Thursday, May 18, 2006

"peanut butter sandwich,
how do i love thee-
person makes too much noise,
hard for me to think."

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Save as draft

Nina: Argo, you look depressed. Did Walmarto get to you?

Argo: You know, sometimes I think, the last great change to the human experience was the telephone. I mean, cars and planes let you get places faster, but it's just a quantitative thing. You get to a place sooner, but you could have walked there if you wanted.

Bellboy: What about computers? Or the internet? People love that stuff.

Nina: Not this again.

Argo: Yeah, but they didn't add anything new. People could already read and write. People already could do math and science. Now they can do it a lot faster, and without wasting paper. So what?

Bellboy: So what's so great about the telephone? People could already talk to eachother, right? What's so new about that?

Argo: Because now they could talk to eachother and not have to be in the same place. It was like, suddenly, you could be anywhere you wanted to be, or at least your intellect could be there, and you could interact with any other person in the world who also had a phone. That's not quantitative, it's qualitative. That's new.

Bellboy: No it's not, it's just like shouting across the yard. Have you heard of yodeling?

Argo: Right, I thought of that. So I decided I was wrong. It's not the telephone that was the last great thing people came up with.

Bellboy: So what is it then?

Argo: I thought, maybe it's reading and writing. That way, you could communicate with the dead if you wanted, or at least hear what they had to say; and it's kind of like the telephone, where you can talk to someone who's not there, and have them talk back. So really, the telephone is just a high speed postal service.

Bellboy: I have a feeling you didn't settle there either.

Argo: Right. Reading and writing is just like talking. Replacing a human being with a sheet of paper is neat, but it's just a bigger delay, a coagulation of soundwaves. A person speaks, and maybe he's heard a few milliseconds later. Or maybe no one's listening. A person writes, and maybe he's read a few years later. Or maybe no one's reading. Writing is to paper as speaking is to air. So I went back further, and thought, maybe it was like in 2001, where the monkey picks up the rock and hits the other monkey with it. Maybe it was the first time one guy realized he didn't need fists or fangs, he could just take a sharp rock and do his buddy in. That was a big advance, right?

Nina: That was a dumb movie.

Bellboy: But just a quantitative advance on fists and fangs, right. One weapon is as good as any other, just faster or sharper or heavier. So did you come to any conclusions?

Argo: I almost decided that there was nothing new, nothing that people had done in all their existence that made them different from all the other monkeys and the other rats. But, then I realized I had forgotten about global isochrony! Surely, that's something new! That's people doing something they've never done before!

Bellboy: But?

Argo: People had kept time since sundials, and before. Waking up and killing something and going to sleep is a sort of keeping time. What's so special about everyone keeping the same time? Why is that different from one person keeping his own time?

(Long silence)

(Ms Sandy enters)

Ms Sandy: Argo, kitchen. Now.

(Ms Sandy leaves)

Argo: Tonight, I am going to set this place on fire.

Bellboy: That will be something new.

Nina: I'll say.

(Argo leaves)

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Emblem. Emblem emblem emblem.

Dr Walmarto: I have a problem.

Argo: What is it, Doc?

Dr Walmarto: Often, I-

(Nina enters)

Argo: Go on, Doc, what's the problem?

Nina: Walmarto has a problem? What's wrong, Doc?

Dr Walmarto: See, often I am unable to-

(Bellboy enters)

Bellboy: Man! That guy won't stop talking! When is this thing going to be over?

Nina: Shush! Walmarto's telling us his problem!

Bellboy: Is it about his father? Doc, you don't have to do this.

Argo: And why not?

Bellboy: Because you and Nina will laugh at him, that's why.

Nina: Will not! How can you say that?

Argo: I think you undervalue our respective capacities for empathy, Bellboy. I am an excellent listener, and Nina can be very perceptive. Combined, we will make this very worthwhile.

Nina: Right, now Doc, what's going on?

Dr Walmarto: Often, too often, I am unable to discriminate between Tracey Chapman and Dan Fogelberg. They peaked twenty years apart, are of different gender, and of different racial makeup, and yet-

Argo: That's pretty lame, Doc.

Nina: Yeah, that's a pathetic problem. I wouldn't tell people about it.

Argo: You suck, Doc.

(Argo leaves)

Nina: Anyway, Bellboy, the speaker stops at eleven, that's what Ms Sandy said. Then they're giving out awards, then it's all over.

Bellboy: That really is a silly problem Doc. I wouldn't let it bother you.

Dr Walmarto: My father always told me he wanted-

Nina: Doc, we're not falling for it. It's eleven, Bellboy, you should get ready for the escapees.

(Nina leaves)

Dr Walmarto: He always told me he wanted to go to Sweden, to see the ice foxes.

Bellboy: Are there ice foxes in Sweden?

Dr Walmarto: They're lovely! Beautiful white fur, like a snowy flame enveloping a puppydog. They eat only snow, and they never, ever urinate.

Bellboy: O, eleven comes! And I, trapped, with Walmarto, sigh to Great Heaven.

Dr Walmarto: Sad, it's so sad.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

"what have i here, but i have two brass screws
on my desk, but though i type and drink
from this cup of coke from mcdonalds, still
i wonder," i wondered.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Head on a string

Argo: Where is the cheese?

(Nina enters)

Argo: Where is the cheese? The cheese I put right here, just a minute ago?

Italio: Non so.

Argo: Italio, what did you do with the cheese? We have a full platter of GCSs on order, and you're hiding the cheese?

Nina: Argo, we have to get the food out before the invocation at ten. Ms Sandy is going crazy!

Argo: I know, I know! Italio! What's your problem?

Italio: Non sono buono, Argo. Ho un dolore della stomache.

Argo: Speak English, Italio! Where is the cheese? Where is the cheese, man!

Nina: This isn't working.

Italio: I know.

Argo: Oh, here it is. The cheese.

Nina: My god.

(Nina leaves)

Italio: Have you ever had the thought that people just sort of float around, like those trains that crawl up the sides of mountains, except that the body is like the train-

Argo: You mean a cable car?

Italio: That's it, a cable car.

Argo: So what's the cable, then? The brain?

Italio: Sort of. I mean, I guess I was thinking that the cable is the wanting to do things in the future that we all have. Or that we all sort of have. If you stop wanting to do things in the future, the car falls down the mountain, and that's the end of it.

Argo: Are you depressed, Italio?

Italio: Someone told me this story the other day, about a guy who breaks a really important promise, then has to kill himself. And everyone understands.

Argo: Nina! Nina!

Italio: So now, I walk around, and everyone I see is like a floating head, with legs and arms just sort of dangling underneath, and the head just drags them all around, on some invisible cable that's always extending off to the future somewhere.

(Nina enters)

Nina: What is it? Señora Plankton almost spilled her coffee when you yelled out like that!

Argo: Talk to Italio, he's talking about killing himself.

Italio: Not exactly, Argo. You see, Nina-

Argo: Biscuits.

Nina: What?

Italio: I wasn't talking about killing myself, Nina. I was just telling Argo about this idea I had.

Nina: I had a dream last night, Italio. I dreamed that you were telling me a boring story, and that you had just told it to Argo.

Argo: Ha!

Italio: That's strange.

Nina: It just went on, and on, and on. And Señora Saladmaker was screaming for coffee and carrotcake, and you just kept on talking.

Italio: What was I talking about?

Nina: It was something about how people are just like those cars that drive around in grooves in the ground, and-

Argo: The Tin Lizzies!

Nina: I don't think that's it.

Italio: You know, I was just telling Argo about something very similar. You see, I had suggested that people were just like-

(Nina leaves)

Argo: Italio, where is the butter?

Italio: Who's there?

Argo: I don't have time for this.

(Ms Sandy enters)

Ms Sandy: Boys! Where are those sandwiches? It's ten o' clock, and the invocation has started! Which of you is going to apologize to Sñr Pluto for this foul up?

Italio: Maybe that's not it at all. Maybe we're all just like balloons, but we're tied to the ground because we can't get out of our shoes. Maybe when my watch says 'Italio, it's 5 o' clock, it's time to go home', it's actually saying, 'Italio, you fool, don't go home! Go to Mexico and get in a fight with a Guatemalan! Go down the street and buy a bottle of strawberry milk and drink it and cry, and cry, and cry, because it's the last strawberry milk you'll ever have! Live, Italio! Live!'

Ms Sandy: But watches don't say such things. They rule us like the cowards we are, they don't free us to drink milk and go to Chiapas. Sandwiches, boys, sandwiches!

Argo: I don't wear a watch.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Antonymity

"Wow, things really are hard."
"This is what I was thinking. Or, it was the first thing that came to mind."
"Also what came to mind, is how different this would look spelled phonetically."
"Or with a different alphabet."
"A phonetic alphabet."
"All alphabets are phonetic."
"No they aren't."
"I see, by your ironic example of the '."
"That's not really a referring to a sound though, so it's not an example."
"So I perceive irony where there is none."
"That is often the case."
"Anyway, things are hard."
"Right, they are hard. Sometimes they are hard."
"No, they always are hard. Never easy."
"I disagree, for me things often are easy."
"It is hard for me to believe you."
"Perhaps this is a problem of perception."
"I think that easiness and hardness are always things that are perceived."
"True enough, though you evade my true meaning."
"Is it interesting how you can have linked antonyms?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like rough :: smooth :: difficult :: easy :: hard :: soft :: crunchy :: squishy."
"I've never thought about that."
"So, is it interesting?"
"In a pointless sort of way, yes."

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Yes.

{Due to the slight, in fact nearly zero, yet real possibility that the topic/s of this post's previous incarnation might read it and kill me, I instead bring you the following vignette:}

Toby: Morning, Bellboy! Quite a morning!

Bellboy: Yes sir, Toby sir.

Toby: What's the special today, my boy?

Bellboy: You'd have to ask Nina, Toby sir.

Toby: Well, get her in here.

Bellboy: Nina! Fat rich man to see you!

Toby: What was that?

{Nina enters}

Nina: Yes fat Toby?

Toby: You, Bellboy, you call Ms Sandy in here right now! I won't stand for this!

Bellboy: Argo! Argo! Fight between fat rich man and dinner jacket!

Toby: What?

{Argo enters}

Argo: Did I hear... Dinner Jacket Fight?

Nina: Hurrah!

Bellboy: Now, sir, your jacket!

Toby: What are you doing! Unhand me, you scalawag! Ms Sandy! Ms Sandy!

Argo & Nina: Jacket! Jacket! Jacket!

Bellboy: Taking bets!

{Ms Sandy enters}

Ms Sandy: Bellboy! Nina's brunch tips on the jacket!

Bellboy: Taken!

Toby: Someone help! Help me!

Nina: Wherever you go, there you are.

Argo: 10 o' clock, and the cows have placed their bets.

Ms Sandy: Nina, Argo, inside! Soon the banquet guests will begin to arrive!

(Argo, Nina, & Ms Sandy): Jacket! Jacket! Jacket!

Bellboy: Jacket, TKO on the big staircase!

(Argo, Bellboy, Nina & Ms Sandy): Hooray!

(Argo, Nina, & Ms Sandy leave)

Toby: Little did we know, setting out, that isochrony would prove to be a device for the enslavement of mankind. Living to the pulse of mechanical monstrosities, living and dying to numbers and dials, dying without a thought to time, except that there was more to be had. Curse this jacket! Curse isochrony! Curse these slaves!

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Okay, so last night was interesting. Really, all day yesterday was interesting, but I'll just describe last night here.

See, Jingping is of course a foreigner, and on top of that an asian foreigner; on top of that, a Chinese asian foreigner, which means that she is a prime target of Evangelical Christians. So, when she arrived here, she went on social getting-to-know America functions, etc., and joined up with a Contact Family who would invite her to family dinners and church functions, etc. So, she had asked me to go along with her to the next one. I agreed; she just knew it was some sort of Easter performance. I thought, okay, I haven't been to church in almost 10 years, this could be interesting. Gosh, was it interesting!

You see, this wasn't just a church. This was one of those Megachurches I've read about. The building is as big as Neyland stadium. The congregation is something like 20,000 people. I think this is the place (Southeast Christian Church) which broadcast Bill Frist's big creepy christian network message last spring when there was the whole stupid political filibuster judgey thing. So, it was not what I was expecting. I was expecting a church service.

No! This was the life of Jesus, performed over 2 hours with professional lighting, an orchestra, a cast of dozens of costumed actors, maybe a thousand extras, special effects, angels lowered from the 200 foot vaulted ceiling, and, of course, the five 20 foot television screens positioned above the stage so that all the thousands of people in the audience could get a good cinematic look at the faces of the actors.

Needless to say, I was scared to death. Jingping was genuinely entertained by the whole thing, and was absolutely confused by my terror, though I did derive a sort of enjoyment from the experience; she, being a geniune Chinese communist, seems completely immune to it all, and takes it as a sort of cultural tourism, while I'm sitting there thinking about what a hive of weirdness and complete unreality surrounds me, and how did I get here, and how can there be so many of these people, and do they all really think that in the end Jesus flew up into the sky with everyone singing songs out of a Simpson's parody?

I mean, he flew up into the upper tier at the end, on wires, and everyone is cheering and singing. My mouth was hanging open. I had heard of these things, seen satire of it, but I never thought I would see one. These people are serious! These people are crazy. It was entertaining, though, and Jingping and I got to have a long and confusing argument about religion and communism and democracy and single-party systems and truth-being-relative, while eating dumplings and having a headache, and man, my brain was tired! Fun fun fun! You can try and guess who took each side, and what was agreed on and disagreed on, and what she thought I disagreed with but didn't, and what I expected her to disagree with but didn't.

Hooray!

And that was only the end of yesterday! Yesterday, a nice day.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

The stars, like peanuts

Argo: Lately I've been really staticky. I don't understand why.

Bellboy: You mean you keep getting shocks?

Argo: Yeah. Every time I touch anything metal, I get a little shock. It's been going on for weeks.

Bellboy: I've had that happen before. It's probably a combination of this weird weather and the fact that you don't use fabric softener.

Argo: The weather has been strange, hasn't it? It's freezing one day, then nice and warm the next; then a big storm, then it's cold, then it snows. It's like the seasons have been alternating every half week. Everything seems out of sync.

Bellboy: I've been thinking about that global isochrony thing, you know? How time is the same wherever you go. It's strange to think about, about how there's this rigid time-structure all over the planet, and that people obey it like crazy, but that there are these natural forces that just drift around, oblivious, paying no attention at all.

Argo: I've wondered if you can see it from space. Maybe the whole planet is ticking, you know? Especially during the day time, but probably all over; maybe there's this periodic hourly pulse emitted from the surface of the Earth, along with the background noise created by thunderstorms and random human activity. An hourly pulse, probably blurred over a few minutes, on noise, windowed by a 24 hour amplitude cycle.

Bellboy: That's crazy, man.

(Ms Sandy enters)

Ms Sandy: I demand to know what's going on! Where are Dr Walmarto's slippers? I told you, you ugly bellboy, you are not to bring that monstrosity onto this property!

Argo: I take offense at that, cow.

Ms Sandy: What did you-

Bellboy: The monstrosity isn't here, Ms Sandy, it's home recharging. We were just standing here, discussing something.

Ms Sandy: Was it global isochrony? Were you discussing global isochrony again? It's almost nine o' clock, there is work to be done, and I will not have this talk of global isochrony! It's madness!

Bellboy: It's not madness, it's-

Ms Sandy: Bellboy, shut your ugly mouth! Argo, to the kitchen, we have a banquet to prepare for. Where is Nina? Ugly little Nina!

(Ms Sandy leaves)

Argo: That woman is doomed. She has sealed her stinking, crawling fate.

Bellboy: Could you cook me a grilled cheese sandwich? I'm starving.

Argo: Sure, I'll send Pablo out.

(Argo leaves)

Bellboy: The engine of the Earth's peoples carries on, pulsing into space, ticking like a clock, rotating and revolving through the void! A tiny world teeming with pulsars, all calling our names, synchronized in perfect global isochrony!

Monday, February 13, 2006

No bananas

Theo: Where am I?

Nina: "Where you are today,
you will not be tomorrow,
neither yesterday."

Theo: What? Who are you?

Nina: I am your guide in this place, a place of ethereal wonder.

Theo: Yes, okay.

(Ms Sandy enters)

Ms Sandy: Nina, get back to the kitchen! Put your hat back on!

Nina: Yes, Ms Sandy. Here is your omelet, Sir.

(Nina leaves)

Theo: What is this... thing? It smells like eggs.

Ms Sandy: That, sir, is an omelet. It is in fact made from eggs.

Theo: Who are you? What is this place?

Ms Sandy: Tell me, Theo, have you ever heard of something called global isochrony?

Theo: What is that? Who is Theo?

Ms Sandy: In just a few minutes, the time will become seven o' clock. When that happens, you will understand everything. In the meantime, tell me what you know about global isochrony.

Theo: What is this thing? It smells like eggs. I would like some coffee.

Ms Sandy: Absolutely! Nina, immediately!

(Nina enters)

Nina: Yes Ms Sandy!

Ms Sandy: Our guest would like some coffee, ugly little Nina! Right away!

(Nina leaves)

Ms Sandy: Theo, that is an omelet. It is made from eggs, and cheese. Sometimes people put onions or other things inside. Yours is made only from eggs and cheese.

Theo: What are you talking about? Who are you? Where am I?

Ms Sandy: In 1884, in Washington DC, president Chester A. Arthur called an international conference to discuss a system of globally isochronous time. It was not legally binding or anything, of course, as there were at this time no international institutions such as the United Nations. It was just a good idea.

Theo: What am I doing? I taste eggs.

Ms Sandy: You are eating an omelet, Theo. How does it taste?

Theo: Where is my coffee?

(Nina enters)

Nina: Ms Sandy, hurry, there's been an accident in the kitchen! There's blood everywhere!

Ms Sandy: What? Theo, you wait here!

(Argo): Ye gods, not again!

(Ms Sandy leaves)

Theo: Who are you?

Nina: I am your ethereal muse, brought alongside to trade in cheese, wine, and slaves.

Theo: What are you talking about? Where am I?

Nina: You are in hell, Theo. You are in hell, and I am the devil. I'm here to torture you. Eat your eggs, and then I can continue with your treatment. Eat quickly, because-

Theo: Bellboy! Bring my coat!

(Bellboy enters)

Bellboy: Nina! Where is your hat? Ms Sandy will be angry if she sees you without it.

Nina: Ms Sandy and Argo are cleaning up a mess in the kitchen. You and I are free to do whatever we like.

Theo: Coat! Bring my bellboy!

Bellboy: Well, if you're not wearing your hat, I'm not wearing mine.

Nina: That's the spirit! Give Theo his coat, and we can sneak off for a little while.

(Nina and Bellboy leave)

Theo: President Arthur, what a man! Little did he know that one day global isochrony would be a basic and subliminal fact of human existence. Or maybe he did know it. We'll never know what he knew, or at least, we'll never know whether or not what we know is the same as what he knew. What a tremendous world.

Monday, February 06, 2006

How Things Get Out of Sync

Argo: I was thinking today about something which I think is called 'global isochrony'.

Bellboy: What's that?

Argo: It's where everybody on the planet who has a clock, which is a lot of the people, or everybody on the planet who has to meet some clock-borne schedule, which is even more of the people, where they all change hours at the same time.

Bellboy: Why were you thinking today about that?

Argo: I don't really know.

Bellboy: Well, did you figure anything out?

Argo: Not really. I mean, I thought about it, and tried to look up something about it.

Bellboy: Did you find anything?

Argo: Well, I found a term, I think it was 'global isochrony', which I think applies to what I was thinking about. And I found that the institution of 'Time Zones' is what keeps global isochrony in place.

(Ms Sandy enters)

Ms Sandy: Hi there boys, good morning!

Bellboy: Why hello, Ms Sandy!

Ms Sandy: What are you two talking about this time of morning? Shouldn't you be cooking breakfast, Argo?

Argo: No breakfast this morning, Ms Sandy. I am vexed.

Bellboy: Ms Sandy, have you ever heard of something called 'global isochrony'?

Ms Sandy: No I haven't, and you'd do well to keep your ugly mouth shut. Argo, get to the kitchen.

(Ms Sandy leaves)

Argo: I'm glad she's gone. I don't like her.

Bellboy: Keep your voice down, she might come back.

Argo: I don't care. If she talks to me like that again, I'm going to stick this finger in her eye.

Bellboy: Okay, but first tell me what you learned about global isochrony.

Argo: That's it, I told you all I know. All the countries in the world live in time zones. What I was wondering was, when did this happen? I mean, back when they were laying railroads down, and suddenly you had reliable schedules, it was time to make departure and arrival times official; so, it was a good idea to synchronize all the clocks.

Bellboy: Right. But when did this happen? Or has it completely happened yet?

Argo: Exactly! That's what I wanted to know. When did local isochrony become global isochrony? Was there an International Time Zone Treaty? How many people are left who have no connection at all to hourly time? There are still herders and jungle people aren't there? They don't use clocks do they?

(Ms Sandy returns)

Ms Sandy: Argo, get to the kitchen! Sñr Pluto wants eggs and waffles, and he wants them now. Your pay will be docked for every moment Sñr Pluto goes without eggs and waffles. Argo, get your dirty finger out of my eye!

Argo: Six o' clock. Right now people are clocking in, clocking out, meeting new people, saying hello, opening up, closing shop, starting class, making phonecalls, tuning in their televisions, their radios-

(Argo and Ms Sandy leave)

Bellboy: Everywhere, alarms are waking people up, children are being put to bed, chimes are ringing! Global isochrony is amazing!

Monday, January 30, 2006

Wow, my posting rate is really down. Really, I just can't think of anything to write about.

Anyway, the other day Jingping and I were talking about memory. We were talking about how strange it is to remember things from very, very early on. I point out that things seem dim in most of my oldest memories, like the lights are turned down low; she pointed out that the very earliest ones seem almost completely visual. It's true for me: I can remember images from when I was 3 or 4 years old, and specific events from as early as 4; but, I can't remember many details of what it was like to experience those things.

Anyway, people, what's the earliest things you can remember? I know for certain that I can remember my 4th birthday. Some other, foggier recollections seem to be even older, but I have no way of dating them.

Okay, that's it.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

New Post

I'm sure everyone is wondering how Andrew is doing. This morning he had a short snowball fight with a girl! For the time being, life is good.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Let's talk about the number '2006'.

What makes it special?

First, we should find its factors. These include 2, 17, and 59; a sparse number, with only 3 factors! Not as sparse as 2005, however, whose only factors were 5 and 401. What this means I cannot say, though I sense that big prime numbers are dangerous things. Maybe this will be a better year. Next year has the factors 3, 3, and 223, and while 223 is a pretty number it is also a relatively big prime (11% of the year of which it is a part, compared with this year's 3% and last year's 20%), so maybe we should take advantage of this year's maximum primeness of 59.

This is of course assuming that prime factors of years have any significance at all. It could be we should be using a lunar calander, or incorporating month, day, or even time along with year. These things are difficult and it is correspondingly difficult to understand them.

I must stress that while 59 may seem to be an innocuous number, it is not coincidentally also the sum of the days in the first two months of the year (or the second and third months of the year). So this may be a signal to do all you can in these days because then the next prime is 17, which terrifies me, coming as it does between 13 and 19.

Now, factors done and considered, what else could be special about 2006? Why, this is the future, and no one can know what the future holds. This could be the year in which fusion power takes hold, or man returns to the Moon, or he travels beyond! Machines could become sentient and enslave humankind, or a terrible Metavirus could sweep the Earth and destroy indiscriminately 99.7% of all human life.

I however suspect that 2006 will be suspiciously similar to 2005. On a small scale, of course, since we are so very small, noisy fluctuations due to the heat of the Earth's mantle may be perceptible to us, as changes in quality of life, love or comfort, or ups and downs in the state of politics. Remember, however, that this is just noise due to the heat emanating from the Earth's molten core, and that on the average 2006 is exactly like 1906 except with glowing LCD cell phones and lots of little Japonese comic books in the bookstores and probably fewer horses.

In closing remember, you have 53 days left (or possibly 84, but do not count on ambiguities) in which to crustify your dealings for the year 2006. After that time
it may be too late to turn things around.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Et Cetera plus Grammar Fix

What a nice day!
Oh, what a nice day.
It's very clear outside!
The sky is completely blue.
It's also very cold.
It really is very cold!
Yesterday was the same.
It was very cold!
It was also very clear outside.
Last night was the same!
The sky was very clear.
We could see lots of stars.
There were no clouds!
The air was very cold.
We climbed a tree.
We scared a squirrel.
Poor squirrel.

Monday, December 12, 2005

obviously, I couldn't think of anything to write about.

There was a fantastic poem here,
poem which detailed my day.
But I had to delete it.
Actually it wasn't so fantastic,
containing existential inaccuracies,
so I deleted it.

Instead, here is my day, in form of a dramatic vignette:

Aristarchus: I thought I had thirty dollars in my pocket.
狗王: Thirty dollars comes, so thirty dollars goes.
Aristarchus: Did you take my thirty dollars? Did you take it?
狗王: Do you think I took it?
Aristarchus: I am not in the mood for this. Where is my hat?
狗王: Hats come, hats go. Who can say where your hat is?
Aristarchus: I would go without my hat, but it's cold outside.
狗王: Was your hat coming or going when you last saw it?
Aristarchus: I think I left it at the siege tower last night.
狗王: What were you doing at the siege tower?
Aristarchus: I went to see a siege. It is a black hat. It is my only hat.
狗王: I do not pity you. I have no hat, so I cannot cut my hair.
Aristarchus: 狗王, you are an idiot.
狗王: If you had thirty dollars, you could buy a nice hat. Or several regular hats.
Aristarchus: I think you took my money.
Beerbottle: Water floats a boat, water sinks a boat.
Aristarchus: Hello Beerbottle. Why are you wearing a cast on your leg?
狗王: Beerbottle is an idiot. He drove home from the vomitorium after having consumed too much fermented mare's milk.
Beerbottle: Shut up 狗王, let me tell the story.
Aristarchus: I am going home. I hope that I did not leave the dome lights on in my car, which would kill my battery and mean that I'll have-
狗王: He crashed into a vegetable stand, and the farmer smashed his leg up with a giant radish.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Say "twelfths" 12 times. Enunciate!




Here we have a rare shot of the mysterious Gar-gondola, with it's crew of six colorful Guatamalan ladies all on deck... We hear that soon after this was taken, the strange ship drifted to the west, toward the setting crescent moon, off to cause mischief in another world... Ok, really, those are little dolls and that's a dried fish hanging on a wall.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Tomorrow I get to go and screw myself on my electrical engineering final exam. In commemoration of this, I signal all of my multitudes of visitors to the new Buildabot Robot Creation Laboratories site, where we'll be learning how to make robots, starting at not knowing how!

Monday, November 28, 2005

41

On orders from Michael Murphy, here are details of my return from Austin to Louisville.

These events took place on a Sunday, on November the 27th, in the year 2005 CE (or 60 MA depending on your region).

At the Austin airport I ate two tacos, which was easy because my flight was delayed about an hour. This is funny because my flight from Houston to Nashville was to leave only about 30 minutes after my flight from Austin to Houston was due to arrive. This meant that all the other people had to wait for us Austin-Houston-Nashvilliers. This was okay. At Houston, we had to get from gate 4 to gate 50. For some reason, to do this we had to leave the terminal and then go through security again, which was exciting.

The entire way I occasionally read through my new dictionary of Chinese words. I now know lots of Chinese words, but I still can't speak Chinese. I don't know what the critical mass is. I think I may be a few years away.

I arrived in Nashville at about 11 o' clock. This is Eastern time, which is officially the time which I am supposed to abide by. Strangely, I just got a weird sense that it was sometime in the afternoon, and that it was daylight out, and that it's business as usual, even though it's actually 8 forty-five, and it's dark out, and most people aren't here. Someone is out there slamming doors.

So, first, I thought, I'll just walk to my car, it will be nice to walk to my car, I don't really know where I parked it anyway, so I'll walk to my car. But I couldn't figure out how to get to the longterm parking lot. So I walked all the way back to the bus stop like a loser and rode the bus to stop 6, and found my car very quickly. I considered calling a girl on my new cell phone, but decided it would probably be rude and weird to do so so late at night, and without anything in particular to talk about, so instead I just started up my car and left the airport.

I took Briley Parkway to get to I-65. In doing this, I passed the Opryland Next Exit sign, which is pretty stupid. Then I was on my way, though I did stop somewhere up towards the north end of Tennessee, to get gas and some lame coffee, and some candy. So then I drove home. I am still getting this weird sensation that it's daytime right now and not nighttime, and that any minute someone's going to walk into my office from the hallway to ask me a question. Not that that happens often, you see, but it's something which could happen in the daytime with much more probability of happening than at nighttime.

Finally I got home, and apologized to my cat for being gone so long. Then I went to sleep. This was a little before 3 o' clock. I woke up this morning at 8 o' clock which was okay. Right now I have this weird pain in my forehead, or my temple, but I actually think it's a tooth. This is called referred pain. If that's what it is. It might also be a muscle by my eyeball, which makes a little more sense and is less worrisome.

Today I did a few things, less than explicitly expected but maybe about what was implicitly expected.

So, was this worth it. Really, I should be writing scientific essays and papers and ideas and things, but really, all I ever write are entries in this blog. I write a good amount of functional and fun Matlab code, which no one really cares about. But, really. Really, I write best in short bursts. When the writing comes, it's worthwhile. Unless it's about what I did the day before, in which case it's usually kind of pointless.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

In honor of post #40, here are some observations and statistics relating to this "posting" activity. In a way, this commemorates post #1 which told you your likelihood of being dead given you lived your entire life in the year 1997 CE (or 1996 or 1992 I don't remember). I didn't know how to add charts, then. Maybe I should revisit that topic.

Notice that here there is no incorporation of completely subjective properties such as "density" (e.g. words per post) or "quality" (e.g.. readability). These are irrelevant and probably interact with one another in unpredictable ways (e.g. high-density posts may tend to be of low quality).

First, how did we get to 40?


As we can see here, we started on January 28th (of 2005 of course) and proceeded to add posts until today, which is November the 13th. The period on the x-axis is 4 weeks, since I couldn't figure out how to mark months.

Now, what about the relative intensity of posting over time? Well, to look at that we see what the frequency of posting is over time. This is like taking a derivative of figure 1, except you do it in Excel instead of knowing how to do derivatives.


Here, we can see that posting comes in spikes, which I will call "spikes". These spikes are then followed by a slow decline to what seems to be a baseline posting rate of around .075 posts per day or "PPD". If you wanted, you could go back through the archives to see what meaningful activity these spikes correspond to, but you probably won't want to do that.

Big, sharp spikes correspond to sequential posts, from one day to the next (i.e. 1 PPD). If I posted twice in one day, that would be 2 PPD, which actually happens once at the beginning of October, but I clipped that value to accentuate other more subtle events.

Notice, however, that posting rate during the summer months was almost uniformly slow, with a little bump around my birthday! Interesting. And there was a big spike toward the end of August, and we all know what was happening then.

If I really wanted to bore you, and if I really wanted to not-do-work, I could do a Fourier analysis of the above frequency plot, and we could talk about that. I would probably need a few years worth of data for that to be worthwhile, though, so you are spared. For now.