Blogging Is Awesome

I got home from the dentist today at like 3pm. It's 7:17 right now and I've just spent the last 4 hours scrolling through the archives of this blog. I'm about to go watch the Mets game, lest I would keep digging through. Frankly, it may be a better idea that watching the game.

I just want to pull a Diesal and point out the moment right now. I'm really glad that we've spent the last 3 years writing this blog and I hope we continue to do so with at least a moderate amount of vigor. (I know at least the ending of Lost is good for a couple more posts.) It's entertaining in real time when we actually take the time to post and comment, but it's also incredibly entertaining to go back and read the archive from time to time. I've sat here smiling and sometimes LOLzing (I love actually using that term in print. I apologize.) for the past 4 hours without realizing that all this time has passed. It's just a great record of these past years. Thank you for being a friend.

Some observations. LJT definitely writes the best posts. Open Bar definitely has the best/funniest comments. Side Bar has the one-liners coming out of nowhere. And I suck. And big ups to Walt Clyde Frazier for being our most dedicated non-author reader.

Things That Are Overrated: The Ivy League

One time I went to a job interview and there were two people there and they were apparently choosing between me and some other guy and they were sortof thinking out loud while I was right there and the gist of the conversation was, "well, all else being equal, this guy went to an Ivy League school. It feels so right it can't be wrong. Do you want the job?" I didn't end up taking that job, but the point is that the only reason they offered me the job was because I went to an Ivy League school. That's wack. It's especially wack for the other guy who was just as qualified.

I am not trying to suggest that the quality of the education at the Ivy League schools is deficient in any way. In fact, the education I got at my Ivy League school was spectacular, and I'm thankful to have gotten it. When I went to college I really had no idea what I wanted to be. And when I left college I still really had no idea what I wanted to be. But still I ended up with an education that was applicable to really any field that I was potentially interested in. My studies in no way represented those of one who would one day become a math teacher, but when i decided that was what I wanted to do, I was qualified to do it based on my undergraduate coursework.

What I would like to suggest, however, is that the education available at almost every other school is as good, or, depending on your focus, perhaps better, than any Ivy League school. This is especially true at the undergraduate level. And what I've realized after teaching at an inner city high school that would under no circumstances be related to the Ivy League of high schools for seven years is that school is really what you make of it. If you want to study hard and make something of yourself, then you will. The concentration of those kids at Ivy League schools is high. At a state school, perhaps less so. But it's certainly not nonexistent. And we could make a list of colleges that would go on forever where the quality of the education and the student body is on par with any Ivy League school.

I could really go on and on about this.

Things I've Often Wondered About The Big Lebowski

I know this is my second Big Lebowski post in a matter of just a few days, but I was rewatching the movie after having written that post and there are some things I've always wondered about the movie, that I'm hoping some of you fine people can help me out with.

First, what's the deal with the bowling teams? The Dude's team seems to have 3 people on it, Dude, Walter, and Donnie, while all the other teams have only 2.

As evidence, "You ready to be fucked, man? I see you rolled your way into the semis. Dios mio, man. Liam and me, we're gonna fuck you up." Clearly indicating only Liam and Jesus on that team.

Also, "Dude, this is Smokey. Look, I don't wanna be a hard-on about this, and I know it wasn't your fault, but I just thought it was fair to tell you that Gilbert and I will be submitting this to the League and asking them to set aside the round. Or maybe forfeit it to us."

For what it's worth, in watching the movie I feel like I remember him saying that his partner's name was Gilbert, while the screenplay I'm cutting and pasting from says his name is Gene. I'm not gonna rely on my memory because I wasn't specifically paying attention for his name. UPDATE: He definitely says Gilbert in the movie, so I changed the quote.

Anyhow, the point is that why does the Dude's team have 3 guys? I can't say this with 100% certainty, but during the movie I don't actually recall the Dude ever bowling, while Donnie and Walter were definitely bowling at one time or another. My contention is that the Dude is just the scorekeeper or something. Maybe he's Donnie's understudy in case of an unfortunate heart attack during league play.

The second thing I've often wondered is this. Do you think Brandt was in on the scheme to steal the million dollars or was it just Lebowski (the other Jeffrey Lebowski, the millionaire) who was gonna keep the money for himself? I don't know if there's really one way to definitively determine this, and ultimately it doesn't really hint at it at all. Given that it's never even mentioned at all and the fact that Brandt seems to really admire Lebowski in a childlike way, it's unlikely. But still it's something I've wondered.

The third thing, and I guess this is sort of arbitrary and doesn't really have an answer, but why does Walter hate Donnie so much? I understand that that's what makes it so funny, but after having watched this movie about a million times by now, I've moved to just analyzing strange things about it. Donnie generally asks legitemate questions, with a couple exceptions ("I don't neet sympathy, Walter. I need my fucking Johnson." "What do you need that for, Dude?"). Maybe Walter is just used to him asking more stupid questions than most people so he's just fed up with him at this point. Who knows? Any reaasonable explanations? Also I'm confident in the possibility that Walter hates Donnie vehemently and only hangs out with him because he makes their bowling team better.

The Where's Luke Book Review: The Fountainhead

So this is another book by Ayn Rand. I had previously written about Atlas Shrugged, and immediately after finishing that book, I started on this one. I read it somewhat sportadically over the summer and at the start of the school year because it's a somewhat hectic time, and I read it fairly dilligently for the last two or three weeks. I'll sum it up this way: after I read Atlas Shrugged it was clear to me why so many people love Ayn Rand in a cultish sort of way. After reading The Fountainhead it's clear to me why just as many people hate Ayn Rand with a pretty specific vehemence. That's not to say I didn't like the book, I thought it was pretty interesting, but the flaws in her ideology are far more apparent in The Fountainhead.

What really struck me at the time I was reading Atlas Shrugged was the singular linear thought that ran through the entire 1200 or so pages of the book. It was a masterpiece of logic and I've never read another book like it. The Fountainhead really lacks that linear thread and is stripped down, then, just to the ideals she's trying to espouse, and I'm struck by how empty it all seems. In fairness, I suppose, it's worth noting that The Fountainhead was written first, and Rand was unhappy with the way she got her message across in it and therefore set out to write Atlas Shrugged. But I think The Fountainhead is, in a lot of ways, more telling about Rand's view on society and people in general.

Super short plot summary. There's this dude named Howard Roark who is an architect and is Ayn Rand's perfect man. There are other characters who are less than perfect and try to destroy him for various reasons. There are some other people who are potentially as great as Roark and try to support him and his career. The specifics aren't entirely important. The novel is essentailly an interplay between the forces that are for and against Roark. Similar to Atlas Shrugged, this novel culminates in a scene in which the Rand philosophy is simply spewed forth uninterrupted, this time in a courtroom setting. It's not quite the 70 page orgy of philosophy that caps off Atlas Shrugged, but rather a meager few pages of an uninterrupted speech given by Howard Roark.

Here's the problem I'm currently having with Ayn Rand and her philosophy. It's abundantly clear that she hates people. Both of these books are filled with people who leech off of society, do nothing good on their own, don't have any aspirations, and, at the end of the day, contribute to the demise of civilization. And these are the majority of the characters in her book. In each book there are several people who are privy to what I suppose Rand views as the true nature of humanity and being and that tiny minority strives to make the world a better place. In each novel there is one person who represents absolute perfection, Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, and everyone else is somewhere along the spectrum between "At least he gets it" to "This guy is ruining the world".

Throughout her novels Rand's message is that the greatest end in the universe is humanity, and, more specifically, the individual, rather than the collective. Each man should strive to be perfect in the sense that he lives for himself, meets his needs, does the things that make him happy, and not worry about anyone else except to the extent that what they have will contribute to his happiness. The problem, though, is that it's clear that 99% of the characters in her books are literally incapable of reaching that ideal. There's a notion running through her books that some people are born to be perfect and others are simply not. Those are aren't have absolutely no hope, shouldn't strive toward anything, and should simply die. She claims to love humanity, when in actuality she hates most people. I'm pretty confident that the people who hate Ayn Rand are making this argument in some way or another.

What's funny is that I was reading something recently that said that what struck the ideologues who latched on to Ayn Rand was the notion that any one of them could become a genius by simply striving toward the things that made them happy and stimulated them. Whereas what seems closer to her philosophy is that as a society we're essentially fucked. You're either born to be a leader or a leech and you're going to stay in that role for eternity.

I hope I'm not discouraging you from reading this book. It was genuinely interesting and the worst thing I can say about it is that it made me think, which is more than I can say for the majority of fiction out there. I would, however, strongly recommend reading both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged if you're going to embark down this path. Reading just one or the other won't give you as clear a picture. Also that's not to say that these books adequately summarize the whole philosophy. Rand did a lot of work after these novels writing purely about the philosophy stripped out of the novel format. I'm also curious to know the opinion of someone who read these books in the opposite order. My suspicion is that they were left with a much different outlook on the whole thing.

The Frabulous Playlist

UPDATE: I did some extensive searching through some old mix CDs I had a discovered a bunch of songs last night that were not in my iTunes Library. Many of them went directly onto the Frabulous playlist. As a result, rather than 192 songs, the Frabulous playlist now has 237 songs, all of which are reflected on the list.

It took longer than it seems like it should to make a list of all the songs on the Frabulous Playlist. If you missed something, I posted earlier about making the perfect iTunes playlist. And yes, the second song on the list (sorted alphabetically) is "After The Rain" by Nelson. Deal with it, bitch. I am not suggesting that these are the only good songs in the world. I'm also not suggesting that the list will remain static forever or that there aren't other songs that are good enough to be on the list.

I'll start your comment for you. Choose from one of the below:
a) This playlist sucks because....
b) How can you say this is the best playlist ever when you don't even have...
c) I don't believe you have [song name] on the list and you claim this is a good list...
d) Now that I've read your playlist I know why you pussy out of fights all the time.
(choose d only if angry at the whole world)

Zen and the Art of the iTunes Playlist

I first got an iPod in 2005. Getting an iPod versus having a CD player is one of those enormous leaps on the technological timeline that really is life changing. I don't want to overstate the idea when I say it's life changing. It's not like having a kid or anything, but at the same time, for someone who likes to listen to music (and I assume that everyone falls into that category. Like making a subgroup of people who like breathing), having an iPod changes the way you live your life. First of all, you don't have to buy CDs anymore. Secondly, you can carry your entire music collection on one iPod. I'm guessing that I have a relatively large and eclectic music collection that has grown pretty steadily since roughly 1989. My collection, combined with my wife's comprises roughly 30GB of memory on my iPod, which is cabaple of holding 80GB. So I've got a ways to go.

Incidentally, at the time i bought my current iPod, the choices in terms of memory (side note: I really hate people who use the term vis-a-vis and also people who use the suffix -wise. For example in this current sentence, if you would say "my choices vis-a-vis memory" or "my choices memorywise" then you suck. If you use the first one, then you are a pretentious douche, the heir to the Masengill fortune, if you will. If you use the second one, then you need to gain a firmer grasp on the English language to more clearly state what you mean.) were to get an iPod that held 4GB, 8GB, 80GB, and 160GB, and nothing in between. I really only needed like 40GB to hold my existing collection and potentially grown into a slightly larger one, but that choice was lacking. At the same time, I seriously considered buying the 160GB one because it was actually a good value vis-a-vis paying like $50 more for twice as much memory, but then I decided I would never use the 80GB, so there was no way I'd ever use the 160GB.

All of this is sortof beside the point I want to make, except that it's all related iPodwise. My real point is that since I got that first iPod in 2005 I've been working on creating the perfect iTunes playlist. It's much harder than it seems it should be. The nature of the iTunes playlist is that you are not limited by things like space and time (Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.) and as such, you can make the playlist as long as you want. On a CD you've got to pare the choices down to basically 15 or so songs, so you end up with a pretty tight mix every time (it's in the gies) although it could get boring to listen to in a couple months or so. My working theory was that I should be able to create one playlist that I could listen to forever. It would basically act as what I would consider to be the perfect radio station with songs from every genre with different energies and really the only thing they have in common is awesomeness.

With awesomeness as my copilot my first iTunes playlist, creatively titled "Jerry's Playlist", consisted of about 600 songs. I would put my iPod on shuffle, and listen to it wherever I went. In the car, running, walking to places, you get the idea. The problem with the 600 song playlist is that there are too many marginally good songs and not enough awesome songs. I would end up skipping a lot of songs and that kindof defeated the purpose of the perfect playlist in my mind. The second playlist I made, "The Short List", was created to remedy that song skipping situation. I knew the problem was that there were too many songs on the list and I needed to limit myself to only songs that I really liked. That list had about 350 songs. The second list ended up being only the second step in the evolutionary process. Still there were some songs that were not good enough to stand up to repeated listening, which is to say forever.

About three weeks ago I created what, to date, is the greatest iTunes playlist ever created. It's titled "Frabulous", obviously, and it has 192 songs. I went through my entire music library and picked only the songs that I was confident I could listen to over and over for eternity. The other day something happened that has never happened before. I was listening to the playlist at work and the music stopped. I thought it might be a really low intro to a song and then I thought that the battery may have died, but when I looked at the iPod, it turns out that I had actually listened to the entire playlist all the way through. Again, this is something that has never happened. Typically I'll listen to the playlist until I get in the mood to listen to a particular album or a specific song and then I'll back out of the playlist to do that and then come back to it. When you come back to the playlist it reshuffles the songs and the count starts over again.

In short, this playlist is amazing. It's as close to perfect as I've come so far vis-a-vis playlistwise. I was initially confounded by my ability to make what was essentially a neverending playlist, but now I realize that all good things must come to an end. Like this post.

The Where's Luke? Book Review: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I need to apologize before I start writing this, because this "review" is going to suck ass. I read this book over a year ago and I should have posted about it back then, but I didn't. But now that I have read Atlas Shrugged and posted about it and its philosophy, I'm reminded of another book that was fairly enlightening, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I'm reminded of this book now because it's also a philosophical treatise in the form of a novel. And just as with Atlas Shrugged, about two thirds of the way through this book, I decided that I was in the midst of a really interesting experience and I should try to hold on to some of the ideas. At the same time, the book I wrote about prior to Atlas Shrugged was On The Road, which is also about a road trip, several road trips actually, and was ultimately a poorly realized philosophical statement. Immediately after I wrote about On The Road I thought about writing abotu Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but I never did. But seeing as how ZAMM really kindof integrates my previous two book review endeavors, this is a good time to write it.

Anyhow, the book is ostensibly about a dude who's on a cross country motorcycle trip with his son. They begin the trip with some friends of the dad's and finish it alone. As far as plot goes, that's the whole story. Interspersed throughout the novel are some in depth analyses of how people view the world and the pros and cons of each. The narrator talks about his travelling companion who refuses to even think about the maintenance of his motorcycle and leaves it to a mechanic which eventually causes trouble for him. The narrator prefers to get to know his motorcycle and listen to its sounds and explore the various connections and such and so he can then make most of the minor repairs that are necessary along the way. This is a thinly veiled analogy to the world at large and what he calls a "romantic" view of life (don't think about maintenance) and a "classical" view of life (get to know your motorcycle). This stuff is pretty interesting and you get an idea of the basic framework of this guy's ideas.

Then about half way through the book he starts to flash back more and more to when he was a professor of rhetoric and he started on a quest for discovering the nature of what he calls "quality". At this point the people they were travelling with have either gotten to where they were going or have gone another way and it's just the son and the narrator. The book becomes much less about the journey and much more about these flashbacks and the idea of quality. There's a lot more stuff that comes out about this guy that you may or may not want to know if you plan on reading the book, so I'll leave it out. Anyway, at this point the guy kindof starts building the framework of a philosophy based on the idea of quality.

To say that this is a philosophy would be wrong. What this guy is doing is looking at all the existing philosophies from a new perspective and overlaying a framework into how to look at the world. I don't have too firm a grasp on it at this point to put into words since I read this so long ago. The main idea, though, is that he builds on this idea of quality while at the same time telling what I understand is an autobiographical story. Autobiographical in the sense that the guy actually did take a motorcycle trip with his son and he was a professor of rhetoric and everything else that happened actually did happen.

What's novel, then, are the machinations of this guy's thought process and his ideas about the way things are. In this respect, this book is eight million times more successful than On The Road. There's deep analysis of things that happen and the guy is interested in the whys and hows, what motivates people, how people react to him, and so forth. This stuff is really interesting.

Anyhow, while I was reading this book, the first couple hundred pages I kindof read through and it was holding my attention and then all of a sudden this book smacks you in the face and you can't put it down. It's broken into four sections and sections III and IV I read about twice as fast as sections I and II because it just got ridiculously interesting as he goes through the ideas of quality, looks at existing eastern and western philosophy, and tells the story of how he came to terms with his search for quality. Even if I had written this post in a timely fashion, I wouldn't really have words to describe the tone of the fourth part of the book other than fascinating.

I'll just end with this. After it was written this book was turned down by 121 publishers before finally being published. The woman who finally decided to publish it wrote a note to her boss (I'm paraphrasing, but I'm prtty close) that said, "I don't know how much it will sell, but this is quite probably a work of genius. I think we have to publish it." I agree with that.

The New York Times Where's Luke? Book Review: Atlas Shrugged

First of all, I apologize for not having posted much recently. I've been in the midst of a genuinely enlightening experience and, as such, I pushed off all non-essential activities in order to complete it. The enlightening experience in this case happens to be the reading of this book, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. Now, you may be asking, if you know about Ayn Rand and her accompanying philosophy, "Since you have read 'Atlas Shrugged' and you say it was an enlightening experience, you have now become an objectivist, haven't you?" The answer is no. I would hope that one wouldn't make such a decision based on reading only one book. And a novel at that. But anyway, let me backtrack a minute in order for us all to be on the same page (pun war, anyone?).

I'm not going to tell you the story of this book, but the main premise is that all the people of ability in America go on strike. America is turning slowly into a socialist state and everything kinda sucks. That's basically the whole plot anyway, except it's clearly a lot more intricate in order to make up an 1100 page book. The plot of the book acts as a backdrop for Ayn Rand to espouse her philosophy, which is known as objectivism. As a whole, objectivism makes up an entire philisophy complete with ideas on the nature of existence, human nature, how people should conduct themselves and so on. As the book unfolds, the philosophy unfolds, until it finally reaches a climax in which the philosophy is spilled out in a metaphoric orgasm of rhetoric.

In reading this book, I was struck by two things. First, I have never read a book which has set out to accomplish something in particular and has accomplished it so clearly and without doubt. The basic premise, the philosophy, and the plot of the novel all mesh in together seamlessly. The introduction of her ideas and the logical arguments leading up to them just fall like dominoes as she makes each progressive point. It's astounding to see the whole thing come together and to see the direct line of logic that flows from page 1 to page 1100.

The second thing that struck me was how closely Ayn Rand's philosophy matched with my own personal philosophy. I don't believe I've ever really heard anything I would consider to be a personal philosophy put into words, and it really consolidated my ideas about the way things are. I wouldn't say there is a one to one correlation between the two, and I'm not particularly interested in the entire philosophy at this point, but I'm intrigued to read more about it.

In summary, this book is amazing. If you have a couple of free months. I would suggest you read it.

PS - After this period of inactivity, it's clear that my personal guarantee is not in any danger of being violated.

Things That Are Overrated: On The Road

I struggled for a moment trying to decide wether to put this in the overrated category, or just to make an arbitrary post about the book, but since my general conclusion was that the book is fairly overrated, I decided to use the pre-existing theme of the blog. I read this book last week, which also speaks to the lack of posting for those few days, for several reasons. Obviously it's highly regarded, so I figured it would be good. Also I'm into the classics, and this seemed like one of them. It's also just a good pop culture reference and I take my pop culture responsibilities seriously.

I'm not really certain where to begin. This book is one of the more influential works of the 20th century. There are plenty of songs and books, poems and movies that owe their existence to On The Road, but I can't really say that I connected to it. I think when the book was released it was met with praise about there being an underlying truth to it that transcends the time it was written in, but I don't think that's the case. I think the book immediately influenced people in the time it was written, but today it's pretty dated. Additionally, I'm not really in love with the prose that seems to be the defining trait of this novel.

A (very) short summary. This guy Sal is trying to make it as a writer and his not being tied down to a job or anything allows him to go all over the country to visit acquaintances who are spread all over. He hithchikes, takes buses, drives, and eventually works his way all over the country. At the same time this other dude, Dean, accompanies him a lot of the time. They rarely have a specific agenda other than to go around, listen to jazz, and pick up girls. There's a bit more to it, but that's the gist.

The summary is necessary in pointing out that the book is essentially autobiographical. Jack Kerouac sat down to write the book with the idea that he was telling his wife about his life in the years before he met her. The original manuscript had the real names of the people he encountered and everything, and were later changed during editing. I mention this because this wasn't a story that was created. There's no particular genius in just telling about things you did. With that being said, presenting that material in a way that's insightful or that leads to larger conclusions about life would certainly be a worthwile venture. But this isn't that. There is no analysis, there is no grand conclusion, it's all just exposition. This type of work could lead one to really analyze each scenario and decide what lessons one might have learned, especially given that the plot has essentially written itself.

As a result, the whole thing is really just kindof empty. The only time the prose really sings is in three separate sections when he's describing himself watching live jazz performances. Those sections are loaded with purple prose and captivating metaphors and are easily the highlight of the book. Outside of that, he might as well just be telling you about last night's episode of American Idol.

Now I think maybe the point of the book is that the whole thing is kindof empty. The book, life, and everything else. It is the defining work of the "beat" generation, so named because, in one respect, they are beaten down by life, and have, in one way or another, lost their way. But I didn't get the beaten down by life thing from the book. What I got instead was that this was a book about a bunch of losers who shirked thier responsibilities and allowed themselves to be easily swayed by thier ids, and drugs, and one guy who they all knew was a loser, but who was fun to be around until he no longer needed them at which point he would leave without a second thought.

There's an underlying sadness in this book. The main character, Sal, apparently a thinly veiled version of Kerouac himself, has no goals, no ideals, no plans, and no ideas of his own. And this is a book about a lost soul, in the same way that The Catcher In The Rye is about a lost soul, but it's completely different. These two books remind me of each other in the aforementioned lost soul wandering around looking for meaning type of way, but at the same time, On The Road is a far inferior version. What is great about The Catcher In The Rye is that there is a definite universality in the Holden character. We are not exactly the same as him, but we can identify with him and his journey. The style that Catcher is written in is similar to this one, though it is interspersed with Holden's interesting philosophy on life. And even though he's a lost soul, and even though he may never find his way, we at least know that he's striving toward something. The Sal character in on the road doesn't offer any of that. The one thing I know he's passionate about is jazz. Other than that, I can't say anything more about him other than the fact that he took these various road trips.

This is really where the book falls short for me. There is no underlying anything, other than sadness. I wish there was more beneath the surface and there really just isn't here. It's just a retelling of events. If we gave MMG 6 beers, he could recount an On The Road type of story about a fraternity party or a ski trip.

In conclusion, this book is overrated. It feels dated to me and the references feel stale. The Catcher In The Rye is just as old, but doesn't feel dated, and offers more than just a surface story. What's missing in On The Road, then, is that universal element, that timeless piece, the marrow.

Cartesian Impasse

Renee Descartes was a smart dude. He's most famous for saying, or writing, rather, "cogito ergo sum", translated as, "I think therefore I am", which is actually a pretty good starting point for this post. Descartes believed that he existed mainly because of his thoughts. He argued extensively that the senses couldn't necessarily be trusted as proof of existence or of the nature of things and that, in essence, the mind and the body were separate.

Descartes went on to discuss the nature of the relationship between mind and body, deciding that the mind was the essence of a person, and that the body was a wholly separate thing that is ultimately ruled by the mind. Kindof like a remote control car. He argued (incorrectly as it turns out) that the pineal gland, which is right in the middle of the brain, was the seat of the soul in the body. The physical manifestation of mental existence.

All of this brings us to the idea of Cartesian Impasse, as it's known in some circles. Since the pineal gland turns out not to be "the soul", we are therefore at a loss to explain how the mind actually communicates with the body. Descartes started it, but all the people who have come after him haven't really spoken very well on the matter either.

I find this to be very interesting. It has been hundreds of year since Descartes set about becoming "the father of modern philosophy", but this, his core issue in a sense, is still a big question mark. I mean, really this is *THE* question in philosophy: what is the nature of being? It's fascinating that no one on either side of the spectrum has provided even a remotely feasible solution.

Fast forward 400 years and we know how the brain works. We can ask people to perform tasks and see the neurons firing in the brain. We know which areas correspond to which functions in the body. We can ask people to think about something entirely abstract, not perform any physical activity, and watch the brain working. The question still remains, however: how does this cluster of electrical impulses in the brain give rise to what we would call thought, or to extend on Descartes' idea, existence?

There doesn't really seem to be an answer. I can't really even imagine what a feasible answer to that question would be. If anyone ever actually answers this question, then I want that guy to be president. Or better yet, supreme dictator of Earth.

Another interesting and tangentially related point is that I find it similarly fascinating that whatever the edge of people's understanding of the world happens to be is right where they insert God into the equation. Descartes, easily one of the smartest dudes ever (he's not only the father of philosophy, but one of his throwaway examples in a math treatise led to Newton and Liebnitz separately inventing calculus.), reached the end of his train of thought about the nature of being to insert God into the equation. Ancient Greek dudes didn't know why the sun came up in the morning and set at night, so they decided it was a god riding a chariot across the sky. I would bet that if you had this mind/body discussion with 100 people, then a lot of them would say that the point at which we can't explain how electrical impulses give rise to actual thought and therefore existence is right where God comes in to connect the dots between the two. I would bet you could find some neuroscientists who would give you that answer.

I'm not opposed to the idea of God, in fact I find the whole notion rather intriguing, but I just also find it very interesting that it seems to be the lazy way out for some people. I feel like I'm the opposite. The more I learn about the complexities of the universe, the nature of being and matter, and the absolutely nonsensical way that things seem to work, the more I feel like there must be some sort of power who put those things into place.

So the point is that I'm fascinated that this mind/body thing is the ultimate question and that the closer we get to finding the answer, the farther away we seem to be from it.

Random Thought

Great Adventure should change the name of the Great American Scream Machine to the "Original Great American Scream Machine".

That way they could call it the OrGASM.

No Static, Got An AutomaticToo Much Of Anything Makes You An Addict

Is there any reason in the world that someone should own 10 pairs of Adidas Classics? I'm ready to admit it. I have an addiction. I just really like them. And I don't think I can stop any time I want.

These are all of my Adidas in the order I bought them. Those last three pairs, the blue stripes, baby blue, and khaki colored, I bought all this week from endless.com all at the same time. That spells problem. In my defense, though, I try to only buy them when they are a good price. I got most of these for less than $45. (Not the navy blue ones, but I waited forever for them to go on sale.) The first, second, and seventh pair I got off the clearance rack.

And I'm still upset about the one pair I didn't get. That third pair, which is supposed to be that tan color is made of hemp and I got them at Journey's, which has great shows, for the record. At the same time they had another hemp pair that was green with white stripes. I always wanted to go back and get those too, but when I finally decided to get them they had stopped making them. Or at least stopped selling them there, and I can't find them online anywhere, either. I was pretty disappointed.

I was super excited when I got the first pair. If you can't tell in the pictures, they are white with purple stripes. I had been looking for that particular combination forever, and they don't really have them anywhere. I've never seen them on sale before or since. And to top it off, they were on the clearance rack at Modell's, I guess since no one but me wants Adidas with purple stripes, so I think they were $28. And in case you can't tell, those brown ones are actually corduroy. They're fucking awesome, also twenty something dollars off the clearance rack. Given that most Adidas Classics cost in the $65-$75 range, I feel it's my duty to buy them when they are on sale for deep discounts. I'm actually saving money by buying them. Yeah, that's it.

Also notice the first and third pair with the rubber shell top that is now yellow. Both of those used to be as white as that last pair. In the case of the hemp ones, though, the yellow actually makes them look a little better, so I'm hoping that the khaki ones will be similarly improved when they age, even though they're pretty awesome now as they are.

David Brooks Is A Genius

I was reading the New York Times (online) this morning. Over in the op-ed section I was reading the David Brooks column called "The Outsourced Brain". I think he summarizes the age of technology perfectly.

"I had thought that the magic of the information age was that it allowed us to know more, but then I realized the magic of the information age is that it allows us to know less."

BAAMMM!!! Check Mate. David Brooks wins. This is the secret of life since 1995. Have you memorized a single telephone number since you got a cell phone? Do you even need to look up your own phone number? David Brooks's column is about now he doesn't know how to get anywhere since he got a car with GPS capabilities. And he doesn't need to. I have seen the promised land.

Halcyon

First of all, halcyon has about 5 different definitions. It can really mean anything you want. It can alternately mean calm, prosperous, carefree, joyful, or refer to a mythical bird. Anyway, I decided on a whim this morning to listen to "Crash" by Dave Matthews Band. I haven't listened to that whole album in years and when I put it on I had a literal visceral reaction. I don't recall having that type of reaction to music since I was 17 and this album came out. It was strange in an unexpected way. It wasn't like hearing a song you love and thinking, "Wow, I love this song" (like when I hear "Don't Stop Believing" the Journey classic. I know what you're asking yourself, Side Bar, and the answer is no, I will never let this go.) Anyway, this post isn't about a Dave Matthews album that none of you like, just about the feeling.

I was immediately brought back to my senior year of high school and I was just thinking about how awesome that year was. It wasn't quite nostalgia, but I guess that's the best word for it. I guess another piece of the puzzle is that all the seniors at my school are graduating and I've been signing lots of yearbooks recently and asking them what they're going to be in life and such (for the record they're all going to Queens College or Queensboro Community College or LaGuardia Community College).

So the question really is, why do all of us generally look back at those times as the best of our lives? This is hardly a deep thought, nor is it a hard answer, but I never really thought about it until just now. The reason my senior year of high school was one of the times I look back on with such joy is because the ratio of freedom to responsibility was enormously high. The combination of having a drivers license, access to a car, a minimal amount of school work and essentially no responsibility at home (even though I had more than most at that point) leads to being able to do anything I wanted within minutes of thinking of it. Add to that the fact that I'm not hard to please, and it's a recipe for happiness. Today I wouldn't be able to attend every single varsity basketball game at all corners of the state, but in 1996 I did. Today I wouldn't be able to decide to see a 9pm movie at 8:50, but I did a lot of that back then.

And I don't think that was the best year of my life, or the most fulfilling, it was just the most freedom I've had. So it was fun.

Anyway, I don't have a point. Sorry for wasting your time.

English Good

Foreword

The prefix to the post is that I thought of the idea while I was reading the New York Times Magazine. I had originally intended just to post these two lines from the "Lives" column last week, and it turned into an essay without a place to actually put in the quotations. So before you read the essay, here is the inspiration. It's from a column by a lady named Lisa Carver and it's about how she had two dysfunctional marriages before settling in with her new boyfriend.

In this one she's describing how her boyfriend is kindof ghetto:

"I know it looks bad. But I also know how bad my good-looking marriage actually was."

The second is just pure brilliance, no explanation required:

"I don't feel bad that this will be my third marriage. Sometimes you have to try out both coasts before you decide Ohio is the place for you"

The Essay

I've come to really appreciate the English language. It's not as pretty as French or Spanish. It doesn't have the cool efficiency of German. But it's a perfect mix of the things that make those languages great. I don't know French well enough to really comment on it, but it sounds pretty. Spanish is a gorgeous language. If you're going to write a love song, you should write it in Spanish. But those languages lack usefullness.

Spanish, for example, doesn't have an allowance for using the possessive sense. (Interestingly, in relation to this post, I couldn't think of a better word to use in place of 'sense' here. The possessive is not a tense. I know it is something, but the word escapes me. Anyhow,) In English you can say "Luke's sister", but in Spanish you have to say "La hermana de Luke", which translates to "the sister of Luke". This is logically unsound as soon as you move to second degree possession. In English you can do the Spaceballs thing where you say "My father's cousin's rommate's girlfriend's uncle's friend gave me this PBA card". You can formulate this senctence on the fly as you think of your father, followed by his cousin, his rommate, his girlfriend, and so on, while you just add the apostrophe s to each person in your mind. In Spanish you have to start at the end of that sentence, nearly impossible to do in general conversation. It would translate basically to "the friend of the uncle of the girlfriend of the rommate of the cousin of my father". That would be impossible to say, first of all, and impossible to understand by the listener even if the speaker could get it out.

I think German gets a bad rap. I would bet that 98% of the German we hear as English speakers is from tapes of Hitler talking to enormous crowds. Hitler was insane to begin with and in front of large crowds he was all into it and yelling and what not. Either that, or people essentially imitating Hitler when exaggerating whatever they're saying in German. I think that's what makes us think German is a language for crazy people. German is not as ugly as we think it is. And It's ridiculously efficient. They have this thing in German where you can just tack words on to other words to say what you mean. I don't know much German, so I may be overstating it, but I get the idea you can do this whenever you want. The only example I know for sure in German is the word "kindergarten" which translates into "children's garden". Since English is Germanic we have that too. Any compound word is proof. "Airplane", "sidebar", "Superman" you get the idea. German words like "bildungsroman" and "schadenfreude" and what not just tack on word after word to get a point across. Incdientally, I managed to spell both of those words correctly on the first try. I looked both of them up to correct what I figured was undoubtedly a misspelling, only to find that both were correct.

I don't remember making a conscious decision to put the right words with the right thoughts, but now I'm almost hyperconscious of it. I didn't notice until someone pointed it out to me when I was in college. I don't even remember what we were talking about, but she said to me, "You choose your words too carefully to say something like that." And she meant it in a pejorative way, which is what made me think about it. I guess it's true. I'm a believer that there is a right word for whatever it is you're trying to say. So finding the right word in the right situation has become something of a life's goal of mine. My personality is such that I strive to say as few words as possible, so efficiency is of utmost importance. (Worth pointing out again, that my e-self is sortof the opposite of my actual self. I really tend to ramble around these posts.) A good example is the use of the word "penultimate". I can't tell you how often I hear the phrase "second to last". At least once a week. Every time I do, I think to myself "you should have said 'penultimate', you ignoramus". Even better than "penultimate" is "antepenultimate", meaning "third to last".

Something else I enjoy is using words in contexts that they don't belong in, or even just downright improperly, and having them make sense anyway. A good example is the word "nonplussed". I usually use it to mean "unhappy" when I know full well that it actually means "perplexed". Interestingly, if you don't know the meaning, then you just assume it means "unhappy", whereas if you do know the meaning, then you get a double dose of meaning, as you know that I mean "unhappy" when in all likelihood the person is probably unhappy because of some level of perplexity.

Here's a bit of text from my old school website on the page about me:

"He told a bunch of people in my class that my middle name was Aloyscious the next day and there was a bit of ongoing happenstance related to that for a few days. Happenstance does not really fit into the context of that sentence, though I doubt anyone would have noticed if I didn't point it out. For the rest of this little diatribe, you'll have to accept the fact that I enjoy using words where they don't belong, or even words that don't exist. I'm not going to point it out any more, fortunately for you.)"

Come to think of it, I also really enjoy sometimes saying things I don't really mean at all, just to emphasize a point. That in itself is the pure definition of "irony", except when I do it sometimes the irony is lost because I assume that people understand that I don't mean what I say even though I've given them no reason to, when in actuality they just go around thinking I'm a dumbass. I guess it's a win-win, though, because they get to think I'm a dumbass, and I get to privately hold it over their heads, thus bringing to fruition the full extent of my passive aggression. (You didn't think I'd write a post on how much I love language without using my favorite word, did you? My favorite word is "fruition", for those who haven't committed my websites from 5 years ago to memory (What's wrong with you?))

Anyway, English rocks, and when used properly is both beautiful and efficient.

Things That Are Overrated

Unless I can think of another one between now and when I finish writing the post, I'm only going to mention one overrated thing, thus rendering the title of the post inaccurate. But my idea is that as I think of more things that are overrated, I'll post about them, and I invite my co-authors to do the same. So when there are more posts about overrated things, then the title will match.

The first thing that is overrated is The Cheesecake Factory. If you go to the Cheesecake Factory at a time when most people eat meals, say dinnertime, then you are going to wait at least 45 minutes, probably more. If you wait that long, then the assumption is that the restaurant is worth waiting for. Cheesecake Factory is not.

The menu at the Cheesecake Factory is 25 pages long. They have all kinds of choices, from sandwhiches to pastas, fish, and everything else. As a result, none of their dinners are particularly good. They should pick one kind of cuisine and focus on that, or they should keep the categories, but shrink them all. The menu should be 3 to 4 pages long, not 25.

I worked for a professor in the psychology lab when I was an undergrad. The focus of her research was on choice. Her general finding was that people like to have choices, but when they have too many choices they get overwhelmed and, as a result, do not enjoy their choice as much. They have to spend far more time deciding what they want, then they wonder about what would have happened if they had chosen among the x number of other things they could have chosen. When people are given only one choice (not really a choice) they report moderate enjoyment. When they have a few choices, they really enjoy their selections. When they have a ton of choices, they report even less enjoyment than when they were only given one option.

This is what the Cheesecake Factory suffers from. Now the cheesecake is fantastic, but there's no reason to wait 75 minutes for a table and eat a mediocre dinner just to have cheesecake at the end. You can walk up to the bakery and order a cheesecake and roll out. That, in my opinion, is the only reason to go to the Cheesecake Factory. If you want dinner go somewhere else, perhaps Applebee's.

I Don't Want To Hear About Non-Essential Organs

What is this ridiculousness about non-essential organs? How is it that they can take an organ from your body and then you just go about your business? That motherfucker is there for a purpose. You want to remove my spleen? Hell to the no. I need my spleen. What's going to do the spleening if you take away my spleen? (Lucy, you got some spleening to do.) You want my gall bladder? Hell to the hell to the hell to the no. I need a bladder for all that gall I've built up. Where else am I gonna keep it? It's like, damn, I know I don't necessarily *need* the cup holder in my car to get from place to place, but shit, I need that cup holder.

Seriously though. The spleen serves a purpose. It filters stuff out of the blood and helps to fight infections. How does your blood get filtered if you don't have a spleen? Your gall bladder also serves a function. It stores the bile that your liver produces until you eat something. Then it shoots the bile in there and aids in digestion. How does that happen if you don't have one? How can these organs be non-essential.

I'm not talking appendix here. That thing literally does nothing and is just in the way. Interesting side note, smaller mammals like rabbits and such actually still have functioning appendices that help to digest cellulose. So it's just a vestige of back when we were herbivores. And humans can't digest cellulose, so the appendix clearly does nothing. So now it's useless, suck on that shit vegans. (This last sentence was unnecessary, except that we agreed this was a vegan bashing blog.)