(in media res)
So here I was, confronted with the opportunity of a lifetime. This sort of stuff almost never happens to me. While reading about the many hardships of Britney Spears (don't judge her, she had a hard life ya'll), I received a pop-up message. A message that could truly make me believe this whole internet thing really could be worth it.
Picture it for yourselves: two cartoon men standing side by side wearing multi-colored spandex. Each of them holding humongous barbells in front of them. Immediately my interest was piqued. "What's this here?", I said to myself. Under the two men were words, no,scratch that, instructions.
"Lift weights faster than the weightlifter to win a PS3*!!!"
My heart skipped a beat and I forgot to breathe. A PS3? I'd heard of those. Hey, in fact, I had just decided that I wanted one. Who doesn't like games, right? And plus, if I didn't want it I could always sell it. That's literally hundreds of dollars of income. That would easily solve all my problems...
No, slow down Sean. You're getting ahead of yourself. You haven't even beat the video game boss yet. The guy's muscles were huge and rippling while my character's were significantly smaller. I like to think of myself as a resourceful fellow, able to adapt in a multitude of situations, but never had I ever felt more challenged than with this feat. There was so much riding on it. The pressure could easily derail my chances.
As I sat there in my chair sweating and thinking I looked out the corner of my eye and realized that the enemy weightlifter had already started lifting the weights. Oh shit! I could feel the PS3 slipping from my grasps. I spotted the large red button labeled "Press Here" in the game window. Ok, put up or shut up. This was my chance to beat an expert weightlifter at what he did best, at his life's work. The odds were stacked up against me, but still I began clicking the button with a fierceness rarely seen on Mondays. Could I catch up?
My fingers were on fire as I clicked my mouse in rapid succession. My enemy's completion bar was being filled so quickly that for a while I doubted my chances, yet still I forged ahead filling my bar until it matched his. Our match reached the final stretch, my opponent seemed to be losing steam and though my fingers ached I pushed through the pain. I smiled as my completion bar was filled to the top. Suddenly all animation stopped. I jumped out of my chair and yelled at the top of my lungs. Luckily none of my roommates were home or they would've been wondering what was going on. Plus, I'd be reluctant to show them how to get their own PS3's because if everyone I knew had a PS3 than why would they ever want to hang out with me?
Nope, they gotta spend time with me to play my future super-cool games.
But anyway, back to the story. I was transported to a page with a form. It asked for my name, phone number, e-mail address, credit card #, and my friend's info, so I entered all that stuff into the form. Gosh, I didn't know that it took so much work to win free stuff. But it doesn't really matter, because now I'm on easy street. I am currently counting down the days until I get my brand new game system.
Which got me thinking. I'm not sure which games I want. I'm not really a fan of action or shooting games. I think I wanna get Tetris. Oooh, and Crazy Taxi! I hope they have Crazy Taxi! Man, you sure can drive crazy in those games. Also I'm gonna go to the store tomorrow and start stocking up on Blu-Ray DVDs to accompany my new system.
But don't think I'm just some shallow person who gets everything handed to him through pop-up internet games. I'm also gonna begin investing in more charitable causes. I got this e-mail from a duke in Nigeria (yeah, they have those, don't be so ignorant and racist), who's coming to America soon, and he needs to use my bank account to transfer some money. If you know me, you know how eager I am to help the people of Nigeria in any way possible so I agreed. He even agreed to leave a little leftover money in my account ;) .
Life is going so good for me right now. I don't think anything could ruin my mood for the next week. No, scratch that. For the next year!!!!!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Adventures of Weird Jerry
Jeremiah wasn't a bullfrog. He was a boy. A human boy and he lived in the suburbs.
During the summer days, while his parents were away, he'd often mope around the house in nothing but his boxers. They were green but that's beside the point. Little Jer didn't have many friends. All the other school-kids used to call him Jerry the Fairy. Jerry didn't see what the big deal was. Fairies seemed pretty darn cool. They could fly and cast spells. Jerry would’ve loved to be able to cast spells. That’s an infinite number of peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
One day while Jerry was home alone on a particularly hot day, loafing around in his boxers watching
Part I:
A red rabbit stood behind the door. Jerry looked at the rabbit. The rabbit averted his eyes immediately from Jerry's eyes and looked at his pocket watch.
"Oh so late."
Jerry continued staring at the rabbit. The red rabbit cleared his throat and repeated his previous statement, this time louder.
"Oh so late."
Jerry stared into the rabbit's soul. The rabbit edged away from the closet door and dropped the watch.
"Are you not going to ask me what I'm late for?"
Jerry shook his head and continued devouring the rabbit with his eyes.
"Well. This is awkward...and creepy. Kid, can you not look at me so creepily. Hasn't anyone told you that staring at strangers is bad manners."
Jerry responded quietly,"Do you live in my closet?"
The rabbit thought to himself. He'd been asked many questions in his long rabbit life but none so straightforward.
"No. I'm trying to find the queen," replied the rabbit in a stately tone.
"Does the queen live in my closet?"
The rabbit shivered when he realized that Jerry hadn't blinked once since he opened the door. He backed away from the door. "You know, I think this might be the wrong door. I'll just be going...on my way." The red rabbit turned his back on Jerry and retreated deeper into the closet.
"Wait, rabbit. Don't leave."
The rabbit turned his head.
Jerry continued,"I might have some carrots or something in the frigidaire"
"Frigidaire? How old are you, kid? No, I think I'll pass on the carrots. We rabbits don't even really like carrots. That's pretty much racist. Pretty much."
Jerry ignored this last comment and wheezed "Will you be my pet?"
The rabbit sighed and was forced to make a split-second decision. Should he verbally assault this kid who was obviously ignorant of him and his rabbit ways or should he give the poor kid a hug. Damn. Of all the troubled kids that he was sent to help by injecting whimsy and wonderment into their messed up lives, he had to find the creepiest, anti-rabbit one. Plus, he smelled like sweat and peanut butter. And as we all know, red rabbits hate peanut butter.
The rabbit made up his mind.
"Ok kid, you can come with me. Prepare to go on a journey filled with whimsy and wonderment et cetera et cetera. But do me a favor. On the way, can you refrain from looking at me like that?”
Friday, February 8, 2008
Case Study of Sleep Deprivation and its Effects
So, sleeping, huh. Sleeping's weird, ain't it? Yeah man, ain't that the truth. I haven't slept in months and I'm feeling totally fresh. Every day I feel more and more less energized and find myself less and less paying more and more attention in class. Which is why I advocate not sleeping. You're saying to yourself, "Well, come on, Sean. That's craziness you're talking. No sleep? No one can live off of no sleep. Except for zombies, because they're un-dead."
Well, I don't believe that's true. You can easily go months with experiencing the sweet release of slumberland. Sure, the first week is pretty tough. You're body tries to trick you into sleeping. Blinking seems like heaven. You find yourself staring into the infinite void that is your bedroom wall etc. But once you get past, the headaches, the bodyaches, eyeaches, and finally the mindaches (which, by the way, are not same thing as headaches. Headaches are like pounding pulses in your brain. Mindaches are more like jagged shards of ideas that attempt to drown your brain in the sea of the absurd, but that's all very tangential, which is only the slope of this blog at one point), you feel this sense of renewal. Not renewal like you would feel if you took the long coma-style nap that you start hoping and praying for, but renewal in the sense that everything around you seems so amazing that you start to actually believe you're dreaming.
And that's when the pacing starts. First, you pace to stay awake. And then it becomes involuntary. You stare down at the ground, as if you staring at the same stretch of carpet for hours on end will suddenly lead to you stumbling on a long-forgotten Rolex that you failed to notice the last twenty thousands times you passed by the gap in between your computer desk and dresser.
Obviously the lack of eyerest (yes, a real scientific term, since I'm a scientist within the scope of this blog) will lead to your loss of spatial recognition (sounds positively sci-fi, don't it?). You stumble over and over again on uneven sidewalk (chronic feetdragging compounds this). You walk into walls of buildings and hit your funnybone on stray desks. Don't worry, noone else is onto you yet. They just think you're clumsy. Hell, those wounds are almost endearing.
Plus, the girls start noticing the deep bags under your eyes. Hey man, that shows you got the depth of a poet mixed with the internal turmoil of a struggling musician.
Then you float through the boring parts of the day, not entirely sure of how exactly you got from class to your room, since you have no recollection of the journey. But the wounds on your elbow tell of a treacherous journey (arithmetic: you + curb = face + sidewalk).
Don't let the seizures surprise you. Its just your selfish body trying to get back at you. The key is to predicting them before they happen. First, you enter a semi-dream like state. Let's see, how do we describe this objectively. It's like time slows down, but everyone else voices get higher in pitch. Think "The Matrix" without the stunts and Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus replaced with Alvin, Theodore, and that other tall nerdy chipmunk. Resist the urge to scream when you notice their laughs resemble "death giggles" (yes, another intellectual term, keep up).
I personally own 4 helmets, I would let you borrow one, but with the shape you're in by this point, you'd probably just leave it somewhere or get it dirty with blood. Plus, I'm uncaring. I'm an Aries, didn't you know? That makes me self-centered et al. (I read the astronomy section in the paper often, don't get behind, its important work).
And that's when your taste in music goes out the effin window. You start preferring the Stones to the Beatles, and this my friends, is the point that we shall label "of No Return" (easy math: Exile on Main Street != Revolver (side note to the side note: when placed in front of an equal sign, ! means "does not equal", as opposed to when placed after a sentence, which means "I have no sense of restraint" or "I underestimate people's understanding of context")). You now have the ability to speak in tongues as well. Which will come in handy if your lifegoal is to be a Pentacostal minister, which, if it is, means you might as well by those tongs for handling the snakes. I have a plethora of snake tongs. But with the shape your in...also the moon is lined up with Mars, which every discerning astronomer knows is the omen of all omens for us Aries.
So now we wait for your impending collapse into early dementia. Oh, there it is, coming 'round that corner. Your parents are worried, your friends avert their eyes as you pass them floating on your magic carpet of post-sleep euphoria. The snakes haven't eaten in months. Teachers complain about you knocking every goddamn test-tube over every day.
So the man who wear all white show up while you're enjoying your daily lunch of the crust off your lips. Who knew the sleep-deprived were so vulnerable to oversized butterfly nets? Well, they did. And they exploited that advantage.
As the drug cocktail numbs you, and you disappear into the gates of Slumberland, you begin crying. You were really looking forward to that piece of lip crust.
Such waste.
Well, I don't believe that's true. You can easily go months with experiencing the sweet release of slumberland. Sure, the first week is pretty tough. You're body tries to trick you into sleeping. Blinking seems like heaven. You find yourself staring into the infinite void that is your bedroom wall etc. But once you get past, the headaches, the bodyaches, eyeaches, and finally the mindaches (which, by the way, are not same thing as headaches. Headaches are like pounding pulses in your brain. Mindaches are more like jagged shards of ideas that attempt to drown your brain in the sea of the absurd, but that's all very tangential, which is only the slope of this blog at one point), you feel this sense of renewal. Not renewal like you would feel if you took the long coma-style nap that you start hoping and praying for, but renewal in the sense that everything around you seems so amazing that you start to actually believe you're dreaming.
And that's when the pacing starts. First, you pace to stay awake. And then it becomes involuntary. You stare down at the ground, as if you staring at the same stretch of carpet for hours on end will suddenly lead to you stumbling on a long-forgotten Rolex that you failed to notice the last twenty thousands times you passed by the gap in between your computer desk and dresser.
Obviously the lack of eyerest (yes, a real scientific term, since I'm a scientist within the scope of this blog) will lead to your loss of spatial recognition (sounds positively sci-fi, don't it?). You stumble over and over again on uneven sidewalk (chronic feetdragging compounds this). You walk into walls of buildings and hit your funnybone on stray desks. Don't worry, noone else is onto you yet. They just think you're clumsy. Hell, those wounds are almost endearing.
Plus, the girls start noticing the deep bags under your eyes. Hey man, that shows you got the depth of a poet mixed with the internal turmoil of a struggling musician.
Then you float through the boring parts of the day, not entirely sure of how exactly you got from class to your room, since you have no recollection of the journey. But the wounds on your elbow tell of a treacherous journey (arithmetic: you + curb = face + sidewalk).
Don't let the seizures surprise you. Its just your selfish body trying to get back at you. The key is to predicting them before they happen. First, you enter a semi-dream like state. Let's see, how do we describe this objectively. It's like time slows down, but everyone else voices get higher in pitch. Think "The Matrix" without the stunts and Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus replaced with Alvin, Theodore, and that other tall nerdy chipmunk. Resist the urge to scream when you notice their laughs resemble "death giggles" (yes, another intellectual term, keep up).
I personally own 4 helmets, I would let you borrow one, but with the shape you're in by this point, you'd probably just leave it somewhere or get it dirty with blood. Plus, I'm uncaring. I'm an Aries, didn't you know? That makes me self-centered et al. (I read the astronomy section in the paper often, don't get behind, its important work).
And that's when your taste in music goes out the effin window. You start preferring the Stones to the Beatles, and this my friends, is the point that we shall label "of No Return" (easy math: Exile on Main Street != Revolver (side note to the side note: when placed in front of an equal sign, ! means "does not equal", as opposed to when placed after a sentence, which means "I have no sense of restraint" or "I underestimate people's understanding of context")). You now have the ability to speak in tongues as well. Which will come in handy if your lifegoal is to be a Pentacostal minister, which, if it is, means you might as well by those tongs for handling the snakes. I have a plethora of snake tongs. But with the shape your in...also the moon is lined up with Mars, which every discerning astronomer knows is the omen of all omens for us Aries.
So now we wait for your impending collapse into early dementia. Oh, there it is, coming 'round that corner. Your parents are worried, your friends avert their eyes as you pass them floating on your magic carpet of post-sleep euphoria. The snakes haven't eaten in months. Teachers complain about you knocking every goddamn test-tube over every day.
So the man who wear all white show up while you're enjoying your daily lunch of the crust off your lips. Who knew the sleep-deprived were so vulnerable to oversized butterfly nets? Well, they did. And they exploited that advantage.
As the drug cocktail numbs you, and you disappear into the gates of Slumberland, you begin crying. You were really looking forward to that piece of lip crust.
Such waste.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
The Bedlam in Goliath -- Initially and Recently
Let me just go ahead and say that when I heard "Wax Simulacra" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, I was worried like hell. On first listen, the song seemed static and bland. The time signature didn't seem to hide the fact that it was barely a song. And then came the sax solo, it seemed, dare I say, overly new age. But being a fan of most of their previous work, I bought their latest CD...and its good.
Definitely more of a return to their debut "De-loused", focusing more on individualized songs than the extended jams of "Amputechture" or beds of noise favored in "Frances the Mute". Sure, the first half begins to exhaust the listener with its loud-louder dynamics, but after the cool down that is "Tourniquet Man", the second half invigorates the listener with some of the best "hooks" that can be found on a prog album.
So that's great.
This Super Tuesday stuff is too excruciating to watch. They just predicted Clinton will win California and I started shaking. Why is America messing this election up for me? Is there some sort of hidden plot to crush all my dreams? Hulk Hogan pretty much endorsed Obama. Hulk Hogan! Are we just gonna pretend like that didn't happen?
I've got news for you America. That happened. That most definitely happened. Now that's an endorsement noone could've predicted. Now if you squander this, America. I won't be there to pick up all the pieces.
Definitely more of a return to their debut "De-loused", focusing more on individualized songs than the extended jams of "Amputechture" or beds of noise favored in "Frances the Mute". Sure, the first half begins to exhaust the listener with its loud-louder dynamics, but after the cool down that is "Tourniquet Man", the second half invigorates the listener with some of the best "hooks" that can be found on a prog album.
So that's great.
This Super Tuesday stuff is too excruciating to watch. They just predicted Clinton will win California and I started shaking. Why is America messing this election up for me? Is there some sort of hidden plot to crush all my dreams? Hulk Hogan pretty much endorsed Obama. Hulk Hogan! Are we just gonna pretend like that didn't happen?
I've got news for you America. That happened. That most definitely happened. Now that's an endorsement noone could've predicted. Now if you squander this, America. I won't be there to pick up all the pieces.
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