Everything looks bad if you remember it

Wikipedia will go down in history as one of the most influential inventions of the 00s (is that how you signify the decade 2000-2010?) The concept is great: Information for the public--by the public, centralized, and completely free. My main critique from the beginning was also the most obvious one: people are idiots, and democracy doesn't work. I predicted poorly-written articles full of hearsay and conjecture and a prevalent amount of vandalism from the throngs of internet punks out there. To my surprise however, many of the articles are coherent, backed up by reputable sources, and virtually unblemished by immaturity. This, of course, made me rethink people in general. I guess they enjoy working for a common good. Adding to something so vast and popular must make them feel important and purposeful. Unfortunately, idiots too think they are important and purposeful.

So back to



...And that's where I stopped writing. I had saved the above text as a draft of a post I wrote on December 14th. It was supposed to be a sort of preamble to a point to which I was culminating. Now, looking back on this, I have no idea what that point was. Something on Wikipedia perked my interests, and now, pending any sudden improvement to my sub par memory, it will never resurface. Like the pudding in a can without a ring, the purpose of this post will be trapped forever. I had a brief hope that Firefox cached my history for that day, but alas, it too has a fleeting memory. Now I can only end this entry by rambling about my mistakes. Maybe next time I will write myself a note, or god forbid, finish what I started. But until then, I am not sorry, but deeply depressed.

Some stupid country thinks I owe them money

Alright, I rarely do this, but it's time to take advantage of what blogging really is all about and vent...

Some time ago, more than two years ago to be more accurate, I lived in a little house in New Hampshire. I'm pretty sure this house was built during the Eisenhower administration and contained some of the crappiest appliances and fixtures known to man. One such fixture was the window in my bedroom. I had moved in during the summer, and without the luxury of air conditioning, said window needed to be opened in order to keep from waking up dead in the morning. Being the dilapidated piece of shit house that it was, this window would not budge. Seems like the sort of thing a landlord would check prior to his tenants moving in. Nonetheless, I pulled and I yanked, but my efforts were becoming futile. That is, until I somehow summoned some extra gumption and finally got it up (uhuh huhuh). In doing so, however, I managed to bend the glass enough to create a crack in the upper left-hand corner. I immediately thought aw crap, but then I switched to ...meh. It was summer, and I'd be leaving for London for the fall semester, so I decided to a adopt a full-fledged "fuck-it" attitude. But, for the sake of covering my ass, I did talk to our landlord's wife, who frequents the place and checks up on things for him. I told her about how lame her window was, and she seemed to understand and said it wouldn't be a problem. My fuck-it attitude was not out of place.

Use the >> button on your remote and skip ahead to the chapter entitled "Logan Graduates College." It was May, I was done with my schooling, and was ready to move out. During the interim in which I was in London, my then soon-to-be roommates had moved in for the new school year. One of whom took my old, crack-windowed room. So then when I moved back in during the winter, I had taken over another room from someone they had found to live there for the fall (still with me?). Anyway, the window was still broken, but that's because no one else seemed to care either. Fair enough. Summer was right around the corner, and I was ready to move on with my life, and I did. I got out with my security deposit and everything. Time to face the "real world."

Now skip to the all-too common "1 year later in the real world" chapter...aka the present. I get a message from my old roommate explaining that the landlord's charging $70 to replace the window, and of course the trail of blame led right back to me. This the window I broke two years ago! Awesome. I felt like I was being scolded retroactively for misbehaving in middle school. Now, there are two reasons I shouldn't have to pay:

1. I had cleared it with the wife! That should have been the end of it right there! If she's going to say "It's OK, don't worry about it," she should have had the foresight to remember such a statement come time the lease ends... which leads me to my next point:
2. I moved out a year ago! My involvement definitely should have ended after that! I got my security deposit back, and nothing was said about the window. Granted my roommates were staying for another year, but for each renewal of the lease, all damage should be accounted for or should be rendered null and void! Especially for the guy who moves out.

Now, I do feel bad for my old roommate, who's caught in the middle and is taking the brunt of all of this. But I feel like I'm being made into a sucker--the end result of someone's let's-find-a-scapegoat plan. Well I will not be the sap, greenhorn, pigeon or rube. I'm taking a stand. Who's with me?!

PS. $70 is a bullshit price. Window panes cost like ten bucks. Our landlord is such a dick.

Where are the apples?

Man I did it again! The vending machine cleary has a '10' option, but I went ahead and pushed E-1-0. Of course as I was pressing the 0, the Hershey bar with almonds was already taking its plunge instead of my King-sized snickers. Now I'm stuck with chocolate in a slightly different form! AAAGGH!! can my life get any worse?!

How about... Ghostmutt?

The plagiarism needs to stop. I'm not talking about ripping off a book report on Catcher in the Rye here. No. I'm talking about our unconscious stealing of ideas. After my experiences, I've learned that there's definitely some kind of ether surrounding the world which acts as a pool for all creative thought. Once you have an idea, it joins this pool and becomes part of a global, public domain... One that anyone can access. Problem is, a person can't pick and choose from that pool. He just gets hit, randomly. This ether has fucked me over on more than one occasion. Each having to do with music...

The year was 1997. Clinton was in the White house, and little did we know, Monica Lewinsky (that's gold, Jerry, gold!). Pop Music had begun to shift from grungy alternative to something a little less suicidal. The melodic, bubblegum sound of bands (I use the term loosely) like Hanson and the Backstreet Boys had started to replace Nirvana and Pearl Jams' heavy distortion. Some newcomers incorporated both styles into one crowd-pleasing sound. One such pioneer was Third Eye Blind.

I was making a transition of my own back then. I had just graduated from eighth grade and, in the fall, would begin my freshman year of high school. I had been very into learning to play the electric guitar, having received it as a Christmas present some months ago. I didn't know many songs or chords yet, so most of my practicing involved combining sounds I could actually play. In doing this, I came across a little riff I rather enjoyed. It was hard and fast, but catchy in a I-IV-V sort of way. I was hooked. I played until my fingers bled (as the song goes). I was becoming an artist.

Flash forward a month or two. My friend and I were out at his parent's camp on Lake Champlain in Mallet's Bay. It was a sunny day... we'd probably go water-skiing later on. But we were sitting there, with the radio on, playing cards on his porch, when, out of nowhere, I heard something shockingly familiar:

C C C D D D G G G G G G

The chords I had so joyfully created and played had been recorded, digitized and sent through the airwaves. I couldn't believe my ears.

The band went on to sing the verse and chorus, but that just disgusted me further. How dare they put these words to my masterpiece..? That is not how I would have handled things.

The song finished and DJ slid in with "That was Third Eye Blind with Semi-Charmed Life."
The thieves had a name.

And that was when I realized that there was something greater than just us in this world. It was like file-sharing for the earth, except replace 'file' with "brilliant idea" and 'sharing' with 'stealing'. I now know where Metallica is coming from.

The worst part was that is was the exact same phrase of music. Same rhythm, same intensity, same strumming. Even the fingering was duplicated. The C they played was actually a Cadd9: The very same chord to my song. Ugh.

Epilogue:
The reason I write this now was that it happened again. I was listening to Zox, and they copied the exact same chord progression I had thought up. I knew it was the same, because I've heard those chords so many times before... from my guitar.

Also, the opposite has happened. I was fiddling around one day when, I made up a neat little song. I found out later that I had invented "Superman" by Goldfinger... after the song had come out. Now, if I were to steal it, they'd call it plagiarism for real. Where's the justice?

Like the moors of Scotland...

Here are some murky areas of discussion:

• Pheromones. What's the deal with those? I'll bet the most "attractive" people out there are hiding something from the rest of us.

• Hypnotism. Same argument. Bush seems like the easily suggestible type...

• Cell phone usage in cars: Necessity or desire for human contact while alone in the car?

• The "How to Merge" lesson that was mysteriously omitted from Massachusetts Driver's ED curriculum.

• My contrived sarcasm

• The origins of E-mail forwards

• The popularity of Dane Cook

• Dunkin Donuts. My theory is that we're not addicted to the coffee, but the massive amount of added sugar.

• The balance between romantic chivalry and women equaling men in rights.

• Should I open your car-door or not!?

• The strange deliciousness of eggplant

• I'm hungry

"Singing is the lowest form of communication"

When griping grief the heart doth wound,
and doleful dumps the mind opresses,
then music, with her silver sound,
with speedy help doth lend redress.

                - William Shakespeare

Yeah ok, but why?

Why are some sounds more pleasing than others? Is the explanation scientific, aesthetic, or both? If there did exist a series of sounds that were "perfect" in the ears of the listener, then is there one and only one series? If so, then can't someone write a computer program to estimate this divine noise?

I think it's possible. Not right now or within the next hour or month, but at some point.

There are some obvious basics, however. Music appears to be equal parts unity and repetition, except stating that they're 'equal' may be copping out. What if, to keep the listener's attention and familiarity, the majority of a piece of music must recycle its motifs...? But, on the other hand, to keep from boring the listener, maybe the piece should employ more random elements. I bet studies could be done on this subject. I'd be interested in the results.

Also, when sounds do change, how should they do it? There are 4 properties of sound: pitch, duration, amplitude, and timbre. Should each change at the same time, or maybe one or two at time? I'm sure this should be somewhat random as well, but I'm sure there's a proportion in involved. The number PHI or 1.6108 comes to mind. This "golden ratio" is said to epitomize beauty, and some go so far as to call it the Divine Proportion. It can be seen in nature in the way flower petals repeat, or the rate of the spiral in a snail's shell. This leads me to believe that music is fundamentally recursive as well. I believe that many fractal drawings are good graphical representations of how a piece of music could be arranged.

It seems I have a lot of ideas, but in no way are they connected. There doesn't seem to be much research done on this subject, which is a shame. What category would this fall under any way? Math? Music? It would probably be Statistics since you are estimating something large through very small means. I don't know, but it's fun to ramble like this.

Children! Children! Future! Future!

You ever stop to consider the disparity between a holiday as an adult and that same holiday as a kid? Well I have! Right now, in fact. And if you'll allow me to illustrate...

New Years

As a kid: You stay up until midnight to watch the ball drop on TV
As an adult: You stay up until 4 in the morning at some club/bar/party looking for that "new year's kiss."

Birthday

As a kid: Wooo I'm getting older... and presents!
As an adult: Booo I'm getting older... but presents!

Valentine's Day

As a kid: You buy every kid in your class a valentine... Every kid.
As an Adult: For couples, you're in for some lovin'. For others, you're cursing St. Valentine until my throat is sore.

St. Patrick's Day

As a kid: You eat green cookies and believe in leprechauns
As an adult: You drink green beer and believe that you're Irish.

Easter

As a kid: You hunt for pastel-colored eggs and eat a chocolate bunny.
As an adult: You ponder the relationship between Bunnies and Jesus coming back from the dead.

Independence Day

As a kid: You go into town to watch the local fireworks display.
As an adult: You try to lift your head high enough to watch the fireworks while you drunkenly scream "GO AMERICA" by an ever-advancing bon-fire.

Columbus Day

As a kid: You learn both sides to the story of Columbus.
As an adult: Three-day weekend!

Halloween:

As a kid: You accost the homes of strangers in the attempt to obtain candy or the thrill of vandalism.
As an adult: After you duct-tape some beer-boxes to your torso, you attend parties with girls wearing only thin strips of cloth and a pair of red horns passing themselves off as "devils" (P.S. you're probably in college).

Thanksgiving

As a kid: relatives and food
As an adult: relatives and food.

Christmas

As a kid: You wait the whole month in anticipation of tons of presents you actually want but do not deserve.
As an adult: December 25th = Great! December 1-24 = Hell.


PS. My apologies to Jews, Muslims, Kwanzians, etc. I only have nostalgia for Christian Holidays. Maybe in another life...

The airplane's upside down

So I was at the post office this morning, mailing things that need to be mailed. If you have multiple, consecutive engagements or "work" during the day, you are always hard-pressed to find time to go to the post office. I just don't get it. Why would a business that caters to the general public avail themselves when the public is least available? Waking up early just to mail a letter doesn't sit well with me. Maybe electronic mail has spoiled me with it's glitzy convenience. By the way, this goes for banks too. If only they realized the lucrative possibility of Sunday hours... they would make real bank.

Getting back to my trip and away from terrible puns, along with mailing stuff, I had to buy stamps. Because of the recent price-hike from 37 to 39 cents, my old book of stamps was essentially worthless. Plus I lost them. Anyway, the infernal vending machine wasn't working, so I was forced to engage socially with the wisecracking postal clerk who kept hilariously putting the cost of each item at three million dollars. After laughing sheepishly, I was presented with three choices of stamps: a purple outline of a dove; a drawing of two birds kissing; or the statue of liberty in front of the American flag. Now I usually don't care what others think of me, but I just woke up and had a strong yearning to do what was easiest, so I settled on the Statue. But while walking back to my car, I realized what had just happened... the hornswoggling of me by the government. Their ingenious ploy became clearer than a cup of beer on dollar-draft night: to convert all men into flag-toting, war-supporting Americati. Never underestimate a man's reluctance to reveal evidence of a non-existent homosexuality. As we all know, birds, both purple and kissing, pale in comparison to... pretty much any inanimate object. In this case, it was a green statue with a star-spangled banner. Now, every Johnny Recipient in my list of contacts will be aware of how patriotic and Bush-supporting I am. Thanks government! Keep on tapping my phone and restricting my freedoms too! Make sure that I never have the least bit of dissent in this wonderful country of yours.

You're probably just pouting from America's crappy performance in the World Baseball Classic.

The guy who eats people and takes their faces

If one is looking for something to blame for the ills of society, may I suggest that he look no further than the television series Law and Order. Note: there are many things to blame; I just have good reasoning for this one.

I never really started watching the series until a few months ago. It was always too serious for me. Characters using their fancy-pants criminal justice words didn't seem that entertaining to me. That and you really had to pay attention because they spoke too fast, and when I watch TV, I want to relax. It's difficult to unwind to suspects getting arrested then subsequently convicted all in the span of an hour.

Anyway, now that I do watch it, I can't help but become enthralled with each episode. TV-land does have a shortage of plot-rich shows, so L&O makes up for that pretty well. I'd bet it would be a great learning tool for criminal justice majors too, because I can only assume it's accurate from all the police-work, courtroom jargon. So maybe the show should be confined to a closed-circuit station available only to learned institutions, because it's not doing much good to the general public.

Why you ask? My theory comes from one if its many offshoots: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Firstly, I don't know why the producers thought that sexually-based crimes would be a source of entertainment, but the show's popularity proves otherwise. Maybe it's the feeling of watching the heroic, headstrong protagonists bring justice to the most "heinous" of offenders, or maybe there's a throng of perverts with some spare time looking for tips on how to avoid being caught. Either way the problem with this show is two-fold:

A. Many of the episodes give the impression that these rapists and molesters are all around us. This just boosts society's overall level of fear from "Hey, how you doin'?" to "Hey, who the hell are you really?!" Example: Male teachers applying for elementary school teaching jobs. Normal men end up either not getting hired or getting harassed by "concerned" parents... simply for their Y chromosome. Consequently, almost all K-3 teachers are women, even though it's been shown that at that age, boys need a male role-model to look up to. But now that male must be a pedophile if he wants to teach first grade. SVU tipped us all off!

B. THE SHOW IS ON TWENTY FOUR HOURS A DAY ...or so it seems. Turn on the TV any time during the day, and you will be in the company of a sleazy criminal. This only makes their existence that much more prevalent. And look at how much trouble he is causing those detectives and attorneys! If it weren't for their quick thinking and razor-sharp knowledge of the law, he'd still be free to roam the streets bludgeoning small bunnies. Good thing the public knows that our real law officials are equally as cunning and adept at their jobs......

So I'm not saying that taking this show off the air will also take criminals off the street, but if it could lower our level of fear just a notch below Paranoia Erratica, then it would be worth it. We just wouldn't be able to get our DUN DUN fix, is all.

For more information, consult the South Park episode "Child Abduction is not Funny."

Can hamsters fly planes?

For such a beautiful and elegant bird, the swan has one of the most boring lives of any animal in the kingdom which bares that name.

We have a little pond outside the facility in which I work (although I don't know how many ponds are surrounded by concrete and have a fountain in the middle). Anyway, inhabiting this pond are two white swans that spend their days (and nights) paddling around an area the size of a public swimming pool. Their surrounding view consists of a large building, a parking garage, and four trees. From the looks of it, all they do during the day is swim around and occasionally dive into the water to see what food-like substance they can scrape from beneath.

Does this sound like a life? I would expect this kind of situation for a squirrel or a pigeon, but swans seem like they deserve better. If there were any kind of social structure set up in the animal kingdom, the swans would definitely make up the aristocracy. They should somehow demand a better life. But no, when I come in in the morning, there they are. When I leave at night, there they are... in the same location I left them. What did they do all day? Does their mental capacity allow them to keep their sanity while behaving this mundanely? It must. I don't see too many swans wildly flapping their wings and honking at passers-by before they leap to dry-land and start strangling people with their necks. That's what I'd be doing.

Good thing I sit at a desk all day, staring at a computer screen instead.

Someone else! Someone else!

Time to write whatever comes to my mind, because I need to. The title of this post just came to mind for some reason. I really don't know why but it seemed apt. Apt to what, you ask? No idea.

Mmmm sweet sweet coffee: Giver of life. I have two desk calendars staring at me right now. They are positioned on each side of my PC like speakers blaring the date with constant intensity. JANUARY 18! They say. Both have tidbits of information from popular media conduits. By having two, I hope to strengthen the probability of hilarity. On any given day, I have twice the chance of laughing. What a time to be alive.

I heard an interesting fact from The Ricky Gervais Show yesterday. Apparently the first nudist colony was started in 1925 by three men. Stephen Merchant hypothesized that this was all a ploy to recruit naked women. I have a much more comprehensive theory...

These three guys actually started this "nudist colony" as a club for gay men. The 1920s did not look kindly upon homosexuality, so they took it upon themselves to create a sanctuary of sodomy. Confident that their nudity facade would keep the general public distant, they were on top of the world... Or so they thought.

During the 70s, the feminist movement was gathering momentum. Rights were equaled, and exclusive, all-male clubs were becoming less exclusive. The little-known nudists were now taking the brunt of this attack on men. While it was not well-publicized, women demanded with great fervor to be accepted into this club. To which the nudists replied, "No, you don't want to be doing that..."

But the women would not listen.

"Equal rights!" they cried!
"I am a woman. Hear me bare!"
"Let us in, you chauvinist pigs!"

...

"No you really don't want that."

But their high-pitched screams were heard all across the country. Each day they gained more and more supporters. So with the pressure mounting and defenses growing weak, the men had no choice but to succumb to the their wishes. Women could now be naked.

Of course, they soon found out about the horrible truth (not really horrible). And from this knowledge they let sleeping dogs lie, and decided to recant their protest.... Wrong! In order to avoid embarrassment, the women remained members and kept quiet about the whole operation. They could not bare to face the throngs of feminists who had given support to their cause. This is why man-love clubs have been kept under wraps for all these years. Yes, these women had to witness orgies of gay men engaged in hardcore sex acts, but that was the price they paid.

Women remain prevalent in these colonies today. Each one is inducted into this web of secrecy for, what they call, "the greater good." Who knows... Maybe someday, someone will speak out and leak this information to the press.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to take off my clothes.

A roundhouse kick to the face

events

I don't know if this link will be at all timeless, but Chuck Norris, ...you are a class act!

Here's what he is referring to.

Chicago Tribune | Howard Stern: uncensored, uninteresting

Chicago Tribune Howard Stern: uncensored, uninteresting

I had a hunch...

I can't say I 'm a longtime fan of Stern but I listened to him in high school and for the past six months--pre-satellite move. I must say, I was a fan.

He had the only morning radio show worth distracting me from the road. It was real, raw and rather encompassing. I'd often sit in my car in the company parking lot, listening to the end of a rant or conversation. It brought me back to my days on my high school cross-country team. Everyday I'd be around the same group of people who could spout off about anything they wanted. Young and immature, we answered to no one. That's the way Howard was. Other DJs were more like class presidents: attempting to appease both the student body and the administration, often having more success with the latter. I always got the impression they were giving us what they thought we wanted to hear... which of course never works.

Notice the unwavering use of the past tense in the above paragraph. Now that Stern is broadcasting from satellite, he is no longer broadcasting from my radio. While this may seem like a let-down, I'm fairly unmoved.

Rules are meant to be broken, and Howard just about ran the gamut. So with the radio-waves exhausted, satellite seemed like the new, untamed frontier. Except this frontier is a vast wasteland with very few settlers. Sure you can throw some rocks and kick a few tumbleweeds, but in the end, will you receive more than a glance?
...I don't feel like tying this analogy back to the topic at hand.


PS. This was probably only a test of the "BlogThis" feature from Google.

Wave of the Future

Well here it is. I've just transcribed the entire works of Stuff and Stuff and thusly created Stuff and Stuff 2.0. I've risked losing my employment as well as a fair amount of sanity, but it's done. Here's a link to where all this stuff used to be until I pulled out my shine-rag, polished it off and sent it to a new home.

This just marks another victory for progress though. Livejournal is a graveyard, and you are now reading one of its zombie corpses. Just like the rips in your jeans and the ipod in your pocket, you gotta keep up. No, this world just wasn't meant for lazy people like me. Luckily, I had a rare stroke of productivity today.

...Now to hopefully channel it into software development.