surprised at the difference between two-fifths and three-fifths of the five bulb lamp. The... five bulb lamp. How do you convey the intonation of bolding or italicizing something without doing it? Funny how intrisic those meanings are to those typefaces. Is that what you call those? Typefaces? I think so. I am the proud owner of an Apple iPod Touch. 32 GB capacity. My mother got it for me for Christmas. I've told her several times over, but I'll tell her again - thank you, mom. Of all the overpriced gadgets to be found in this day and age, I can't imagine one I would have run further into the ground having only had it for... not even a month? That's scary. I hope "run ... into the ground" doesn't have a negative connotation. I mean it in a terribly good way. Why do I keep using things with incorrect connotations? I use it for everything. Facebook, assignments, the weather, NPR (in both NPR and PRI form), YouTube, Google Talk, Gmail, Paul Simon, all sorts of things. It's supplying "Slip Slidin' Away" right now. By way of my Apple Universal Dock. And my Durabrand 5.1 stereo. Our Durabrand 5.1 stereo, I should say. That needed bolding, too. It was my Christmas present to W307. I feel like "Myrrh." Alen swears otherwise but I know I am. The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac has been the other side of an instant love affair with every one who has picked it up from our table. Thank you, Kevin. I really like German. I don't know if I'm any good at the language or not, but, rather inhumbly, I always feel like I sound better at it than a lot of my classmates. Except for the girl from, well, you know, Germany. I definitely don't feel like I sound better at it than her.
Definitely not.
Germany. RISE, via DAAD, an "internship?" as an assistant to a researching PhD student. I never know if the punctuation should go inside the quotation marks when I use it in an incorrect scenario such as the above. Above? Before. You get the idea. You follow me.
If you really follow me, I am surprised, but I love you for it. I probably love you otherwise.
Germany. RISE or Alabama In Austria. Or neither of these. Money. Money money money. Culture shock? Schock. Es gibt ja Angst in meinem Kopf. Ich weiß nicht, ob ich diesen Sommer nach Deutschland oder Österreich gehen soll. Wirklich weiß ich nicht, was ich hier in den USA machen soll. Das geht man nicht so gut, oder? Als ich Racquetball mit Quintus gespielen habe, habe ich auf Deutsch geflucht. Was meint dass? Manchmal denke und höre ich auf Deutsch. Öfter schreibe ich auf Deutsch. "Schreiben" nennt man, was ich jetzt tun? Keine Idee. Ich möchte etwas zu tun.
Oft möchte ich etwas zu tun. Und immer gibt es viel zu tun. Aber was mache ich? Ich setze auf unserem großen modernen Sofa und tippe. Liest man? Keine Ahnung.
Vielleicht werde ich bald "Halo 3" spielen. Warum nicht?
"Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" is playing now. Slowly but surely, I find reasons to agree with Joseph Cundiff's assessment of this song as one of the better ever recorded in popular music. Last post, I had it on the brain. Shame, shame. It's ta-nah-n-nah. Nothing like "sha-na-na." Shame, shame. Maybe that's not even what I was going for. Hopefully not.
I don't have the walking blues. I don't think I ever do. I'm always smiling.
1.1.09
Sha-na-na, sha-na-na
Diamonds on the soles of her shoes.
Diamonds on the soles of her shoes.
Diamonds on the soles of her shoes...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes. In a way, I imagine I do. I don't suppose I'd say I've got any walking blues. Or maybe I do. Do I taste blood? Strange. I had two cups of hot chocolate tonight. Back to back. Warmed... well, warmed, then boiled the water to keep things quiet. Quiet. In an "I don't want to wake up mom" way, not a figurative "I want to keep the fact that I'm drinking hot chocolate hush-hush way." Why would I? I wouldn't, don't worry. I've got Iron Chef America, a mug from the Wiregrass Radio Control Club Scale Fly In: Ft. Rucker Alabama, a 32 GB iPod Touch in its expensive "proprietary" dock, a Chaps polo, cold Hanes socks, aches above (below?) my radii, and heavy eyelids. I really wanted to write tonight. Write? Type. Blog.
But I can't tonight. Not tonight.
Walking blues? Diamonds on the soles of your shoes.
Diamonds on the soles of her shoes.
Diamonds on the soles of her shoes...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes. In a way, I imagine I do. I don't suppose I'd say I've got any walking blues. Or maybe I do. Do I taste blood? Strange. I had two cups of hot chocolate tonight. Back to back. Warmed... well, warmed, then boiled the water to keep things quiet. Quiet. In an "I don't want to wake up mom" way, not a figurative "I want to keep the fact that I'm drinking hot chocolate hush-hush way." Why would I? I wouldn't, don't worry. I've got Iron Chef America, a mug from the Wiregrass Radio Control Club Scale Fly In: Ft. Rucker Alabama, a 32 GB iPod Touch in its expensive "proprietary" dock, a Chaps polo, cold Hanes socks, aches above (below?) my radii, and heavy eyelids. I really wanted to write tonight. Write? Type. Blog.
But I can't tonight. Not tonight.
Walking blues? Diamonds on the soles of your shoes.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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...
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
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.
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.
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.
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