Thunder

This old house rumbles under your thunderous posture.

Crossbeams and plateware and load bearing studs all shudder to know:

You are about!

Some silly something invites your vibrations...

To the sun room.

A stray wisp of worry scandalizes Mr. Rickter

In the kitchen.

Lurching upon the hardwood floors

In your hardwood feet

Which you frequently drag

Through invisible snow

("Scuff! Scuff!" go the slippers)

I feel as though

My very bones

Were rattling under your rude lumbering.

The wood in the walls begins to bow with your spine

I know that the halls are showing the signs

Of early onset scoliosis.

Our hunchbacked address is a misaligned mess

Of chiropractic lore.

It won't be a wonder if after the thunder

The doors don't close all the way anymore.

Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum, Banana Bread!

Banana bread! Is there anything more glorious? Low-fat vegan banana bread! Baked a loaf today and boy oh boy was it tastie. It's just about the easiest thing to make: put everything in a bowl, then stick it in the oven. In fact, I think I'm going to go get some more nanners right... now!

Scott would have something cute to say here, but he already left to go get some more nanners.

Country Crust

Went kayaking today with some friends. Went dancing yesterday with some other friends. Now I am waiting for some dough to rise before I pop it in the oven. I did a redux of the Country Crust Bread from Thursday. It turned out deliciously. So deliciously, in fact, that I am doing yet another batch today. I LOVE BREAD!

The best bread in the world, my sister and I both agree, is the bread that the First United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Georgia serves as part of its annual Marketplace Week, which is a hands-on re-creation of Biblical life. There is livestock and brick making and, you guessed it, the very most tastiest bread in the world. It is the king of kings of breads. If only there were some way - some person with the ability to take one loaf of bread and make it two. And if only this miracle person were somehow in my life. I would keep this friend next to my apple machine and never leave my perfect garden of paradise.

I created myself so I wouldn't be as lonely.

I Am The Baker

God is great, God is good,

Let us thank Him for this food.

By His hands we all are fed,

Give us Lord our daily bread.

Amen.

That was the rhyming blessing my sister and I learned to say over each dinner. Yesterday I made bread from scratch for the first time. I love bread. I will eat bread without fear or shame, loaf upon loaf, until it is gone. Good bread is one of the greatest pleasures this life has to offer. Here's the recipe I used. As my friend Michael said, "2 eggs?! That's a cake!" I actually ran out of flour and had to pop next door to borrow another cup. Things were really sticky and the loaf came out... not quite as advertised. I think I'm going to try again today (after I pick up some flour at the store - seriously, who doesn't get enough flour?!). I tend to approach baking (and cooking) like I do hacking; iteratively. Unfortunately, compiling your food takes a while longer. Bread [beta].

I am often guilty of committing the Narcissist's Generalization Fallacy, which means that if someone is a little bit like me, I assume they are exactly like me. This is probably why I am continually surprised to find that there is no real correlation between being gay and being an atheist.

Things I Fucking Love, Vol. 8

A Musical About Prop 8 Starring John C. Reilly, Jack Black, Allison Janney and Neil Patrick Harris OH MY GOD THIS IS AWESOME!!1!

Today: A Poem

Today I woke up

Did absolutely nothing

Then wrote this poem.

We're #1, Bitches

I have inherited the long and proud cultural tradition of laizze-faire a-patriotism. A movement that started in earnest back in the 60's with the activist/hippy crowd, inspired punk rock during the 80's, and settled into a comfortable background theme of modern day liberalism/academia/comedy.

The culture war has become an arms race of euphemisms. "Loving America" is some ineffable requisite of being a redneck (now is that erotic, platonic, familial, or romantic love?). "Support our troops" bumper stickers are like an "I voted for George Bush. BOTH TIMES!" button. Words such as "values" and "the family" make me slightly nauseous. All of these disgusting little double entendres merely serve to perfume the hatred and ignorance of "The Real America."

So I have inherited the long and proud cultural tradition of psudo-cynical, quasi-anti-american, disestablishmentarian apathy. You know the one.

But beneath the small town values and the Joseph T. Plumbers and the megachurches and the fast food children and the Proposition 8s and the small maritime borders and the veil of Reality, beneath all of that bullshit is a country whose founding principle is Freedom. A country started by a bunch of traitorous men in wigs and tights. They set out to create the Democracy Exemplar. The Utopia Nova. The Land of the Free. They failed. And their posterity continue to fail. But we're making a better go of it than just about anybody else.

Was reading around today and learned that in a '94 ruling, the European Court of Human Rights held 6 to 3 that, "the interference with free speech was 'necessary in a democratic society' in order to guarantee the 'rights of others' to protection from gratuitous insults to their religious feelings." Europe does not have a First Amendment. The UK does not have a First Amendment. You can still be put in jail in Austria for Holocaust denial. Journalists are. For all of its secular progressiveness, Western Europe lacks the foundational core of Freedom that America enjoys. And we fucking elected a black man as President. Land of opportunity, bitches!

So hey, REST OF THE WORLD, guess what? We're better than you! That's right. We're the original new society, we don't have any kings, and you're still playing catchup. So fuck you, 'cause WE'RE NUMBER ONE!

Playcraft

Two short indie games based on Lovecraft. Both have interesting visual styles and are strangly evokative of the surreal horror-kitsch that I love about Lovecraft.

The Lake

Untitled

EDIT: Looks like these are part of the Commonplace Book Competition. Cool.

Dribble Dribble

Come down with a bout of the old seasonal diarrhea. Liquid fun is running out of my ass at 30 minute intervals. I wish you could be here.

Catharsis on the Toilet

I won't go into the gory details, but to say that I feel much better now. Other things that happened today:

• Ran the dog.
• Met a new friend.
• Went swimming in the lake.
• Going to Quantum of Solace tonight (it was just released in NZ).

Life is a slow way to die.

Gobble Gobble

Turkey Day at the Blackmans. Enough food to incapacitate a miniature pony, and I still haven't been to the gym.

I'm just waiting for life to disabuse me of my ambitions.

Wikiwiki

I spent a few hours on Wikipedia today. In my old tradition, the chronological order, including what I learned:

• Jet Propulsion Laboritory
• Mars Science Laboritory - This is the next mars rover. It's really big: the size of a small car.
• Aerospace
  
• NASA - Created in '58.
  
• Spacecraft
  
• Lockheed Martin - Biggest defense corp by rev. They merged in '95.
  
• Boeing - Boeing committed corporate espionage against Lockheed Martin a little while ago. As a consequence, the govn't slapped them with fines, transferred a bunch of contracts to Lockheed, and suspended Boeing's satellite work for a while.
  
• EADS - Some European aerospace co.
  
• Saab - Saab (which originally stood for "Swedish Aerospace Company") was created during WWII to provide allied planes. Today they manufacture such things as camouflage systems and shoulder-mounted anti-tank ordinance.
  
• National Aeronautics and Space Act - This created NASA.
  
• F-22 Raptor - The US' new fighter jet. Best in the fucking world, they say (made by Lockheed Martin and Boeing).
  
• Dow Jones Industrial Average - I wasn't aware that this only looks at 30 companies.
• Boeing 787 - The Dreamliner. They're doing this really interesting thing where most of the assembly is being handled by their suppliers. This has cause the massive delays because some suppliers can't get their shit together. I wonder if this strategy is ultimately going to work out for Boeing. They have about 900 pre-orders already.
• Composite material
• Saab Automobile - The automobile arm of Saab. Now owned by GM.
• General Motors
• General Electric
• List of corporations by market capitalization
  
• PetroChina - At the top of the above list.
• ExxonMobil - These people make the most money. Seriously. They have the highest revenue. Of any company. Ever.
• Simplified Chinese characters - Being pushed by the People's Republic of China to increase literacy.
• Republic of China - Commonly known as Taiwan, this was the Chinese government until the communists took over the mainland. For a long time the international community did not recognize the PRC as a legitimate government even though they had full control of the country. The Republic of China, a founding member of the UN, still claims that they are the legal government of mainland China.
• Berkshire Hathaway - They have quite a diverse share of holdings including candy production, encyclopedias, and vacuum cleaners.
• Johnson & Johnson - Considered the most well-respected company in the world.
• Holding company
• 3M - They only officially changed their name to "3M" in 2002.
• Honeywell
• Emerson Electric Company
• News Corporation
• Nintendo - Founded in 1889 to make playing cards, they then tried such business as love hotels and taxi services before becoming the video game giant we know and love today.
• Conglomerate (company)
• Dutch East India Company - So this is absolutely fascinating. The VOC (the abbreviation of the Dutch name) was the first multinational conglomerate corporation. It was also the first company to issue stocks. They were created to combat the Portuguese monopoly on spice trading. They chugged along for 200 years before finally going bankrupt. They had some really shrewd business moves. For example: spice trade was complicated by the fact that the Europeans didn't have much to offer the Indo-Asian cultures other than gold and silver. While Spain and Portugal had lots of gold, other western countries (especially England) did not. VOC set up an intra-Asia trading system whereby their ships facilitated trade between Asian nations. The profits from this operation were then used to purchase spices which the ships then brought back to Europe. They also artificially increased the supply in the pepper market to reduce prices. This meant that their margins were lower in the short-term, but it disincentivized potential competitors from getting into the pepper business because it appeared there was less profit to be had.
• British East India Company
• French East India Company
• Danish East India Company
• Amsterdam (VOC ship) - A wrecked VOC ship. The wreck is sometimes visible at low-tide.
• Protection of Wrecks Act 1973
• Swedish East India Company
• Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow
• Scuttling - The deliberate sinking of a ship. The Pentagon had a scuttling program called CHASE (Cut Holes and Sink 'Em) which was used to dispose of chemical weapons, such as nerve gasses, after they were made illegal by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993.
• Conquistador - Bad Spaniards.
• Black Legend - The theory that Spaniards aren't really that bad.
• Historical revision of the Inquisition
• Inquisition
• USS Oriskany - Scuttled to create an artificial reef.
• VX (nerve agent) - The very nastiest nerve gas.
• Narco submarine - Semi-submersible radar-transparent craft used by Colombian drug runners. There's a nifty loophole in maritime law that lets the smugglers scuttle the sub and avoid charges if someone finds them.
• Artificial reef - Their benefit to marine life is debated.
• Osborne Reef - An artificial reef made of tires. Turns out tires are bad for the fish.
• Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier - The next class of US carrier. In development.
• Nerve agent - Never gases are actually liquid at room temperature.
• Mark I NAAK - A nerve-gas antidote auto-syringe kit issued to US armed forces. The two shots go into the muscle of the outer thigh.
• Tabun (nerve agent) - Also known as "GA" (German agent A). Developed during WWII. Went into mass production. There were some accidents at the plant: "Four pipe fitters had liquid tabun drain onto them; they died before their rubber suits could be removed."
• Sarin - AKA GB. 10x deadlier than Tabun.
• B41 nuclear bomb
• Tsar Bomba - Most physically powerful man-made thing ever created. 50 Megatons (1.4% the output of the Sun). They had originally designed a 100 Megaton version, but it was considered too destructive to be useful (the bomber plane would not be able to escape the detonation). Big nukes were favored in the 60s because targeting was inaccurate and it was assumed that many planes in a fleet of bombers might be shot down en-route. So if only one plane made it, and the drop was off the target by some kilometers, a big bomb would insure that the mission was still successful. As targeting systems improved, the US and USSR moved toward smaller nuke designs. No Tsar Bombas were ever produced after the test unit.
• B53 nuclear bomb
• Atmospheric focusing - A concussive shockwave resulting from large explosions.
• Father of all bombs - Claimed by the Russians to be the most powerful conventional (non-nuclear) bomb.
• Spanish Inquisition
• Witch-hunt
• The Spanish Inquisition (Monty Python)
• Moral panic
• Rainbow party (sexuality)
• Witchcraft Act - (British) Someone was arrested under this as late as WWII.
• Helen Duncan - And this was her.
• Wicca
• The Crucible
• The Crucible (1996 film)
• Daniel Day-Lewis
• Nine (film)
• There Will Be Blood
• The Last of the Mohicans (1992 film)
• Oil!
• Upton Sinclair - That's right, he wrote The Jungle.
• DuPont - 2nd biggest chem co.
• BASF - Biggest chem co. German.
• Kevlar - The name is a DuPont trademark.
• Neoprene - Same.

Free Advice

Is the sun shining? Does everything seem to be coming up roses? Are you feeling chipper? Well slow down there buddy boy. Did you know the Federal Government recommends are least 16 hours of feeling like shit about yourself every day? It's true! There are plenty of great ways to get your daily dose of feeling like shit about yourself, but in my experience nothing does the job better than not going to the gym for four days. So the next time you need to feel like shit about yourself, consider not going to the gym for FOUR DAYS, and then let me know how it worked out for you. I'm here to help.

Ben Folds' new album is out. I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW!

UPDATE: FIVE DAYS!!!

"Holy fucking shit." - William Shatspeare on that

What am I trying to prove?

I'm up at 7am. I do not have to pee. I did not have a bad dream. I do not have things to do. What exactly is going on? (Mem. am I infected with some mutant strain of rabies virus? Should see doctor about BRAAAAAAAINS! *cough*weeze*)


Those peepers are keepers. - Me on your eyes.

Father Cares

Listen

Like Taking Candy From a Baby

Or cytoplasm from a oviparous embryo.

Love Letter

Dear The Gym,

I love you. I know sometimes I pretend like I don't love you. Sometimes I neglect or ignore you. I just want you to know, no matter what else I say or do, I think you're the greatest and I love the shit out of you.

Your pal,

Scott

Wednesday

Just woke up today feeling GREAT. Had a nice big breakfast. Let's see where this day goes...

Business Proposal

I love apples, but I'm always running out. What I propose is some kind of Apple Making Machine that you could put in your home. It might be relatively large, so perhaps the back yard is a good spot to keep it. The machine would automatically replenish your supply of apples, creating several new units at given intervals. It would be solar powered, and we could even design it to absorb carbon dioxide so it's good for the environment. This is perhaps my most brilliant idea EVER! I'll get the patents, you get the funding.

I NEED BIGGER CAPS - Me

Chicken Dog

I am, right this moment, eating a breast of fried chicken in a hot dog bun with ketchup. Yes, I was left to my own devices for dinner tonight. I'm really hankering for some irradiated turkey!

You're perfect enough.

Mom's Original Irradiated Turkey

There was a shuttle launch yesterday and I didn't even know about it! STS-126 is, among other things, "carrying irradiated turkey, candied yams, stuffing and dessert for a special Thanksgiving meal at the [International Space] station." For some reason, whenever I find myself at some Wikipedia article on human space flight, I end up reading it aloud to no one in particular. Fun fact: did you know that only three people have ever died in outer space? Decompression is a real buzz kill.

Space is a whole bunch of pilgrims and no Indians! - Christopher Columbia, prior to his encounter with Chief Burning Foam

Too soon! - The Too-Soon Guy, prior to the point at which the above joke is tasteful.

Which Side Are You In?

They say art needs a frame. How much lovelier then is the sunny day when enjoyed through a window.

It's never too soon to be a good person.

By Which I Really Mean To Say...

Watch this. Please.

, Earthling

I was walking back from the gym tonight and a man passed me. Rather than say something like "hey," or "goodevening," or nothing at all because it's actually kind of weird to address strangers on the street if you're older than 5, he said "Greetings!" I love that man.

"The ethnics aren't going to cleanse themselves." -Choose Your Own Dictator

All Good Things...

• Have recently discovered that butter chicken is not an acceptable substitute for the gym. Now I know.
  
• Just finished my re-watch of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• Just started LittleBigPlanet which was released today in New Zealand.
• Am also digging the Left4Dead demo. Zombies are actively attracted to live pipe bombs. Now I know.
  

You're either a perfectionist or you're lazy.

By Which I Mean To say

I am deeply disappointed in 52% of the California electorate. I spare no contempt for the ideologues on the 'Yes' side in whose shame I have no faith, but the larger segment of that majority I cannot hate: the ignorant. Their bigotry is inexcusable, but its cause is no capital offence. They have been persuaded from their morals by who knows what slick-talking charlatans. Their trust in whatever institution - religion, tradition, TV advertisements - has been exploited by the unscrupulous and those pious demons have shouted down their better angles. However they cannot be forgiven their disgraceful behaviour toward their fellow human beings. They will be an embarrassment to their children, if not to themselves.

No, Seriously

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fucker fucking fucktard fuckup fuckshit fuckfuckfuck fcuk fucklicking fucksucker fuckmeinmymom deepfuck fuckalicious William F. Fuckley (the 'F' is for "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!1!").

Can the Big One just take out 52% of California? Please? Like, right now?

I'm really at a loss. The towering idiocy of these moral lepers rains burning shit upon the land. Prop 8 glistens on the brow of the Golden State like some throbbing abscess, dribbling pus into the corner of America's eye. I can forgive Texas and Georgia and Arizona and, like, 40 other states for being morally retarded, milky-eyed cunts, but we're talking about California for fuck's sake. If this 52% of the electorate can see out from under their foreheads, maybe they can vote their way to a chopstick and do us all the tremendous favour of lobotomizing themselves through the eyeball.

These people's God, if he existed, ought to have taken greater care when aiming his cumshot. Jizzing all over the fertile face of the Earth has enfranchised every tailless sperm from his backwash semen. Maybe next time he should put his pud in the divine sock. Those holes in his hands have to be good for something.

Off

Well, I'm off to the gym.

Then I'm going to get gay-married in California. OH WAIT.

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!

Dear America

Dear America,
Hey, it's me, Scott. So listen, I have, like, a little favor to ask. You're probably going to do this anyway, but I thought I'd say something just in case. Please, like, elect Barack Obama. 'Cause I really like going to the gym. The gym is, like, an important part of my life and something that I just need to do. Like a habit, or something. You know? And if John McCain is elected president, I'll get really depressed and probably won't want to go to the gym for, like, two or three months. And then I'll get really out of shape, and I probably won't be eating well during that period of time either, so it'll be even worse. And then when I finally do go back to the gym, everything will be really hard 'cause I'll be weak and stuff. And then I'll be thinking, "man, if I'd only gone to the gym the past two or three months, I'd be fucking ripped by now. IF ONLY JOHN MCCAIN HADN'T WON THE PRESIDENCY!" So, like, if you could please, elect Barack. Because I really like going to the gym. OK? I'm sure you understand. Cool. Keep in touch.

Son of the Nation,
Scott Peterson

God Bless North America

In New Zealand, I am the one with the accent. This is a topic of conversation with about 60% of the people I meet. I had some trick-or-treat-ing kids the other night ask if I was American. Oddly enough, the large majority of adults guess Canadian. Perhaps they have offended one too many Canadians with a presumption of Yankee heritage. Americans on the other hand think nothing of being mistook for a Chinook. Kids appear less politic in their estimations.

The Moon's Lament

Little wet ones commit little wet deeds in my name and in my light and if I could frown my face at them, I would. They abuse me with poems and songs and I abuse them with tides. Still I am their Man and their Woman and their Night and their Love. These delicate little wet ones of mine: they think they have souls, but don't they know? Beauty is a lie and love is a symptom of death. We've known this forever, we the stars and the moons and the planets and the galaxies. We've spied across the eternal void and seen the truth of space and time: everything is alone. All stars know this.

Well, most of them do.

A senile sun sometimes falls for a brilliant neutron star haloed by rings in all the colors that don't have names. Or a crazy quasar finds fancy in the fires of some distant mist; a billion-billion stars beheld as one. And a confused comet is occasionally smitten by the glow of a constellation in whose lights shine the finest visage of Creation. Such old fools have dared to burn their light in Love. Such have swelled with their sick delusions, and such have shone with the nova of their foolish devotions. They all now feed their singularities on black space. Any sane celestial body knows: everything is alone.

I've chased around the heavens of my world forever and I will forever renew my circuit with a winking eye to the little ones. I wink to let them know, "You are alone." I wink to let them know, "Look elsewhere for you gods." There's nothing up here but sensible spheres and a few crazy stars.

- Earth's Only Moon

More Prematurities

I am bald. Again. Had to get two haircuts: the first lady couldn't bic it. Even the second guy didn't use a razor, so I've got stubble. Should have hit a barber shop. I may razor it myself (with help, I imagine). Was going to do an Uncle Fester costume, but the party tonight is no-costume. I KNOW! Also got a cool new hat to keep my baldness warm. Summer is a little chill thus far. I miss New York.

Passive aggressive people can go fuck themselves.

Running Out

The hot water in the shower always runs out just as I'm about to come. VERY ANNOYING!

Worth

There are two things I want to cover. The first is an inspiring sentiment. The second is an angry rant. I'm concerned that the warm fuzzies are going to drain my bile, so I've drawn up an outline to keep me on track:

Outline

1. Nice stuff.
2. Shit talk.

The Nice Stuff

I think of myself as a romantic. Some who know me may find this counterintuitive, but love has guided much of my life. I value those I love more highly than anything. I was just having a conversation with my sister who asked if love made my life worth living.

This seems to be the prevailing opinion of life and love in our culture: that the former's worth is contingent upon the latter - or that such is the ideal relationship between the two. True love awards true worth to one's life. This philosophy finds employment at ever level of art and common talk. Our role models on the subject kill themselves to escape loneliness (and their reunion, a Shakespearean audience must have believed, was in Hell). It seems to be the final verdict of Culture that love is the scale on which life is weighed.

Fuck. That. Shit.

It is life which gives value to love, not the other way around. I have much love in my life, and that love enriches me, but it does not define my worth as a person. Just the opposite: it is the people - me, my friends, my family - who give worth to the love we share. My connections with my friends are special because my friends are special. They are worthy. To suppose that my loving them is a gift of worth to their person is insulting. That is not love - that is pity. I do not pity my friends for being my friends; I love them for it. And it is their exceptional value which gives that love its worth.

The Shit Talk

I am fucking tired of apologizing for agreeing with Ayn Rand. I don't agree with everything she says. There are things about her and her fiction I can barely stand. I'm not an Objectivist. But I think she's right about a lot of stuff and it pisses me off that I have to preface any reference I make to her or her ideas with some kind of apology. Like the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sentences of this paragraphs. Why did I write those? Why did I feel like I had to qualify my support for her ideas? Why do I feel like people are going to shit all over me for being a selfish prick if I mention the woman? Maybe because they would. I was at a presentation recently on ethics where it was taken for granted that self-sacrifice is the unquestionable pinnacle of ethical behavior. I didn't say anything but I wanted to scream. Ug.

Anyway, that's the sentiment and the rant. If I one day find myself a Marxist, then this post should provide a good chuckle. Until then, take me DEAD SERIOUSLY.

My hubris is designed to enhance the irony of my downfall.

Things I Fucking Love, Vol. 7

The Daily Show.

Fuck all y'all

Oh, K!

Sam's mom brought me back some American Special-K from The States. I am elated. Special-K is my favorite cerial and the New Zealand variety is subtly different. Sam's dad also saved us some Krispy Kremes from his trip to Oz. They obviously weren't straight out of the river of boiling fat, but what can you do?

Premature

I have recently noticed a larger percentage of white hairs on my scrotum as compared to the rest of my body. I suppose that is preferable to other genital prematurities.

Such and Such

It was Sam's birthday yesterday. We went to New Zealand's largest theme park which doubles as New Zealand's only theme park. 'Rinky-dink' is the adjective that first comes to mind.

Following a recipie from Robert Love's excellent food blog, I made dinner tonight. I only remembered to grab the camera after most of it was eaten. I'll photograph some post-digestion shots, if you'd like.

Dear 2012

On the first week of middle school I was instructed to write a letter describing myself, my goals, and anything else I thought pertinant or interesting. This letters was taken, held for three years, and returned to me on the last week of middle school. 

I've been meaning to write another such Dear The Future letter for some time (especially given my fixation with future me). The wonders of Google Docs and Google Calendar alerts make this sort of thing pretty easy. I've addressed myself a personal note to be read again on 16 September, 2012. Four years seems to be the unit of major life development these days. Now I just need a way to write back.

How many stereotypes am I holding up?

Camel. In a good way.

Many of my friends have different people-mapping schemes. They map a human person to some other noun in a given category. Several of my friends, for example, are "really good" at picking people's Disney character. I myself make a habit of pairing people and literary figures. I find these mapping schemes very interesting. I think it would be fun to group people in a workplace or prison or something by, like, what Beatles album they are. As according to Mr. "Really Good" At Picking People's Beatles Album. Or something. Anyway, today I was picked for a camel by someone with a gift for picking people's animal. It's in the eyes, I'm told. Large, with long lashes. Also of interest to me is the relationship between a person's scheme and the frequency with which it accompanies the phrase, "In a good way."

Wikipedia observation of the day: US currency features dead white men. The Euro features architecture.

Like a fox!

I eat copious amounts of eggs. They are easy to prepare and they come in $7 packs of 36. Over easy, scrambled, hard boiled, and as part of my famous 3-egg ham & cheese omelet. Eggs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They are delicious, nutritious, and an indication that I need to broaden my culinary skills.

"Well you know what they say. If you want to make a hobo omelet, you've got to kill some hobos." - Donald Rumsfield on his new pastime of killing hobos.

Muse Ick

• We're doing a lot of work with sound these days. It offers the opportunity to enjoy some very high-end audio equipment.
  
• I usually listen to music whenever I'm at my computer. I'm at my computer a lot.
• Sam has a Rhapsody account which I'm using more often than he. Despite having a world of music at my fingertips, I fall into my old habit of listening to the same few songs on repeat.
• My song de jour is "Return" by OK Go, followed by "Hello My Treacherous Friends" from the same album. I'm also enjoying some Wynton Marsalis. At the moment, I'm listening to Natalie Cole.
• We're thinking of creating a home music server product. I'm working on some code now.
• I think sound is often more emotionally powerful than imagery because vision is elective and hearing is not. We are constantly choosing where to look (consciously or otherwise). Vision is strongly tied to attention, which is strongly tied to the intellect. We do not have the same granular control over hearing: we hear things whether we want to or not. Emotions work much the same way: we feel them whether we want to or not. That's why I think music is so emotionally effective.

When I'm not looking at you, I'm looking at you.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Me

I just ate two large pizzas at a cost of $27, if that gives you some idea of my day.

I will love you forever. Or until you cease to be thin, young and pretty. Whichever comes first.

Not What You Were Expecting

Three months and no blog. I'm not apologizing. That's vulgar.

Yes I am alive. Yes I am in New Zealand. Yes I was offered the position of John McCain's running mate. Yes, that last thing was a lie. At least I came clean. No apologies.

If you were expecting my first blog post in almost three months from two hemispheres away to detail the annals of my escapades abroad or expound upon my post-collegial gettings on, you are sorely mistaken. No, this most historic of entries concerns a matter of paramount importance: Star Trek.

The Next Generation, to be more specific. I have been operating for the past 10+ years under the assumption that I had seen every single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. All 7 seasons, each of the 179 weekly adventures. This has been one a core component of my biography.

Before I recount yesterday's rude awakening, let me outline the workings of syndicated television in the late 1990's for the benefit of future readerships. In the nineties, television was available only on an actual TV set and only at set times of day. There was no streaming or on-demand content, nor were there DVD box sets. Believe it or not, people would actually schedule their time to catch a given program on TV. How humanity survived this phase of its evolution is truly mystifying; it was an undignified and ugly way to live and those days are well put behind us.

From 1996 through 2000, the local Minnesota FOX affiliate broadcast syndicated re-run episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation every weeknight. By this time I was already a confirmed Trekkie (remind me to tell you the story) and respectably well acquainted with the adventures of Picard and Co., but I wanted full bragging rights. I undertook to tune in each night and catch the latest installment. If I missed a night, it would be another 9 months before that episode aired again (5 episodes a week, 179 episodes). To aid in my trek, I turned to the Internet. No, not to download a 70 gig torrent of the whole show, but to print off an episode list. I took my pen to that list each night, crossing off another of the Enterprise's missions.

I specifically remember the last episode to get the red line. Pen Pals. Episode 215 (season 2, episode 15). Data befriends a little alien girl. I missed this sucker on two consecutive cycles of the re-broadcast. In the end, I made a special trip to Hollywood Video which carried some TNG cassettes (another unmentionably arcane technology). I took the tape down to the basement with my blanket and juice and emerged 40 minutes later a mature Trekkie butterfly.

OR SO I THOUGH!

Flash forward to a few months ago. Senior year of college is ending, my life is about to undergo a major transformation, and I get an acute bought of nostalgia. You know how these things happen. You're on University fiber, you come across a 70 gig torrent of the entire 7 seasons of The Next Generation, one thing leads to another and the next thing you know you're getting low disk space warnings.

My sister and I tucked into the show while I was still States-side, but we didn't get past the second episode before she had to ship off, so they've been sitting on my HDD for about three months. Until now.

Things were going well. An episode a night. Sometimes two. Weekend marathons. Then season 1, episode 10. Hide And Q. Commander Riker is given omnipotence by Q. The plot progresses and no bells ring. No quotes come to mind. Nothing is familiar. THIS IS AN EPISODE I HAVE NOT SEEN. My list was in error. My life was a lie. My whole world has fallen apart. And it was a really good episode.

So the moral of the story is, broadcast television was an evil, imperfect thing of which we are well rid.

I will have a proper update soon. I promise.

End transmission.

The Happening Didn't

Brit and mom and I went to go see The Happening. The only good part of the movie was when the name Ivan Dumas appeared in the end credits and Brittany and I simultaneously pointed and yelled "Ivan Dumbass!" I laughed harder than I have in months.

I've gotten into Six Feet Under and am on the second season now. All of the acting is SO GOOD. Have also been reading a little and going to the gym a lot. Brit joined mum and pops and me on The Boat yesterday. It was good old fashion Fun Times, plus sunburn. Did I mention that my dad bought a 32 foot boat last year? Ah, to be retired.

This is my last night home. I leave tomorrow at 3 for Seattle. THIS IS MY EXCITED FACE.

P.S. Happy Father's Day!

Growing old just takes practice.

Do You Have Stairs In Your House?

My grandmother is affectionately known by her beloved spawn as "The Pusher," so styled for her propensity to push food on you day and night and when it's overcast and darling why don't you have a fruit bowl and surely some dessert and I got those Goldfish just for you! If you don't keep a close eye on her, she'll just start making you more food, will you nill you. I have always more or less fit the stereotype that boys are bottomless pits when it comes to food and have never minded that being said of me or saying that of myself. I tell you today friends, I mind it. It has become, in my Ah-Mom's presence, not only tiresome, but borderline offensive. I dare not compare presuppositions on my appetite to the racist, sexist, and other categorical opinions held against groups of people, but I am, for the first time, finding judgments made against my sex and age, and finding them none too shiny. I don't want a damned piece of pie. I just had a fucking huge dinner and I'm god damned full! I don't want to hear about how a boy like me is aaaaalways hungry! I'll tell you when I'm fucking hungry. And I can feed myself for christ's sake!

I got sunburned today. It reminds me of the speech tournament in Salt Lake City where I was irradiated from head to toe and then had to walk all over town in a wool suit. Each step was like a fresh pot of scalding coffee in the lap. And the shoulders. And the back, arms, legs, stomach, and neck. And when I smiled, the face.

OMFG TEH HTMLZ!!1!

BOLD
ITALICS
BOLD AND ITALICS!!!

The Latest, and so forth

Posting has been sparse. Sue me. What have I been up to? Well, I *did* mention I am gradumatated, didn't I? I've been putting around home for a month or so, reading and watching various media.

Right now mom and I are visiting her mother in Charlotte (my favorite aunt, Linda, just walked in and we're about to head to the Olive Garden) for a family-related thingy thing.

I read Chuck Palahniuk's new "Snuff" today. I didn't care for it as well as "Rant". I'm leaving for Seattle on the 16th. We're in Seattle until the 20th, then we fly to New York, then train to Boston on the 24th, then fly to LA on the 27th, and then it's around the world. I am so freaking excited. THIS IS MY EXCITED FACE!

I'm writing this from the cool new Blogger Google gadget, so I may do more postings soon.

P.S., Yes, I know book titles should be italicized, no put in quotes, but the gadget is somewhat lacking in formatting features. SUE ME TWICE!

P.P.S., And I'd have liked to boldify that last bit, but ya know, WHAT CAN YOU DO?!

Scratch, Scratch

My butthole is really itchy today and I don't know why. The more I scratch, the more it itches.

The Subtle Difference Between "Certainly" and "Absofuckinglutely"

The human brain has two hemispheres, three sections, four lobes, and 100 billion neurons capable of performing 100 trillion operations a second. Somewhere in that 3 pounds of bio-electric tissue can be found the subtle difference between Certainly and Absofuckinglutely. Exempli gratia: I was certainly going to graduate when I wrote this post and then spent each subsiquent night staring at my ceiling and pondering the final paper which I never actually turned in but knew certainly wouldn't matter. Certainly. Mmm hmm.

Whereas today after my my final grades were posted, I know that I am absofuckinglutely going to graduate. So I don't need to inspect my ceiling anymore.

This book, the Bible, is too ridiculous for criticism - Thomas Paine

I Beg of You

Please, please, please listen to this On The Media story about Ayn Rand. For the love of God. I am begging you. It's wonderful.

Mother's Day

Or Mothers' Day. It's 2almost3 AM on the day of and for all Mothers. Ladies, if you're not yet a mother, you might consider the exciting benefits of having a WHOLE DAY to and for yourself. Gentlemen, if you don't have a mother, you haven't been paying close enough attention. Treat your mum right today and every day but today especially. Remember: the wonderful thing about sexual reproduction is, everyone gets a mommy! And every mommy gets a day. Today! Happy Day Of And For Mothers.

Tolerance is just another word for low standards - John Peterson

Things I Fucking Love, Vol. 6

NOFX. Fucking punk rock.

Major Fucking Milestone, or Something

My first grade teacher, a surviver, due to oversight, of the Salem Witch Trials, once consoled my parents that, "some children just aren't 'readers.'" This was poor solace to the man and wife who had seen their young son climb over furniture, stand on his head, throw fits, lap the house, and do just about anything to avoid a book. Ink was like holy water to this hell-spawn. Just not a "reader." My second grade teacher, an angel of the Atlanta public school system, advised my legals that I had what modern medicine called a "learning disability" and required special education. "Special" in the "air-quotes" sense of the word.

So I was taken in the second half of my second grade year to the "special" trailer to meet with the "special" teacher and read cardboard-paged books printed in primary colors. I was also tested. There were intelligence tests, Rorschach tests (inkblot cards), and the kind of psych tests that get you prescription medication. And I was given prescription medication. Ritalin for my newly discovered ADD, then something stronger for my still more newly discovered ADHD (the 'H' is for "hyperactive"). After much poking and prodding of yours truly, my parents were handed the good-news/bad-news diagnosis of "gifted dyslexic." The "gifted" meaning I was in the right 99th percentile of one set of tests, the "dyslexic" meaning I was in the wrong 99th percentile of the other.

I was enrolled in the Schenck School, an area institution specializing in alternative education methods for unique little people such as myself. I attended Schenck for two years: third and fourth grade. And would you believe it, they made a reader of out of me! I still remember the first book book I read. It was about a haunted house. I sat in my mother's lap, slowing deciphering words at a time, then memorizing what I'd read for fear that I'd be unable to duplicate my feat.

My eager expectations of rejoining my unspecial friends in the fifth grade were interrupted by the news of our move. It was nothing to me that Minnesota public schools lead the nation by a litany of metrics. I was not a radically satisfied customer. Recourses, however, are few when one's age teeters on two digits. So fifth grade was to be at a new school in a new state. Provisions were made, through my mother, for both my "gifted" and my "dyslexic." I was enrolled in the high-potential group which met several days of the month and did high-potential stuff. I also met with the "special" services lady every so often to make sure I was doing well. And I was. In fact, remarkably well for one in so many exotic percentiles as I.

I then moved on to the newly constructed middle school where I did less remarkably well. I may have my years turned around, but I seem to remember doing alright in 6th grade, very poorly in 7th, and not quite as very poorly in 8th. Then came high school and its gentle, precipitous decline of scholastic performance, culminating in the spectacular Senior Plummet. I was able to retain my honors ranking by special dispensation of the principal, thanks to the saintly lobbying of my mother.

And then college. I began this blog in my sophomore year, 2005, by which time I'd already managed to fail a class. F. Not D- or F+. I went on to fail four more classes (though one of those I had stricken from the record, clever me). I was also under the shadow of a looming D when C's were all my academic probation would allow (cleverness saved me there again and inspired this post). And there were the three separate occasions on which my parents declared that they would not finance the remainder of my academic disaster (each occasion a successively nearer miss).

I have told my friends and I have told my mother and I have told myself that I hate school. That school has been a painful difficulty from the time I was tantruming my way out of Pat The Bunny. That I'm just not a "student." That my 99th percentile "gifted dyslexic" brain and the modern academic complex are simply insoluble. That a life in academia has whittled away my patience. And that I am bursting at the seams to spread my wings and begin my life. That is what I tell everyone, including myself.

Thursday was my last day of class ever. I wish I could say that this blog post has been simmering in my brain for the last day and a half, undergoing draft and re-draft, the way one obsesses over conversations past, waiting for the perfect words to capture the auspice of the occasion. The truth is, Sam just sent an email asking when I graduate. I was explaining my itinerary when I realized that this last Thursday was the end of a 17 year academic career. That it was anything more than a widening of my Tuesday-Thrusday availability.

I usually like to end my blog posts with a sarcastic remark or ugly quote. Today I'm going to end with advice which is intended as an allusion to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and not The Matrix: Know thyself. Knowledge is not knowing your times tables or your spelling or your European history or your advanced biology or your prepositional logic or your polymorphic object oriented computer languages or your Stanislavsky technique or your Twentieth Century feminist existential philosopher/playwrights. The most difficult thing in life is not doing what you love, but knowing what you love. Most people grossly misunderstand themselves and have the worst sort of misconceptions about what they love. This ignorance is a sure cause of much sorrow. Know what you love, and never forget it.

Be well, do good work.
- Scott

More Birthday Fun

My birthday is a holiday!
http://www.break.com/index/fck-the-earth-day.html

Remarkable Coincidence

The Dinosaur Comic for my birthday:
http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001209.html

Birfday

Dear Blog,
Steven worries that I neglect you. Better than abuse you, I say! There, there. Papa's back.

What I've been up to lately (in roughly chronological order):

• I went to Boston with Baily to visit the Novell peeps. Aaron let us crash at his place.
  this.Friends["abock"].Esteem += 5; //I keep my friends in a hashtable
  
• Our show opened.
• The folks came by to see it.
• Michael can down from Boston to see the show.
  this.Friends["mhutch"].Esteem += 20;
  this.Friends["abock"].Esteem *= 0.1; //Esteem is a double
• Folks and Hutch and I went to see Pattie Stewart in Macbeth.
• Show closed.
• And now it's my birthday.

That's pretty much everything that's happened in the last howeverlong. I'm 22 years old.

"Time to die!" -Roy

Things I Fucking Love, Vol. 5

Tikibar TV

Who do you want answering the phone?

I spare no expense for hobos. Literally. Any request of the form, "spare some _____" will get a big ole "I'm too busy with my own thoughts even to pretend I didn't hear you" look out of me. If I ever did have the kind of money where I could just blow it on the homeless, I would instead use it to buy them copies of Atlas Shrugged. Anyway, the other day I was heading through the Fulton St. subway station when this guy at a pay phone asked me, with convincing earnestness, for a quarter. "Here," I think, "is a man in a pickle. A hard working Joe who is caught without any change and clearly needs to place a phone call. No surprise: with the prevalence of credit cards, it's not a wonder he hasn't got a quarter. And his cell phone could be out of juice, or in his other pants. This is a man," thought I, "who needs only to make one quick, urgent call. He certainly isn't looking for a leisure quarter or booze money, and he certainly isn't without a home. He could very well be calling his home. I have a quarter. I will give this tragic hero my quarter. Here you go, noble sir, MAKE THAT CALL!"

Several days later, I saw the same man at the same phone asking for quarters in the same "this never happens to me, I can't believe this is happening to me" tone of voice. He was a very clever hobo. I did not give him a quarter and he called me a faggot. I suppose we all adapt.

Gone Bananas!

I don't eat bananas. They are just one of those fruits I never ingest under any circumstance ever. From the time I was born until about a week and a half ago, I had eaten exactly no bananas. Which brings us to a week and a half ago. We were teching our shows and I was all of a hungered. Then Pat, one of our freshman lackies, proffered me a bit of a bite of his banana. I informed everyone within earshot that I never eat bananas at all because of 1) their stupid taste, 2) their gross texture, and 3) I don't like the banana-flavored runts (for the same reasons I don't like bananas). I forget what happened next, but it involved me eating the banana. I know!

Flash three days later: I come in for strike and inform every Caroline Counts within earshot that I am all of a hungered. WHAMEE! She whips out a banana. BIFF! I peel. *GRODY BANANA NOISES* It is gone.

I am now averaging a banana a day. My new director, Ian, is even getting them for me. I guess I've...

Gone Bananas!

A farse in three acts
by S.T. Peterson

Things I Fucking Love, Vol. 4

90 minuets of Christopher Hitchens eviscerating a rabbi.

Metapost

I made the observation about Ian and me (including my history of subconscious impersonation) no less than three times today, to different people. When you tell the same story three times in a day, you know it's time for a blog post!

Post

A long-known fact about myself: when I'm around certain people, I begin to behave like them. For instance, when I am home, I act more like my dad - mannerisms, patterns of speech, &c (I am especially like my dad when I interact with my sister). Also when I'm around Sam, I act more Sam-ish than usual. The director of the play I am now in is crazy. I mean, craaaazy. KARAYZEE!!! I'm running out of text formatting options and I'm concerned that you're still not catching my drift. The man is... well, ok. Crazy. You get it. Ok, so, today I find that I am begining to behave like Ian (that's his name. Ian.) when I'm in rehearsal. Which is craaazy. But also awesome.

Fruit Distribution

This is an eyeball estimation of the fruit distribution in the dining hall's fruit bowl:

This is inversely proportional to my appetite for each of the above fruits.

Closing

Our show closed yesterday. I was really not expecting it to be as good as it was. It was very well received and people whose opinions I greatly respect had very kind words. I was also awarded the nicest compliment I've ever received after the first show. An old woman I'd never met said that Stella [Adler] would adore me. She had been a student and friend of Stella's. What a thing to hear! So all in all, a good show. Now, onward!

Things I Fucking Love, Vol. 3

Having breakfast-foods for dinner.

Opening

Our show opened today. It was a wonderful performance. Letters to the End of the World is the title. It is a new work. I have lots to say. It's sad. I had a piece of frosted lemon cake today also. And I had breakfast-foods for dinner.

Fun With Whips and Nipple Clips

Went to my first-ever BDSM party Saturday night. It was really fun. I woke up Sunday with my back covered in burst blood vessels. I got flogged by this great dom named Liz (whose sub, Kitty, does neurological research on pain). I also tried flogging someone but didn't really get into it. I think spanking someone would be more fun, but I didn't try it. Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the evening was the social interaction. The people are all really kind and inviting. Folks in the BDSM culture - while not without their quirks - are refreshingly well-adjusted and self-aware as compared to the breed of suburbanites with whom I have grown up. I'll probably do it again some time, but the cover's kind of expensive.

Lactose Indeterminate

I get my milk from a machine. This machine is big and made of shiny metal and has two rubber hosey-things. From the left tubey-like-thing cometh the skim, and from the right utter-like spigot ushers forth whole. Above each rubber teat hangs a weighted lever. Lift the lever, get the white stuff.

I was raised since birth (well, perhaps not since birth - I don't actually know if I was breast-fed. mem. ask the mum) to drink only of the skim. As you may know, I recently took to the right lever. Well, for reasons I won't go into, I'm back again to skim. There is a slight problem, however. In my time with the Big Metal Milk Machine, I've spent two years lifting the left lever three times a day and a year at the right lever. I have muscle memory for both skim and whole. So these days when I go to grab my cow nectar, my body will automatically load one of its two "get the milk" routines and if I'm not paying attention, I won't find out what kind of milk I have until I sit down for a sip. It's a little bit exciting.

Super, Thanks For Asking

Super Tuesday has come and gone. I flew back to MN just to vote. I did both the Democratic and Republican caucuses. The Dems were much better organized and much better attended. I got stickers. It was fun. Back to school!

Things I Fucking Love, Vol. 2

Amazon MP3 store. Bye bye iTunes. Fucking awesome.

Pats Loose

Booo.

BYE BYE BLISTER or GOO IN THE SHOE

First, a little genetics. Among her many graces, my mother has lovely feet. She also had the good sense to give those beautiful feet to her two equally beautiful children. My mother, my sister and I all have a very elegant second toe (second most proximal - next to the "Big Toe"). It protrudes tastefully past the Big Toe, making it the longest of our phalanges. It is the foot of aristocracy. My father, on the other hand, has what the ladies and I refer to - rather euphemistically - as the "chopped toe." His Big Toe is the longest, followed by each successively distal digit, giving the overall foot a frankly disgusting linear slope.
Shortly after retiring to my mid-West abode for Winter recess, I made my N-th "Glorious Return to the Gym!" The season being what it was, and the gym being where it is, I thought it best not to assume my daily run to the gym - rather to use the vulgar hamster-wheels there provided. The physics of running a treadmill differ subtly from the those of Actual Running. While I (still) do not fully understand these differences in their entirety, I became aware of their existence when I noted the development of a blister on my right foot, on my second toe - my longest toe. Confident in my body's competence in these matters, I left the vile thing be. It proceeded to grow, enveloping more and more of the end of my toe, until it had nearly commandeered the whole of the tip and was visibly running under the nail. My beautiful second toe grew longer still as the purulent bulb swelled by the day. It was not especially painful or bothersome and I continued to treadmill throughout the outbreak. It was just about deserving of a name when, yesterday, I took off my sock to discover that the abscess was now a withered and deflated husk of white, dead skin. It would seem the blister burst sometime during my day, filling my shoe with a rush of pus. Oh well.

Sleepy Head

I must be really behind on my sleep or something. I got to bed at 10 and I woke up at 9 and I'm still yawning. Poopie.

The First Law of New York Physics

People who walk more slowly than you are retarded. People who walk more quickly than you are insane. These are the only categories of New York pedestrian; the Retards, the Maniacs, and You.

Ha Ha J.J.

I are back! In New York that is. I really don't feel like telling you anything about it. So there!

Things I Fucking Love, Vol. 1

Dinosaur Comics

The Wire

Allow me to introduce my friend, the wire. Chances are you've already met. The wire visits all in due time. Or rather, all visit the wire. However thorough one's planing, however precise one's timing, one inevitably, invariably, eventually finds oneself down to the wire. The wire is the asymptote of failure; the event horizon of survival; the third rail of life: go ever so near, but do not touch. With luck, one's wire encounters are few. With luck, one passes with clearance to spare. I, however, enjoy a luck of a different stripe.

My luck - my talent - is in wire riding. I do not go down to the wire. I go on the wire. I tight-rope-walk the wire. I shimmy and skip and flip and grind on the wire. I straddle the wire. I floss my ass cheeks with the wire. I hump the wire and the wire and I make beautiful love and have beautiful children. I read to my wirelings at bedtime. Then I tuck them into their wire-beds, kiss their wire-heads, and go fuck the shit out of their wire-mother's bunghole. That's right, the wire and me have sloppy anal sex. I'm talkin' messy. And sometimes I let it be on top. That's messy too.

Why do I do this, you ask? Am I a wire fetishist? Am I trying to prove a point? Is this an instillation art piece? No, no, and no. Nearest as I can figure it, the wire is just the most interesting place to be. I could steer clear. I could plan ahead. I could undertake to avoid the wire all together. But I find a crackling 10,000 volt wire, a yawning 20,000 foot precipice, an enclosed space filled with flaming tigers and laser-guided bears, is just a more interesting place to be. Wouldn't you say?

"Sleep is the last resort of cowards." - Me

Ho Ho Ho

Marry Christmas!

Me

I hate school and I hate class
and I hate homework and I hate
twelve (12) page papers
and I hate grades,
but I hate myself.

And I hate my dad and I hate my mom and I hate
my sister and my sister's friends and my friends
and acquaintances
and myself
and people I've never met and racial minorities - especially blacks -
and women
and leaders of foreign nations
and the impoverished, flea-bitten bloated-bellied AIDS Babies of those nations,
but I hate myself.

And I hate Aeschylus and Sophocles and Euripides and
Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and
Derrida and Sam Beckett and
the Theater of the Avant Garde
and Theater
and logical derivations and doubly-linked-lists and especially AVL trees.

NYU and C and emails from my grandmother and The
World and God and my father and my grandfather and me and every one of my successes
and all of my failures.

I hate this blog and I hate this poem.

And I hate Global Warming and I hate
hybrid cars and The Economy and Adam
and Eve and Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud,
but I hate myself.

I hate love and
I hate generosity and
I hate diarrhea
and Ayn Rand.
I hate hate and
I hate haters
and hate groups
and hate speech
and speech in general
as well as non-verbal communication and silence.
I hate love again and respect and children
and hope and happiness and suffering.
I hate death and life and my life and me
and my name and my toes and my id and my ego
and my boyhood and my nose and I hate God
and my cock and my balls and my asshole and my mouth
and my interests and my intestines and my aorta and my neocortex too.

But most of all I hate you.
I hate your face and your breath and your ideas
and everything you think, say, and do.
I hate the money you make
and the sex you have
and the things you own.
I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!
I hate you, the world, God, Christmas, and you.

But I hate myself.


If I get a diploma, I will burn it.

Size doesn't matter. Except when it does.

Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here! You will recall the twelve (12) page paper on which I was so recently working which turned out in the end to be a cowardly seven (7) page paper. Well, I embarked tonight to fill out the remaining pages with such extra time as I've been afforded. After a few hours of toil at the library, I jumped back home to do some stuff and plugged the new paper into OpenOffice to check my progress (I write the paper at the library in Google Docs, which has very poor page count estimates). Nine pages. Hmm, thought I. This is going to be a long night. Somewhat crestfallen but eager nonetheless, I returned again to the library for more toil. At 3am they finally evicted me from the stacks (the place with the book) and I relocated to the study lounge. The study lounge has iMacs with Word, so I took a deep breath, crossed my fingers, and pasted the paper in. Sixteen (16) pages. I finished the sentence I was working on, slapped my name on the top, and emailed that bad boy in. Done and done. On a related note, the eight (8) page paper I was also working on weighed in at a clean eight (8) pages. Yeehaw.

News From the Front

Thought I would continue last night's tradition of liveblogging from the library. It's 12:45 and the paper is halfway done (it was halfway done at 12:30 - I haven't done anything the last 15 minutes) and that's very good. Remember, this one is eight (8) pages long. Or it will be when it's done. Yesterday's paper has gotten a new lease on life: it turns out not to be due due until noon tomorrow. Whether that gives me enough time to double its length is doubtful, but I might squeeze in a few extra quotations. I have only slept about two out of the last forty eight hours. I'm actually feeling surprisingly good for so little rest. Not as witty as I might be, but as I always say, "can't be witty after every 48 hours of sleep deprivation." See what I mean. Well, I'd best get back to that ole paper. Maybe if I finish before four I can work on the other paper and get it up to ten pages before noon. Wish me luck!

Essay Terminus or One Down, One to Go

Yesterday's/last night's/this morning's twelve (12) page paper is finished, but at the last minute decided to be a seven (7) page paper. I'm not too worried. Unlike parachute ripchords and French emperors, a short essay never killed anyone. Though I wouldn't put it past my paper. It's already burgled some of my property. My watch - the one I never wear except for when I do - is now lost somewhere in the Bobst library. Thrown from my wrist in a frenzy of page-turning, no doubt. This is the same watch, by the way, that was leaking chemicals up and down my arm. It's a comfort to know that I continue to educate myself in the importance of not loosing shit. Like the children you see on leashes who must always wear their harness, I must always keep my watch on my wrist. I like to think that, at 21, the lesson is only repeated for rhetorical emphasis.

Well I've barely recovered from the no-sleep, no-timepiece extravaganza that was last night's paper, and I'm already gearing up for tonight's no-sleep, no-timepiece eight (8) page essay extravaganza, due tomorrow! I'm armored and ready for battle. I have my sword, my pen, my furry hat, my library card, and but for a wristwatch I am the image of scholarly preparedness. Bring it on, say I! And if this eight (8) page paper is paper enough to meet the length requirement, then I shall meet it in the ring of honor. Tonight. Slash tomorrow morning. Bobst Library. Fourth floor. Be there!

Jealousy

Am still at the library writing the aforementioned twelve (12) page paper. Sitting across from me while I was deep in composition was a girl reading a book. The book was entitled, "Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgender Prostitutes."

The paper (my paper) is about Greek drama, by the way.

Lessions in Search Quality

I'm at the library right now writing a twelve (12) page paper which is something that I don't enjoy doing very much. Anyway, (some of) the computers in the library only have Internet Explorer in a quasi-kiosk mode with no address bar. The only way to navigate to, say, Google, is to open the IE search sidebar and search for "google". The IE search sidebar uses Windows Live Search.

So I get on to one of these computer and need to get to Google Book Search (books.google.com). I type "book search" into the search sidebar and hit enter. Before I tell you what results Windows Live gave me for "book search," let me briefly tell you what Google gives you for the same query: books.google.com - result #1, just what I want. Now here is what Windows Live gave me:

Result #1: www.book-search.com "Best way to search for books on the net! ... All rights reserved. This page is copyright 1994 Triple Threat Sportscards." [Emphasis mine]

Result #2: www.bookfinder.com "Search engine that finds the best buys from among 125 million new, used, rare, and out-of-print books for sale. Includes textbooks and international titles." [Emphasis mine]

Result #3: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Book_Search [The Wikipedia page about Google Book Search]

Result #4: booksearch.blogspot.com [The official blog about Google Book Search]

Result #5: www.usedbooksearch.co.uk [A used book retailer... in the UK]

Result #6: www.usedbooksearch.co.uk/books.htm [Apparently it thinks I could use another result from the same UK estore]

Result#7: books.google.co.uk [Finally it gives me the UK version of Google Book Search. To be clear, I'm not using the UK version of Live Search. It recommended the .co.uk domain before the .com domain]

In the subsiquent results were books.google.ca and books.google.au, but plain old books.google.com didn't show up in the 35 pages I clicked through. I thought that was an interesting observation.

Today

Rain. In December. Rain in December.

edit
Correction: It's sleeting now.

The Legal Definition of Cheese

This, from the Wikipedia article on American Cheese (emphasis mine):

Today's American cheese is generally no longer made from a blend of all-natural cheeses, but instead is a processed cheese, i.e. it is manufactured from a set of ingredients (such as milk, whey, milkfat, milk protein concentrate, whey protein concentrate, salt) which meets the legal definition of cheese.

Further details emerge on my impending doom

Consciousness is knowing you're alive. Sentience is knowing you will die.

Over the past four years I've begun to think more frequently about my death which is, I imagine, part and parcel of growing up. But I realized today that I've only thought about my death in the abstract, "I'm 21 - I'm almost dead," kind of way. It wasn't until this afternoon that I spent some time wondering seriously about the end of my life. This is the stuff self-fulfilling prophesies are made of!

My paternal grandfather lost nearly all of his cognitive powers with age. I have been reminded on numerous occasions of the similarities between he and me. Aside from looking identical at age 7, we share many personal and mental traits, according to my father. I am told to have inherited both his great potential and his propensity to waste said potential. My maternal grandmother on the other hand is frighteningly lucid and shows no sign of slowing down. The family fears she will outlive us all. (My maternal grandfather died when my mother was young and my paternal grandmother died when I was young. My paternal grandfather is also dead.) I am nothing like my grandmother. It therefor seems likelier than not that I will lose my mind when I get old. If in my crazy old age I am only able to remember people and events from my youth, I wonder what time frame that will encompass. For all I know, my life right now will be all I can remember in sixty years. I'm trying to decide if that thought makes me self-conscious.

I usually think of "older me" as another person, but for some reason I don't think of the many "older mes" as a group of other people. What I mean is, I think of me at thirty as another person, and me at forty as another person still. I can, when I so choose, feel the gaze of a singular "future me," judging my current actions, but I cannot evoke the sensation of a group of "future mes" judging my behavior collectively. This, despite my birthday mind game.

Assuming I remand lucid, I do wonder how large a component of my identity age will become. I feel that much of my ego for the past 21 years has been predicated upon youth. I have defined myself in terms of being a "young person." As that bedrock slowly slips from under my personality, I find it's replacement (maturity) to be alarmingly absent. For this reason I think that Old Scott, if his wits are about him, will relish in the appropriation of age to support his identity. To "be old" will probably be my favorite part of being old.

Truth be told, I can't wait to be old. It's the "getting old" part I'm not so hot on. But the "being old" looks like a hoot. Any excuse to shit my pants...

Life is so much prelude to death.

Sun, Dec. Nine

• Woke late (2:30).
• Showered and Interneted.
• Ate food (4:10).
• While eating, ran into my friend Nate. Sat down with his crowd.
• We were then joined by Evan (whom I haven't seen in ages) and other people.
• Had the most amusing meal I've had since April.
• Now it's back home and I need to study.

"Sunday" is redundant.

D. Sam Bur

Happy first of December.

Touching yourself: Good, clean fun for everyone!

Finger Cheese

Fact: If you keep your fingers in the same place on a keyboard for upwards of six hours, those keys will acquire a layer of goo. The goo is probably dirt, sweat, and dead skin cells. I won't tell you how I've learned this, but if these keys mean anything to you, you already know: W, A, S, & D.

The Lesson of Science

We used to think that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and we used to think that Zeus aimed the thunderbolts, and we used to think that God made the Universe and Man. What is important is not that we were wrong, but that we were sure. We held these beliefs - and enumerable others, equally wrong - in full confidence and without appeal to evidence. The lesson of Science is not that the Earth circles the Sun, or that lightning is electricity, or that Man evolved from lesser forms. Those are facts of Science, but not the lesson. The lesson of Science is that understanding must be qualified by evidence. The lesson of Science is that statements of the form, "I believe...," require the conjunction, "because." The purpose of Science is not to inform everyone who previously thought plagues the wrath of the supernatural that, in fact, there are such things as micro-organisms beyond the limits of sight. The purpose of Science is not to replace one arbitrary, absolute belief with another, however more correct. The purpose of Science is to teach that understanding must be supported - must be qualified - with repeatable experimentation and falsifiable theory. Science will never decree that, now, at last, we have the final and ultimate explanation of _____. Science will always only discover more evidence and better theories.

What is important is not that we were wrong, because we are still wrong. What is important is that we thought we were right. Now, we know why we hold what beliefs with what confidence - with what evidence - and we continue to seek better knowledge. I think this is a misconception many people have about capital 'S' Science. People assume Science is an authority of the kind to which they are used: the immaculate, supernatural kind. Science is fundamentally difference from religious explanation in that it demands evidence, not belief. Many people, I think, still misunderstand this point and it is important that this be stressed as the lesson, and the wonder, of Science.

Today was a failure.

A complete, total, holistic, uncompromised, perfect failure. Nothing that needed to be done was done and everything needed not to be done was done. Anyone who suggests that we need failures in order to have successes is talking shit out of their ass and is probably a complete failure them self. We need failures in order to feel miserable about ourselves. If nobody ever failed we would all have self-respect, and imagine what kind of world that would be. Hell. It would be absolute hell and I would kill myself before I'd live in it for two minutes. If you're smiling right now, I want you to remember that I am not. Miserable, foolish, slovenly, contemptible failures like me don't smile. We just fail.

DreamInterstate

Several of my dreams in the past months have featured the common image of a colossal elevated freeway system rising hundreds of feet above the ground, with entrance ramps at 30 degree angles, spanning into the horizon like some incredible cross between spaghetti junction and the BQE. The road is featured as a major plot point in some dreams (grandma looses control of the car on a steep entrance ramp as she tries to commit suicide), and functions only as a set piece in others. I'm open to interpretations.

The only thing worse than a beautiful person is a group of beautiful people.

Riddle Me This (in 1200 words)

What's more fun that writing a midterm paper on no sleep? Doing it two days in a row, of course!

My "talent" for the last-minute paper - the only kind I write - is maturing in a disturbing way. My current modus operandi is to begin at 3 am, hand write the whole thing for three or four hours, then sleep for an hour or two. When I wake up I type it out, give one proof-read if I have the time, and email it to the professor by 11am (I don't print things). I did that last night (slash, this morning) and the night/morning before that. The quality of my writing is not so hot, but that is the price of being a level 70 procrastinator. I've been thinking about why I behave like this. The self-righteous answer is that I find personal destruction more interesting than essay-writing. The self-flagellating answer is that I'm a miserable lout who can't do anything right. The answer in the middle is that I'm a smart boy who hates school and just doesn't care anymore. It's all over soon...

To Do or Not To Do

I don't have a newspaper column, but if I did it would be called "In The Knew" and in it I would provide advice to young people. Here is a fictitious entry in my fictitious newspaper column:

In The Knew
Observations for the young and the young at heart
By S.T. Peterson

"To Do or Not To Do"

Dear Friend,

Amid murder and antique language, it is easy for a modern audience (and a modern theater company) to forget about our tragic hero, the Prince of Denmark, that he is a young man. Hamlet is a young man with a young man's question, and like so many young people before and since, he has confused his linking verbs. "Being" is not the sort of thing over which one has agency. Try it sometime. I think you'll find that you already are. The real question our Little Prince invites us to ask is the title of today's column. As so many bumper stickers which have never been printed ought to advertise, "I'll kill myself if it's the last thing I do!"

Today's topic is how to do the things you need to do. I am something of an expert on the matter: I have had to do many things in twenty one years. Some of them important, other not so, some fun, some difficult, but I have approached them all with the same resolution and the same basic method. I generally abhor "3 Easy Steps to Suchandsuch" by Charlatan McFullofit, but I make an exception here for my own, "3 Easy Steps to Doing the Things You Need to Do," because I wrote it, and because it really works! What follows is the basic pattern I have followed whenever faced with something to do, and look at me. I've got a fucking newspaper column!

Step One: Don't do the thing you need to do. This may seem counter-intuitive, until you consider...

Step Two: Consumerism. Instead of doing what you need to do, go buy something. That will probably make you feel better about yourself. If that doesn't work, try...

Step Three: Masturbation.

So there you have it. The three perfect and only steps to doing the things you need to do: don't do it, buy something, and then masturbate. This is how I have faced ever task in my life, great and small, and it hasn't failed me yet. I can only speculate that things would have turned out better for old Hamlet if he'd know the secret. Make wise use of this knowledge yourself and bright things await.

Sincerely and faithfully yours,
S.T. Peterson

The cost of existing

After many years' delay, I am finally reading The Fountainhead. I am also perfecting the vacant expression which is my coping mechanism for the unbearable contempt the book gives me for the world and by "the world" I mean myself.

Life is the cost of existing.

The Body Politik

I've long been passionate about politics, but I've never actually put my money where my mouth is, until now. Yesterday, for the first time, I donated money to a political campaign: $50 to Ron Paul. Just thought I'd let you know.

I have no patience for fools, myself included.

A Million Little Pieces

Two days ago the temperature on my CPU read 170 F. That's waaaaay too hot. I've disassembled my whole machine and cleaned everything out. Now all of the delicate bits are strewn naked on the floor, waiting for the thermal gel and passive heatsink I ordered to arrive. This means I have to use University computers in the meantime. This means no porn. This makes me sad.

Introspection in Review

Conservatory drama programs (such as the one at Julliard) are 8 hours of pure theatrical training, 5 days a week. The NYU drama department splits the difference between conservatory and general education by farming kids out to conservatory studios (which are independent institutions) around the city for three days out of the week, and requiring academic credits to be achieved in the remaining two days. There are seven primary studios. I'm in the best one, naturally.

Of the academic requirements, "Theater Studies" classes have proven most painful for me. Primarily because I have a habit of failing them, but also because of the kinds of discussions they tend to encourage. If you sit in on a standard TS theory class (or at least any of the ones in which I have enrolled), you hear kids make frequent use of words like "every" and "all" and "never" and "no" and almost every discussion ends in a justification for someone's self-righteous definition of "art." Or something. I'm generalizing. Really there was just one class that was actually like that, but ever since then I've become very sensitive to wishy-washy and self-righteous arguments that I tend to see them everywhere.

Last week I had a conversation with my current Theater Studies professor and we discussed, among other things, some of my apprehensions about that kind of thing. Well, my teacher (who is one of my favorite ever) had some extremely reassuring words and expressed an opinion which I find all too rare in the theater world: my own! It was such an energizing and interesting talk that I thought for a brief time that I was, in fact, in love with my teacher. I realized then that it is not my teacher whom I love, but someone else. And that helped me make a decision.