Jail Break

Another Venn diagram that I was inclined to make...




I am on the verge of finals week, which will prove to be incredibly difficult and stressful. Six courses hasn't been very difficult to juggle but I forgot to factor in that everything inevitably hits the fan at the same time.

Right now I am playing around with the idea of taking a road trip. Nothing more than a week or so. To shake it up a little but I would like to implement a few rules. I am tentatively labeling this type of road trip the "Jail Break Road Trip".

Here are the guide lines...
1. Only bring unnecessary items (such as laptops, iPods, instruments)
2. Do not spend more than $20 a day (not including cost of gas)
3. The car stays in motion unless you are stopping for goods or tourism

If executed properly you should begin with only the clothes on your back, some electronics, and a full tank of gas.

I am also planning a trip to Europe with Brad. My plan is to scrounge up enough money to take both trips in the time I have between the end of Spring semester and the middle of June. There's a good chance that it won't happen but I can still hope.

Someone told me today that there is no biological reason that people itch (besides rashes, chafing). This struck me as kind of an odd notion.

The closer the future gets, the further away it seems.

Speak easy,
Neil

the first second of the second experience

Sometimes you'll look at a word and after a while you don't even fully recognize it. It is like you no longer see it as a representation of an object or a concept, you simply see it as a series of symbols.

Some people grow up.
Some people pretend.
Some people fall in love.
Some people pretend.
Some people are disappointed.
Some people pretend.

Virtue 7: "Sincerity". Think in a manner that is both innocent and just. Make sure that your are being honest with people and never deceive them. Trust those that deserve your trust and you shall be trusted in return.

Speak easy,
Neil

how to lose your mind in 10 days

While cramming for my French class I started to think about how simple memory is in the animal kingdom. Is memorization and mass information gathering even something that would put you at an advantage in the wild? Do humans have a specific knack for this kind of thought process or are we the only species that fully utilizes it? I've heard that dolphins are incredibly smart, possibly even more intellectually capable than humans. Maybe someday people will find a way to speak animal languages in the same way that we speak different people languages. Animals are probably more boring to talk to than most people are, so it probably wouldn't be an incredibly popular practice.

Today I heard about an interesting project that is being carried out on YouTube. It is called the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. The idea is that the YouTube channel supplies a piece of music and people record themselves playing that piece of music onto a YouTube channel. Once everyone auditions there will be a video produced that mixes all of the auditions as a kind of collaborative orchestra. A select few will then be invited to New York to play at Carnegie Hall. This is a prime example of a new kind of Internet based socialization known as "Web 2.0". I didn't find out exactly what this meant until recently but, to the best of my knowledge, it is where people from all over the world can contribute to a community project that is created for the Internet. Ze Frank, one of the more prominent contemporary vloggers, helped pioneer that which is known as Web 2.0. I heard an interview with him where he claims that it is an easy way to get other people to do the work for you. Most people that have successful YouTube based Web 2.0 projects are content with their status and still keep their day job. Corporations, such as Google, are trying to figure out the best way to profit from a YouTube channel that has acquired a moderately sized, devoted fan base. Never forget the three most important factors of capitalism: Exploitation, Exploitation, Exploitation.


People are more apt to like you if they are aware that you like them. Of course with this in mind it is hard to walk the line between shy and "outgoing".

Today I was eating an orange and thought of how fruit is kind of like the semen of the plant world. They are the membranes in which the seed can be transported and brought forth to beget life.

If tomatoes are fruit then why do they taste so different? Some things just can't be explained.

One of my English professors has such a big personality that it is hard for me to think of her as a person. I know that everyone is a complex individual with their own problems and ideas but for some reason I can not avoid this kind of thought process. Despite the fact that I think she is a great professor and an interesting and fun person, I feel incredibly intimidated by her.


"The unknowable is forever condemned to being described in terms of the known." - Fançoise Meltzer

Speak easy,
Neil

P.S - More virtues coming your way.

have a nice day

Whenever I am experiencing a decent level of stress I find myself experiencing some minor bipolar tendencies. Nothing that a third party would detect, but it is still fairly alarming. During times of extreme stress, my whole body basically shuts down and I get really sick and fatigued. Luckily this doesn't happen too often. Most people go through some sort of physical or psychological change when they're under stress. I have no idea how you are supposed to deal with it, but from my experience you just have to wait until the stressor (or cause) is out of your life.

Sometimes you have to remind yourself that death is only temporal.

Speak easy,
Neil

P.S - Tomorrow I'll try to think of something fun to write about.

my own private wizard staff

Today in my film class we watched My Own Private Idaho by director Gus Van Sant. It was one of those films that you want to watch the second the credits begin to roll. The film isn't for everyone, by any means, but is really quite interesting if you give it a chance. The performance that River Phoenix gave in the film reminded me a little of Emile Hirsch's in Into the Wild. Apparently there is a portion of the film that is based on the first part of William Shakespeare's Henry IV.

My professor was talking about how the film is on the cusp of being incomprehensible. He went into a spiel on narration and how no matter what you do to a film there is always a beginning, a middle and an end. The film is also about a narcoleptic, which causes the storytelling to be a little chaotic. Sleeping every night gives you a pretty simple narrative for your day. You separate it into these different parts (beginning, middle and end) without even thinking about it. People also do this with their lives. It's ingrained into our skulls to turn absolutely everything we can make sense of into a narrative. Even our dreams, which may not have any rhyme or reason, will be processed through our consciousness and end up with some sort of coherent story. Time itself is so difficult to grasp because humans keep trying to apply a narrative to it. Maybe some things just are.

Keanu Reeves, who had a fairly prominent role in the film, wasn't that bad compared to some of his roles. My film teacher sarcastically remarked that "if he didn't exist, you'd have to invent him." I did learn that Mr. Reeves doesn't own any possessions. He just lives in hotel rooms and sits on his money. One time his sister got cancer and, to keep her mind off things, he bought her a horse farm. If he doesn't need money then why does he do so many terrible movies? Maybe some people do different things for different reasons.


On Saturday night my friends got together and had a LAN party. We held it in the basement of the house that Andrew's dad is trying to sell. LAN, for anyone who doesn't know, is an acronym for Local Area Network. This is when several computers are connected to a small network. On the network you play multi-player computer games with each other. I don't really like it that much but it is a fun social gathering.

Unlike most parties that are held by college kids, LAN is drug and alcohol free. Instead of Miller Lite, we drink Mountain Dew. We did this thing that people refer to as "Wizard Staff". This involves taking beer cans (or, in this case, soda cans) and duct taping them together as you drink them. The goal is to have something that resembles a wizard staff that is about your own height. This process makes sense with beer but drinking that much Mountain Dew seems a little foolhardy. Probably a good way to contract ulcers.



I took this picture of Ross Lippman, a good friend of mine, for his senior yearbook picture. The trick to taking a great picture (not that I am calling this picture specifically great, just great pictures in general), as I learned from National Geographic, is to take a whole lot. If you take enough pictures, one of them is bound to be a keeper.

Speak easy,
Neil

Today's Playlist:
Love: Part III (or When Optimism Is Enough)

1. Elliot Smith - Thirteen (New Moon) *Big Star Cover*
2. Feist - Mushaboom (Let It Die)
3. Ben Folds Five - Kate (Whatever and Ever Amen)
4. Weezer - El Scorcho (Pinkerton)
5. Azure Ray - If You Fall (Hold On Love)
6. The Robot Ate Me - This Love Is Waiting (Carousel Waltz)
7. Iron & Wine - Flightless Bird, American Mouth (Shepard's Dog)
8. Magnetic Fields - Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side (69 Love Songs)
9. Son, Ambulance - Katie Come True (Oh, Holy Fools)
10. The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) (Funeral)

Duck Tree

This evening I was trying to piece together the genealogy of the Duck family tree from the Duck Tales animated series. The task at hand (and lack of sleep) gave me a headache so I went online. I did end up finding a pretty extensive Duck family tree. The confusion was, for me, that Hooey, Dewey, and Lewie referred to Scrooge McDuck and Donald Duck as their uncle. Likewise, Donald Duck calls Scrooge his uncle. It turns out that Scrooge is Hooey, Dewey, and Lewie's great uncle, while Donald is their uncle. Donald Duck is the nephew of Scrooge McDuck. For some reason we also don't know the identity of Hooey, Dewey, and Lewie's father. The boys are also frequently seperated from their mother. Their story, as I see it, is a rather sad tale of a broken home.

This Thanksgiving break has completely whiped me out so I am going to go to bed. Tomorrow I will be back on track with my classes and some more conventional blogging.

Speak easy,
Neil

?

Holidays just aren't the same anymore. After a certain point everything in life develops into solid reality, but in a bad way. Magic becomes lies becomes boring. It is strange how parents talk to children about Santa, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, and god. The latter being the only one that they inevitably hide behind. Santa Clause is to presents as God is to Earth. All of this worries me. What should I tell my own children? What do I say to them if another child tells them that there is no Chris Kringle? This reminds me of the stork lie. Children ask where babies come from and the child's parent tells them that the baby is delivered by the stork. First, that implies that children are not really connected or related to their parents. This does not seem like a better explanation than the truth, it just sounds confusing. Second, the answer doesn't even explain where the babies come from. Do the storks give birth to the babies or do the babies come from somewhere else?

short message before naps

I finally got back to Cape Cod for my Thanksgiving break. This is Puff. She is a fairly stupid cat that my family adopted. Sometimes she sleeps in the shelving of the computer desk. I guess that is kind of cute.

My brother is watching the television show 'The State of Panic' on the SciFi channel. It seems to be some sort of reality show that borrows heavily from the Saw franchise. The show is neither scientific nor fiction, but is none the less on the Science Fiction Network.

Last night I barely got any sleep so I am cutting the blog short in favor of a nap. I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving and check back for a better entry tomorrow.

Speak easy,
Neil

for those that live lawyerless lives

Its warmer today but the rain makes for a pretty miserable walk into campus. Lucky for me, rain also makes it fairly easy to decide whether or not to skip my classes.

Recently I've noticed how, in a world with such an abundance of textual communique, it is getting increasingly more annoying whenever you are unable to get in touch with someone. When I was little, it was two phone calls, and if I couldn't reach someone with two phone calls, that was it. My friend was probably at the store or the zoo. Today we have facebook, e-mail, text message, voice mail, home phone, and any other modes of communication I am sure I am leaving out. People are developing shorter and shorter attention spans. Everything is immediate. If I am trying to get information and the page is loading slow, the information isn't worth the time.

To consider that the most convenient information is the most consumed information is kind of an alarming notion.

The average American buys just one book every year. Taking into account Stephen King, Dan Brown, Harry Potter, and The Twilight Series, there are a lot of Americans that don't buy any books at all. I think the problem is not that people don't like to read, it's just that they don't know what to read. For instance, I am sure there are people that haven't read a book since high school but would none the less be unable to put down a Chuck Palahniuk book. Not that I think they are specifically great, I just think that they are good books for people who don't like books. If we stop making books, what would all the trees do?


I heard that MIT graduate, Daniel Biss, wrote a theorem that proves that a circle is nothing more than a bloated triangle.

The value of your life, as I see it, is measured by the amount of lawyers that are in it. If you do not have any lawyers in your life, things are probably looking pretty good.

Tomorrow I am going to finally meet Puff. If you don't know, Puff is the cat that my family replaced me with as soon as I left for college. It makes sense because a cat is much easier to take care of than a human.

The cat pictured below is my Moldovan friend, Poofa. That's the phonetic spelling of his name anyway. The name means 'Puffy' in Romanian. It will be difficult for Puff to compete with this guy for my all time favorite puffy cat. Poofa caught his own mice and loves to eat bread; pretty tough competition.


Virtue 6: "Industry." You should always have a job and always be employed in something useful. This kind of fits with yesterday's "frugality", except that it implies that by constantly doing, you are not wasting. Benjamin Franklin also insists that you ought to cut off all unnecessary actions. This raises the question, "What is a necessary action?"

Speak easy,
Neil

Today's Playlist:
Driving Home to Cape Cod: Part II (Requested by Andrew)

1. Built To Spill - Car (There's Nothing Wrong)
2. Feist - I Feel It All (The Reminder)
3. Say Hi To Your Mom - Blah Blah Blah (Impeccable Blahs)
4. They Might Be Giants - Experimental Film (The Spine)
5. Her Space Holiday - Four Tapping Shoes and a Kiss (XOXO, Panda...)
6. Sunset Rubdown - They Took A Vote And Said No (Shut Up...)
7. Death Cab For Cutie - Pity and Fear (Narrow Stairs)
8. The Good, The Bad, & The Queen - '80's Life (The Good, The Bad...)
9. Desaparicidos - Greater Omaha (Read Music, Speak Spanish)
10. Cloud Cult - Story of the Grandson of Jesus (Feel Good Ghosts)
11. Regina Spektor - Music Box (Begin To Hope: Bonus Disc)
12. The Format - Dog Problems (Dog Problems)

mimes are from mars

All of my important classes are done for the week. It feels really good just to be able to relax. Procrastination is a cruel mistress.

I was thinking about the mouth and all of its functions. How it can chew food and, likewise, be used for defense. How it can taste all different kinds of spices. How you think something and, through practice and understanding, you are able to communicate. The way a curled smile can travel from one persons soul and travel straight through another. The soft intimacy of a passionate kiss. An open passage that brings air into the lungs to keep the heart beating.
Although, when you view the mouth closely, it really isn't much to look at. Go find a mirror, you'll see what I'm talking about.



By the way...all men are d*cks, all women are b*tches, and everyone is crazy. The normal ones are just the ones that can hide it the best. This is just the way it is.

Now onto today's virtues...

Virtue 4: "Resolution". If you start something, you ought to finish it. This also applies to performing tasks that you ought to complete. The way I see it, you are the sum of your accomplishments. Not just creations but ideas and skills too. I'd elaborate further but I feel like I'm getting too "big picture". The bottom line...just get up and do something that you can be proud of.

Virtue 5: "Frugality" Don't waste money or time if you can help it. There's only so much you get before it's gone. Which reminds me, we need another space race. I really want to see Mars terraformed by the end of my lifetime.

Here is the first page of the book I did for my senior project class a few years ago. The final project was about 24 pages long; 10 of which I'm not completely embarrassed of.


Speak easy,
Neil

Today's Playlist:
Driving Home to Cape Cod (Requested by Andrew)

1. Shout Out Louds - Tonight I Have To Leave It (Our Ill Wills)
2. Pavement - Cut Your Hair (Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain)
3. Andrew Bird - Tables and Chairs (The Mysterious Production of Eggs)
4. Ben Folds Five - Army (The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold...)
5. Liam Lynch - Still Wasted From The Party Last Night (Fake Songs)
6. Grandaddy - A.M. 180 (Under The Western Freeway)
7. The Flaming Lips - The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (At War With The Mystics)
8. Animal Collective - Water Curses (Water Curses)
9. Los Campesinos! - Death To Los Campesinos! (Hold On Now, Youngster)
10. Adam Green - Jessica (Friends of Mine)
11. Goldspot - Float On (The OC: Mix 6) *Modest Mouse Cover*
12. The Shins - New Slang [feat. Iron & Wine] (Fighting In A Sack EP)