Dog-fighting

Last night, I had to stay home and study instead of joining some friends for a game of Risk. That was too bad because I imagined that I would show up and play as a pacifist. That would have been a sensation.

Some people, maybe some of the girls, would have admired me and thought that I was clever. Some people would have scorned me. It's more than likely that I would have been invaded eventually. Maybe I would have been knocked out early, and somebody would have explained to me, "you see? That's the problem with your philosophy."

Or maybe that's the problem with *your* philosophy. Fighting for what you want. Trying to show the world that you are powerful enough. You can win, and you deserve the good things that you win.

Well, I don't *want* to do that. It makes no sense to me at all that I should live a life of endlessly doing what I don't want to do. I've never wanted to crush the bug. I want to save the bug. I've never wanted to overthrow my brother or sister. I want to cheer for them. We can see well enough what a monstrous thing it is to take a puppy, gentle and happy in spirit, and torment it with threats and fears to the point that it becomes an aggressive, and violent, and powerful fighter. This is, in fact, illegal in the United States because we love dogs. Why, then, do we not love ourselves?

The Long Arm of the Law

He cast a disapproving glance at the perennially "soaking" dirty dishes, feigning disappointment in himself as a nod to absent social pressures.

Class Consciousness

"During the last class, as far as I could tell, I was the only person that didn't participate in the class discussion.

I actually showed up with some notes, quotes and some ideas that I wanted to discuss, but I quickly became engaged in an internal struggle regarding class participation. I started feeling like we were obligated to add to the discussion, basically, just to get points for participating. I hope you don't mind my saying that, I think as a result, the discussion kind of sucked. The credit that we receive is supposed to be based on the discussion. However, as long as our discussion is based on credit, it's going to suck, and ironically, we should then deserve less credit.

Even though I didn't add to it, I was listening to the discussion, and I heard somebody mention class consciousness. It got me thinking. We are literally a class, and we are engaged in this social contract: the format of the class. We give sovereignty to our instructor and legitimacy to the format of the class in exchange for two things: to get credits, and to learn and grow as people.

However, as I said before, if we have discussions for the sake of credit, we are engaging in a class format that actually compromises those two goals. (that is, discussions based on credit suck, because there is an incentive just to say whatever for credit. As a result we learn and grow less, and deserve less credit). According to Rousseau (...I think), because we give legitimacy to that contract, we are capable of changing it. Moreover, it would be profoundly ironic, in studying Rousseau, not to revise a social contract in which our incentives are compromised. It would be like students in a fascist nation chanting together in class, “In a free country, students do not repeat their lessons in synchrony.” They would get credit for knowing the material, but it would be a specious knowledge, devoid of the actual understanding that the credit is meant to represent.

So anyway, for me, this idea of class consciousness sort of evolved into classroom consciousness, and through classroom consciousness we can revise our social contract in the classroom. Let me turn to the text for a sec to anchor what I'm saying. By not talking on Monday, I was essentially objecting to what I perceived as a law: talk and get credit. On pg 140 Rousseau says about laws, “silence (in this case, talking) is presumed to mean tacit consent, and the sovereign (us) supposedly gives constant confirmation to the laws it does not repeal while able to do so.” Thus, in continuing to participate in a credit based discussion, we give tacit consent to the laws of our broken social contract.

Now that we have classroom consciousness though, we can all object and repeal this law. If we were all to engage in my method from Monday, non-participation, we would force our professor's hand in giving us credit without participation, because it would reflect badly on him to fail the entire class. However, in doing so, we would compromise our more important goal: to learn and grow. So instead of passively and counterproductivly objecting to the counterproductive “credit for participation” rule, we are forced to actively forge a new social contract in which the discussion belongs to us, instead of being dictated by credit. This is only possible because of our newly found classroom consciousness and if we are willing to accept universal credit (or possibly lack there of) for the discussion as a whole. If someone else says the point that you were going to make, it would be equivalent to you having made that point. The need to interject irrelevant or inferior information for the sake of recognition would disappear. I believe discussions would thrive in these conditions, and that's why I am not afraid to accept that, if we have a B discussion one day, then we all get Bs for the day, because I believe these conditions are more likely to produce A discussions.

I have some other stuff to say, some of which is actually about the text, but I'm no longer interested in getting credit for a monologue. My only concern is facilitating the best possible discussion. So now I want to pass the mic."

...gonna give this speech in our class discussion tomorrow... What's wrong with me?

In fact, what the hell, Rousseau? I think we've underestimated this guy's role in the American and French Revolutions. His writing really doesn't make me feel radical or rebellious. Yet, on the first day of discussion, I refused to participate, and on the second day of discussion, I am going to incite my classmates into overthrowing the entire structure of our grading system.

..And now I understand why it was banned..

Personal Evaluation - History of Ancient Greece

Many students who have written personal evaluations in the past have praised the institution of assessing oneself at the close of the semester. It seemed to them a mark of honor to the student’s past accomplishment that a brief paper should be written about them. I do not agree. This student has shown himself studious in action, and it would be enough, I think, for his grade to be proclaimed in action, as you have just seen it done at the final exam organized by yourself and the administration. Your belief in my scholastic dedication should not be hazarded on the goodness or badness of one personal evaluation. Then it is not easy to speak with a proper sense of balance, when a writer’s audience finds it difficult to believe in the truth of what one is saying. A man who knows the facts and loves the work I have done throughout the semester may well think that a personal evaluation tells less than what he knows and what he would like to hear: others who do not know so much may feel envy for my scholarly achievements, and think that the writer over-praises, when he speaks of back-to-back over-nighters that are beyond their own capacities…However, the fact is that the personal evaluation was set up and approved by yourself and students of the past and it is my assignment to follow the tradition and do my best to meet your wishes and expectations.

Professor, since the personal evaluation questions my character, I must begin by saying that I have a better right than others to receive an "A" in your class and that I think I am quite worthy of the grade… There was a time when my peers and professors imagined that my dedication to academics had been ruined by war video games, but they came to consider it even greater than it really is, because of the splendid show I made on campus when, as a junior, I submitted a whole bunch of work (more than I have ever submitted in my collegiate career) and received straight "A’s" and saw that everything else was arranged in a style worthy of my victory (post finals house party)... It is perfectly fair for a man who has a high opinion of himself not to be put on a level with everyone else. Thus, I deserve an A+.
Think it over again, then, when you have finished reading my personal evaluation, and let this be a point that constantly recurs to your mind— that you are considering the fate of my grade in your class, that I will recieve only one grade for your class, and that its future for good or ill depends on this one single decision which you are going to make.

I sampled two speeches in the evaluation. Anyone know who they were and what they were talking about?

The Viscious Cycle of Food for Thought and Thought for Food Continues

Yet, we rarely consider the waste by-product of that cycle. Thus, for your consideration:

PCPs are like the power stars in Mario, except when it ends you're in jail.

In a fortune cookie: "You will receive good news! But this is it."

At an office meeting: "Okay, so, today we're going to vote someone off the island, so to speak."

I've decided not to stalk that girl, after all. I just think about how many fish there are in the sea, how they come in so many interesting and beautiful varieties, and thinking about the ocean distracts me from women.

Voltaire said, "God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." So what does this mean for you, as the audience? Well, you can either laugh at my jokes, or deify me, and if you deify me, I will crush you. So let's try some jokes. Here, this is a good one: LAUGH OR I WILL CRUSH YOU! LAUGH OR I WILL CRUSH YOU!!

Noteworthy... ...notes...

Maybe spring is coming early this year! Yes, because of global warming (here in Denver it has been Summer all Winter. You don't hear me sarcastically complaining though. I like the beach, and if the apocalypse is the result of naturally occurring climate change (and is, therefore, beyond my control) then that's a load of my shoulders), but also, by rough groundhoggian logic, because something good happened to me that is marginally related to spring:

Twas the night before daylight wastings time and all through the bed,
a sleepy young lad had let it slip through his head
that the clocks must be set an hour forward, and thus,
he would be late for work after missing the bus!

But then all of a sudden, beyond meter and rhyme,
I was feeling extra groggy that morning and in an unwise and only partially conscious attempt to set my alarm forward an hour, I actually changed the clock instead. My failed attempt to sleep in caused me to be on time for work. I WAS MYSTIFIED. It was the first time in my life that anything extraordinary and related to my alarm clock hadn't contributed to my hatred of said doom clock. Perhaps it was a sign of a new era, wherein clocks and right hemispheres will reach across the aisle and finally say to each other, "It's time to put aside our petty differences, find our common ground (like the temporal lobe?), and move forward together... as a whole:" as an alarm clock lodged in a brain.

Right now, that's what you are to me, GOP (if I may change the subject). You are a stupid effing alarm clock lodged in the brain of America, and not as a metaphor for driving home responsibility but as a symbol of brain damage. Why can't you just pay a tiny bit more tax to let me effing sleep for an extra hour?! Or, more seriously, at least your indoctrination campaign is rendered more tolerable by your absolute impotence, the result of futile, shameless clawing at the world to maintain the status quo and the accompanying loss of worldly support. Your role in the 111th Congress is clear: you are assholes and you suck. ...But not you, reader. You're cool.

Awwwww! Did we just antagonize someone together? I hope you feel as close to me as I do to you, because I am, in fact, the same distance from you as you are from me. But, shhh! Don't let the literal interpretation take this moment away from us.

So I got a new used guitar. I replaced the Peavy Predator I've been playing on since 7th grade... with a Guild M-75. Meanwhile, I no longer suck at guitar. Coincidence? I think not. Now see here: the correlation between correlation and causality seems to suggest a causal relationship between correlation and causality, right? Duh, I know. Thus, the axiom: you don't suck, your guitar sucks. But really. You know how people that suck lay blame on the things around them? Maybe they do suck because of the things around them. Now that I have a better guitar, I don't suck, and I am no longer one of those sucky musicians who complains about how his guitar sucks. Maybe we should stop being like, your life doesn't suck you suck, and help the poor people who actually are mired in suckiness. If you don't, then you suck: if there is suckiness, your failure to eradicate suckiness translates into your own suckiness. If you don't want to suck, then help someone who sucks not suck, now. It's your only chance. I, for one, don't really care either way...

{Sigh}, in resignation to my new goal of at least sometimes attempting to write things that are true, I should clarify: I really do think suckiness sucks. I just thought that saying "I don't care" after that whole big schpiel would be a funny thing to do. HOWEVER, I realize that I am a role model for most of you (humans) and I don't want you to confuse the reality of your idol's beliefs with his satirical side. He's a jokster. Speaking of which, here are some other funny things that I recently thought of or came across:

My genre of music:
I play bleus. It's an acquired taste.

My imaginary funk band:
Kung Fusion

Spoiler for the critically ignored novella, Sandwich:
The term "Flingchiste" is actually a mispronunciation of "Felicia Stick", the name of Philliam Penn's perennially slim mistress. Designing the sandwich to fatten her up, Philliam penned his creation for his skin and bones lover. In time, however, people would come to call the sandwich after him instead; hence, the common misidentification, Philly Cheesteak. By the end of their adventure to recover this information, having unraveled the vast Quaker conspiracy to obscure the origins of the sandwich, John and Jan had fallen in love. Today, they are considered the world's most prominent researchers in the field of sandwich origination, and are currently studying the sandwich development potential of higher primates worldwide (while staying one step ahead of the mercenary Jesuit assassins).

Some things I said:
"Oh, I'm sorry, you tall folks all look the same to me."
"The world is your oyster. I hope you like oyster."

Something my mom said:
"But if I die, then how will I pay the mortgage?"

Oh yeah, also, I finally posted some recordings on myspace. It's just some crummy stuff, you know, mumble, kinda sucks, ...bullocks..., you can listen though if you want. Hell, if you read this you've already been screened for any lack of tolerance. Oh, also, I mixed these songs in headphones, so listening to them through speakers will only cause you unnecessary pain. Anyway, here is a link. See if you can find some redeemable aspect.

That's all for the day, and not a moment too soon. I tend to regret my sleep deprived interactions with the World Wide Web!. I have a feeling this post is bound for the hill outside rome.

New to the "C"ene

1: #include <stdio.h>
2: #include <stdlib.h>
3:
4: void main ( )
5: {
6: printf ("Beloved followers, \n I started learning
7: C today! \n Later! \n");
8: exit (0);
9: }
10:
11: /*
12: Compile that in your executable and smoke it.
13: First two chapters down. I would forget about
14: voiding the main function's return and just use
15: return (0) instead of the exit function, (which
16: would also allow me to forget about the #include
17: directive for stdlib.h), but it was the only way I
18: knew how to show off, that and through this
19: explanation... and newline characters! :)
20: Check my rad low block, said the white belt.
21: */

Also, I'd like to boast about displaying my angle brackets.

I haven't actually gotten a C compiler yet, so I'm not sure that my code will work. The guide I have, "Sams Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours," wants me to use Visual C++ version 1.5. Umm, history lesson!