ghost 'n goblins. if you're like me, you're sitting in a office surrounded by people dressed up in costumes. if you're like me, you're waiting to wash your hands in the bathroom when the guy in front of you says "oh, i didn't mean to scare you." no, it's fine, you didn't. not with your cheesy five dollar bloody mouth mask that you're having trouble gluing on. "i know i look kind of ghoulish today."



wait, you're going into character "costumed" up in a rubber mask and your normal jeans and t-shirt? if you're gonna play the role of a ghoul, at least go all the way and look the part. where's your tattered clothing? where's your deathly stank? c'mon now. a half a mask does not a full costume make. has halloween become this bastardized? have we lost all of our treasured traditions? when was showing up in just anything considered a costume? i'm "i woke up late and got into trouble at work today boy, shazam!" oh cool, your costume looks great.



it's stupid when someone throws on a fake afro and considers that sufficient dressing up to warrant entrance into a costume party. if you're gonna dress up, go the whole nine yards. if you can't get into the entire spirit of halloween, then stay home and sulk in your normal clothes. if you want to be a pirate, be a pirate, don't just half ass it. i hate half assers.



then again, people who go way overboard with their costumes don't appeal to me much either. "i've been avoiding vitamin-c for eight months so i can get scurvy just in time for halloween. argh." it speaks of some insanity to me, when people totally dress up. i wonder how much thought and effort was put into a costume. do i really want to be friends with someone who spent three weeks and two hundred dollars on a costume? then again, i'm also against people who don't spend enough on a costume. of the two choices i'd have to go with the third, don't dress up at all. i say get ahead of the holiday curve and dress up as a dead turkey. holidays are only fun when mixed and matched. let's honor martin luther king's death on christmas. fast on memorial day. give chocolates and flowers, never.



but if you must dress up a little, i insist that you dress up all the way. and please girls (and some boys), don't dress up as a black cat. anything but a black cat. i could handle any costume aside from a black cat. do all girls have secret desires to become black cats? is this why the black cat costume is the most popular in the history of womankind? sure it may make you feel sexy, it may be a cheap costume, it may be fun to hide behind six painted whiskers and a glorified headband, but why not dress up as a blue cat? or a red panda? or an orangutan? why dress up in a costume that will inevitably be the exact same thing every other girl decides to wear? the same goes for white bunnies. ditch the bunny costume. buckteeth and a fluff on your butt is not flattering. trust me.



the ghoul in the bathroom, when told there were donuts in the break room, responded with this: "i don't eat donuts, i feast on the flesh of humans!" um right. did i mention that this particular ghoul was of the fob-ish variety and his command of the english language was not so good? this would normally be hilarious except my hand washing was rushed and i fear, incomplete.



i hate halloween. let's turn off all the lights, play spooky music, go sit on the front steps, light up a few cigarettes and see if any kids would be willing to exchange second hand smoke for treats.

puttin bodies in motion cause i got the notion. ever had this happen? you're sitting somewhere, talking to somebody, and you feel like they're always interrupting you. or they're going off of what you're saying but then making return comments that make no sense. you might have been talking about the state of african politics and the person across from you says, "africa? oh, i love africa, i've always wanted to go there." what?! that wasn't relevant. why have we tangented? why does this dissonance happen? my theory is this: some people aren't very good at picking up social cues.



part of our social education is learning the art of a conversation; conversation meaning "a talk between two people." if you're just blabbering on and on about yourself, it's not a conversation, it's a monologue. if somehow every topic manages to magically come back towards you, you are probably in danger of "taking too much conversation control." if you scientifically study the art of a conversation, you can see the openings where you can insert your thoughts, spaces for you to nod appropriately, places for you to prompt further thoughts. there is an unwritten, unspoken method to conversating. some people choose to ignore these social cues, or they just miss them altogether. it's not a bad or good thing per se, i just personally find it annoying when people go shuttling past the cues and start stomping around with their ideas, thoughts, words. a conversation is a dance, and when you step on your partner's toes all the time, they'll be quick to make a break for the bathroom.



picking up on social cues is a complex process to be sure. body language, personality type, mood evaluation, the intersection of time and space are all factors that should be taken into account when starting, engaging, or ending a conversation. otherwise you run the risk of cutting someone off, of shutting someone off, or of annoying someone on. while somebody may verbally say "sure, talk to me," it is best to be aware if every other fiber of their being is screaming "shut up!"



and this isn't just about people who tend to talk a lot. i love people who talk a lot. but when you talk a lot, you also need to be aware that the person across from you may not necessarily be very interested in what you're saying. thus, be on the lookout for social cues that indicate "hey, maybe it's time to stop talking, time to disengage." we're very good at this with strangers. because if a stranger comes up to talk to us, we will politely suddenly become engrossed in the menu, or we make less eye contact as a means of dismissal. but it's much harder with friends. we want to talk to them, we want to listen and be listened to. but sometimes, with some people, it just doesn't seem to work out that way.



there are times to be captivating, and there is such a thing as a captive audience, but it's not good to hold someone simply captive. be aware people, be very aware.

cata-schism (or) mother may i. as i round the first base towards middle age-dom, i've realized that what my mom said is true, "there are haves and then there are have nots." she was referring, of course, to friends and people. her constant worry about me is that i'll be left behind. left behind as my peers finished college, found jobs, invested in 401Ks, got promotions, got careers, got love, got families. she feared that at my current pace of living, i would be left far behind; a distant memory in people's minds of "oh that guy i hung out with when i was younger." i scoffed, i laughed, i laughingly scoffed. "no mom, you don't understand, that would never happen. the world is different nowadays. princes and paupers can co-exist in the same biosphere."



oh what mothers know and what they wish you knew. after five years in the real world i'm happy to report, "yes, there are haves and there are have nots and the life divide will only grow ever wider." slowly i'm learning that age really ain't nothing but a number. and i don't mean that in the r.kelly - michael jackson sense of the word.



before, having a younger person achieve something earlier than you was an anomaly. the kid who skipped a grade, or the high school senior who happened to be in your college class. these minor prodigies were far and few in-between. but as you grow older, the competitive field for early achievement grows larger. the harder they advance, the more you stay behind, the better chance you'll have of being surpassed.



for young adults, nothing is better than being 21-ish. it's like a girl going to college, there's nothing better than being a fresh(wo)man. as you get older and wiser, your pool of guys starts to shrink (due to most girls' aversions to dating younger guys), and the influx of nubile vixens increase. by the time you're a senior female (not to be confused with a female senior), all that's left on campus are the slim pickings offered in the form of fellow seniors -- all of whom are probably only single because they have some fundamental flaw they couldn't shed between sophmore and junior year. this is the way of the twenty-something year old. being pushed along by the tides of time towards something you may or may not be ready for.



it's never going to get better than being 22 or 23. once you hit 27-28, you're staring thirtysomething in the face and wondering why the only things you own are your dignity (the next to go) and a hamper full of dirty laundry. people are buying cars, homes, stocks and you're wondering if toilet paper is really a necessity this week. and even if you have a regular supply of toilet paper and a mortgage, i'm sure there are still things missing from your so called life. oh you got a great job, a house and two cars? bet you don't have a lasting relationship do you? sucker! it's always like this. until you achieve the pentacle (job, house/car, love, friends, happiness) of adult life, you will always be pushing pushing. pushing.



what kind of a life is this? if you are, like me, near the back end of twenty, with no promising future in sight, shouldn't you be panicking? it's crunch time now, you're in the red zone, fuck the fun, get down to business. you've had fun for five years while other people were putting in their time, now is the only chance you'll have to play catch up. if you don't, the great culling will happen at thirty and you'll be turned away from entrance into mature adulthood. there needs to be a lamaze class for the twenty year old -- or better drugs. there is nothing more contracting and constricting than being on the wrong side of twenty five.



so the people who have, why would they want to hang out with the have nots? except as a necessity, a nostalgic moment, or as a break from their own responsible lives? this is my mother's argument. will you sleep on other people's couches your entire life? when people have more than you, they will want to associate with fellow haves. you will be left behind. and nothing at that point can save you. so get cranking now people. because my mom is the soothsayer for our generation and she says age may be nothing but a number, it's definitely now become your enemy.



somehow, somewhere, despite my mom's premonitions, i've misplaced my sense of fear about this impending life gap. where most people suffer from "what will i do anxiety," i just roll right along. this is both a gift and a curse. people marvel at how i can not have anxiety about all of this. i say, "i know lots of open couches." people wonder what i'll do with my life. i say "something." people think thoughts of thirtysomething apprehension, i study it for personal amusement and conversation fodder. now if only i could bottle up this ability to make the important trivial, then i could really be doing something.

teach them well and let them lead the way. what happens to little kids who are the envy of all of their peers? what is it like to be so cool at the age of ten that everyone already wants to be you? hell, i'm twenty six and i wanted to be them. and by them i'm talking about the young dancers of future shock. these kids are all under eighteen and the littlest ones have just the right combination of cuteness, attitude and talent to make you want to steal one for yourself. nothing says hip hop like a kid with huge hair and even huger clothes.



isn't it all bullshit? when they say that being good at one thing translates into confidence during everything else? i think this only applies to one or two things. if you happen to be good at something crowd pleasing and popular, your one talent can define you and elevate you to the pantheon of gods -- sports perhaps? if your one outstanding talent is playing the kazoo, well, you're probably shit out of luck.



but say your talent is dancing, and not just any dancing but freestyle hip hop dancing. imagine the hoards of onlookers you'd have at middle school dances. every girl would want to dance with you, every guy would call you "sissy" (out of jealousy of course) and every teacher would immediately give you better grades because you're such an entertaining kid. what happens to kids who start out cool at such a young age? can they ever become uncool? i feel like the thing with "cool" is that once you get it, you can't lose it.



remember in school when some kid at your school would always get to miss a few days of class? and you would always wonder why? then you found out it was because they were a world class karate kid or an unequaled equestrian or something. immediately your perception of them changed. they were no longer "the kid who was bad at math," they suddenly became "the girl who rides horses," or "the guy who kicks serious ass."



at young ages, it is important to shower our children with accolades. it is important that we build our children's confidence and short of having any actual commendations to bestow (not every kid is as talented as we'd like them to believe), we can always reward the kids with certificates for reading and attending school. this always struck me as odd. walking into someone's bedroom and its filled with certificates about "billy now reads at the second grade level, you're a star!" in taiwan, reading and writing and attending school weren't rewarded with stickers. you did it or you got beat. do you think little taiwanese kids got rewarded for learning a new word every day? hell no. then again, despite stunning grades, taiwanese kids generally always feel like "i'm not good enough, i'm not good enough." american schools on the other hand, impart the "you're good enough if you try hard(er)" mentality. "hey, little billy can read okay? who cares if he's twelve and does it at the second grade level? leave him alone!"



anyway, back to my point that healthy kids generally need something to hang their little hats onto. when i hear about programs or events that "give kids confidence and empower them," i kind of scoff and think it's ridiculous. we need to leave no child behind (stare at camera, use vapid expression, finger point), not make them dance! but i can imagine a slightly unconfident kid getting into something like a future shock, and through dancing, they get to have that one thing they are confident and expressive in. and having that one thing would make all the difference in their day to day kid interactions -- as well as possibly influencing the flow of their entire life. so, even if your talent is kazoo related, it's probably better to be good at something than to be terrible at everything. more superfluous certificates and bumper stickers all around i say.



now if only i had been a future shock like prodigy then, i would HAVE been so much cooler now. blast.

when the beautiful connects us to the moral it tends to do so mistakenly, getting it wrong or getting it right only by accident. still a common and psychologically persuasive notion, the ancient greek kalos-kagathon, the beautiful-good, implies that the beautiful is morally good and the morally good is beautiful. but experience tells us that the beautiful is generally appreciated for itself, and when it begins to steer us towards moral judgment we need to be careful. as a beautiful face can distract us from a person’s moral substance or lack thereof, so can a beautiful artwork. knowing the subject of the artwork may heighten our appreciation for the artwork’s beauty, but its beauty is unlikely to heighten our appreciation for its subject. viewing the pietà we are far less inspired to devotion than we are awed at the artistic achievement.

-metaphilm, gibson's sublime passion-

my gadget-ism has reached all new levels. the king of all gadgets is finally, painlessly, mine. i am now able to access the internet on the fly, i can email on the road, i can AIM from the bathroom. yes, i got a sidekick, a sidekick two to be precise. words don't do this product justice, so you'll just have to check out links or reviews on it. for the amazonian price of twenty five dollars, i now possess the gadget of my dreams.



the only problems i have with the sidekick is that you can't upload your own pictures to use as caller id photos. that and the damn vibration is not optional -- nevermind, i found out how to turn it off, stupid me. the only other minor issue i have with it is that it's not white like most of the screenshots indicated, it's actually a light silver-ish color. but hey, nothing is perfect right?



the true downside to finally being a gadgeteer is that i had to change my number. but who needs a number when you're aim enabled twenty four seven?



i take a masochistic joy in re-entering all the contact information into new phones. i love it when everything finally gets all neat and organized. it feels like a new beginning, like my world is in order and i'm ready to embark on the next stage of my journey. i believe i will organize my memoirs according to cell phone eras in my life. "pager. pre-cell phone. the clunky years. the orange one. hawaiian flowers. hawaiian flowers two. rainbow clown fish. sidekick 2." and so on. i also take a perverse joy in reading instruction manuals cover to cover, just in case they tell me about a cool new trick. like you know, turning it on.

the rep grows bigger. and yes, video game life is starting to get just like real life. "players will have to control their urban sims through a series of trials in order to impress various other characters." doesn't this sound like what people have to do on a regular basis? i am of course, talking about yet another video game. this one is the newest sims game. a few years ago, the creators of the classic city building game sim city unleashed a game into the world that was supposed to simulate human life and human interactions. this game exploded and became extremely popular. and now the creators of sims have decided that in order to get more realistic, they have to make a game that is essentially about influencing people through the way you dress and speak. introducing, urbz: sims in the city.

"the urban sims in this game aren't going to be so worried about personal hygiene and other mundane things like their suburban counterparts are. instead, this game will be all about reputation--doing what it takes to fit in with and then being influential within various (nine, exactly) urban youth cultures, ranging from the celebrity to the slacker/skater. by doing the sorts of things that these cultures find agreeable, you'll be able to endear yourself to them and eventually become a leader among them."

while i contest that worrying about personal hygiene is precisely what it takes to gain influence and garner accolades (which might be why i am the recipient of neither), a game that makes you properly flush a toilet after going to the bathroom might not be so exciting. so instead, the urbz will be about cultivating cool and maintaining rep. "man what'd you want me to do? he called me a bitch! i kept our rep bro."

"each of (the) areas (in the game) has its own theme, such as gangsta or punk, so it is up to the player to decide what it takes to “fit in”. fitting in with the other characters is essential to progress upwards in the urbz ranks. in order to gain popularity and recognition, players must act and dress a certain way. so speaking and interacting with other characters on the street is a great way to learn the lay of the land. this will provide crucial information, such as what to wear and the best ways to earn simoleans (aka money).



in past sim experiences, players were required to take care of their virtual buddy right down to the most minute detail. in the urbz, these tasks are still required, such as eating, sleeping, and general hygiene, but they take a back seat to the goal of being cool.



this time around, instead of focusing on moving up in a career, it is much more important to be cool in the eyes of the other characters. this is where talking to the right people and wearing the right clothes comes into play. earning a reputation on the streets will gain the players urbz access to trendy social gatherings and the potential to influence others."

wait, you mean wearing the right clothes and speaking the right lingo will get me into trendy social gatherings? ones that don't involve four guys crowded around a television in various states of repose? could it be, a little change of lingo and a new wardrobe will get me into cool places? speakeasy son, speakeasy. yes it be. this is exactly how it bees. to enter any environment and become accepted, you must make the talk and work the walk.



does it bother anyone else that you can use one engine to design a game focusing on suburban working life and then turn around and use that exact same engine to create a game about being cool? essentially what the sims is doing is re-creating social situations for us to enable our character to reach a pre-determined goal. in the original sims, the goal was to get a job, make money, get a family. in urbz, the goal is to get friends, make money, get cool.



is the meta-message of the game then that being cool is a career? what does this say about society? i thought choosing the alternative path of not focusing on a career/family would be drastically different from choosing a "traditional" life path. but according to the designers of the sims (who obviously did their research), going after a 2.4 kids household requires the same skill sets, the same motivations and the same button mashings as being being in a constant state of career/life flux. what the hell? what kind of bullshit alternative lifestyle have i signed myself up for? if it's just as much work to become an urbz as it is to become a suburbz, why not just go for the one that pays more and provides genetic proof that your time on earth was not wasted? i may have to re-evaluate my life goals.



i think these sims games might be a good way of finding out all the answers to those nagging questions we 20-somethings face nowadays. what do i want to do with my life? will i be happy at a 9to5? do i want kids? do i want to go out drinking every night? what is the best way to get people to like me? should i try to hit on the hot neighbor? what should i wear tonight? all these questions (and more) can be definitively answered just by picking up a copy of the sims or the urbz.



me personally, i can't wait until "sims: adminstrative assistant" or "sims: prostitute" comes out so that people can just cut the crap and figure out what their true life calling is. imagine the possibilities and the utility of having a game that simulates any profession. this would enable you to really experience and judge a lifestyle for yourself before you try it. "sims: homeless," "sims: social worker," coming soon to a store near you.



these games might also serve as a training tool for those who are socially impaired. this is the greatest research tool ever assembled if you are in doubt of how to act around people. it not only teaches you how to behave but also provides you with a danger room to practice your "moves" -- while remaining free from the threat of committing actual social suicide.

ladies flock to your jock like it's golden

curious, to test the weight you be holdin

but you ain't got no time, to be chasin felines

if she's the chick that you pick then she gets chosen

people treat you like you're ghetto royalty

and all your staff shows you utmost loyalty

you paid your dues, refuse to lose in this scenario

the rep grows bigga, you're a legend and a hero

-gangstarr, the rep grows bigga-

and while i’m there, i can’t take it anymore! the “war on terror” is a total oxymoron. just for the grammar aspect of it, i can’t do this anymore. i get a chill up and down my spine every time i hear it. it’s like hearing “between you and i” and “for all intents and purposes” at the top of a totally stupid thing to say; and seeing “definitely” spelled “definately” and seeing apostrophes misused in possessive form like mc hammer’s god show called “hammer and friend’s” – you see, downright infuriating!



the war on terror. i’ve been silent long enough. those. words. just. don’t. belong. together. just like these don’t and this is a quote from our real live president: "our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. they never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." this is insane. ya see what i mean?

-princess melissa-

party of five. i could probably count on one hand the number of times i’ve been out somewhere with just one other person. i’m not a “hang out with one person” type of guy. some people are fully capable of going out to clubs alone, i can’t do that. some people go out to bars/clubs with just two or three people. i almost never do that. if it’s just two of us, i usually just take a pass. and the only thing keeping me from saying that i never go out with a party numbering less than five are the times when some combination of me, hong, babbs and gene go out. but other than that, i’m only out somewhere if we have five or more.



if i show up at a pre-determined location with only one friend or two in tow, it’s usually because i couldn’t entice anyone else to come fulfill a social obligation. if it were up to me, i would bring everyone i want to be with, with me everywhere. this kind of mentality leads to some problems. it’s like separation anxiety, or separation angst. the longer i’m away from my “home” friends, the weaker i feel. it’s like dracula and transylvania -- i cannot be separated from my dirt for too long. i can only venture out on my own for so long. after a certain point, i feel a siren call to return to where everyone knows my name.



this is not to say that i don’t enjoy the time spent in the company of just one friend. because i really like being able to talk to people on a one on one basis. but i feel like in most instances, the more the merrier. if you happen to get into an one on one situation, great. but rarely do i seek it.



however, i know lots of people who don’t like this. due to personality or logistics, some people don’t really like tons of other people around all the time. there are a myriad of personality reasons for why people don't like lots of other people around all the time. so many i can't even get into it here. but it's clear that logistically, once you reach a certain numerical value, you are taking away from the fun that everyone can experience. why have ten people around when you really only want four? unless you have thirty people (the party-to-go number), why bother having twelve? it gets hard to mobilize, it gets hard to decide, it gets hard to do anything.



this is why it gets difficult for me to engage in other people’s lives -- something i've been accused of many times. the mental contortions that i have to go through to go somewhere by myself is usually enough to deter my actually going. do i want to drive down to go hang out with jughead or just stay here and do nothing with screech, slater and zach? screech, slater and zach win almost every time.



if you think about it, what friendship value am i losing by missing one night of hanging out with people i see every day? the value lost is pretty much nothing, unless something tremendous happens to happen. but by going out there and hanging out with a more peripheral friend, you would learn new things, do new things, maybe even strengthen the ties that bond. so logically, and from a cost benefit perspective, it makes sense to give up a night with a social value of 0 to engage in a night with a social value +2 or higher.



but i really can’t do it. it’s not that it's too hard; but for me, it’s just hard enough. back to the hotel!

the most powerful man in the world? so the elections are coming up in a month or so. for the very first time, i'll be exercising my right to vote. i've never been remotely interested in politics but of late, you can't be a part of the world and not be into politics -- even if nominally. maybe it coincides with being older, but the ongoing debate over what to do in iraq, who really won the presidency in 2000, all of that stuff, can't help but pull you into the legislative world. i've been watching/listening to the recent debates (a farce as far as i'm concerned) and it's clear who i'm voting for. i'm voting for michael douglas, because he is the american president.



has everyone seen this movie? you really should. i've always loved this movie but having watched it four times in the past week, each nuance has been revealed to me and i'm ready to vault the film to top twenty status. this is just a great film. it's funny, it's smart, it's engaging, it's inspirational, it's patriotioc, it's got tons of quotable dialogue. it's absolutely the best.



if you watch the debates, if you watch kerry and bush stumble through glorified public service announcements, and then you watch the american president, you'd vote for michael douglas too. he is everything that a president should be. i mean, andrew shepherd -- the character in a movie script -- is everything a president should be. if they ever put together a wag the dog documentary on one of our incumbent presidents, and it portrayed the president in a similar heroic and realistic light, that president would have the throne of america bequeathed onto him for however long he wanted. fuck the two term policy. i want andrew shepherd as my president forever.

"you want free speech? let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil who is standing center stage advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."

it's unbelievable how well this movie is written. quick snappy dialogue, foot to the pedal pacing, and annette bening's eyes that light up right on cue. it's ridiculous how well they captured annette bening's glittering eyes, simply ridiculous. i contend that it must be CGI.



the current election invokes one percent of the emotional punch and patriotism that this movie does. it's sad how great andrew shepard is and how poor our two current choices are. bush and kerry. gimme a break. i could go to the local grocery store and find better candidates.

lewis rothschild: ...people want leadership, mr president, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. they want leadership. they're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.



president andrew shepherd: lewis, we've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. people don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. they drink the sand because they don't know the difference.

sadly, in the 2004 campaign, we know the difference between sand and water, we just don't have any other realistic options around. i'm voting kerry by the way, even though i think he just happens to be the right man at the right time, and not a spectacular choice based on his own merits. i'm anti-bush not because of his warmongering, but because of his fundamentalist religious beliefs. bush and his ideological brethren scare me.



ps. i think the electoral college process is bunk. absolutely bunk. i'm gonna have to research why it was instituted in the first place before i stand by my statement but so far, i find the electoral college idea outdated and constricting.

politics is perception. at the heart of the story is the budding relationship between the president and annette bening, who plays a washington lobbyist. so, in order to pay proper homage to that aspect of the movie, i'm here to present my top five tips for dating, as taken in (and out) of context from the film.



[1] yeah, and compliment her shoes. girls like that.

[2] i tell any girl i'm going out with to assume that all plans are soft until she receives confirmation from me thirty minutes beforehand.

[3] i want to buy her some flowers. that's what men do when they break a date.

[4] if you were a dork you should say you're sorry. girls like that.

[5] you don't fight the fights that need fighting, you only fight the fights you can win! (slightly paraphrased, just slightly)

hurt me, hurt me. i was watching mtv's true life: i'm a muay thai boxer last night and this situation occured. one of the guys is an experienced thai boxer and whenever he's prepping for a fight, it puts a strain on his relationship. when he gets into "fight" mode, his attention and devotion to his girlfriend starts to waver because obviously, he has to concentrate on his training. the event that he's training for this time is a hardcore bare knuckles fight in thailand, where he'll be lucky to leave with all his limbs intact -- since american thai boxers generally get their asses kicked by thai nationals.



now, admittedly this girl is of the more princess-y persuasion but she was getting all upset that they weren't spending enough time together. she complains that he barely talks to her as the fight approaches and laments the fact that they've only seen each other "once this week." lady, your boyfriend is trying to prepare for a fight. if he spends too much time with you and doesn't focus on his upcoming battle, he might break an arm, a leg, heck, he might even lose an eye. and then where would your relationship be?



i don't understand where this "in a relationship, the person you are with should be your number one priority at all times" thing gains any credence. actually, in a relationship, the person you're with is almost NEVER your number one priority. think about it. in college (maybe even high school), your number one priority should be your studies. post college? your number one priority should be establishing a career. there is a short period right in-between almost getting married to almost having kids that you are each other's number one priorities. after you have kids, forget it, they are your number one priority.



the key to any successful relationship is to make the other person believe that they're number one, while masking the fact that they are really priority two, five or ten -- depending on the situation. and what is wrong with this? nothing. we should all be our own number one priorities, and within that framework, we can decide how much career, family, girlfriend and friends will be a part of that. matching up priorities is one of the best ways to ensure a healthy relationship -- not that i'm an expert in this particular arena.



anyway, point being, clearly, mr thai boxer loves his girlfriend but is it terrible that he's putting her aside for a few weeks/months so that he can concentrate on keeping his body intact? i don't think so. it's his prerogative to train. it's her prerogative to dump him if she needs a more constant source of attention. win win and less whine whine for everyone. this whole "priority one, always and forever" is outdated and i'm wondering if it was ever dated. i'm actually also wondering if "date" will ever again be a word in my vocabulary.

treat you like milk, do nothing but spoil you. in second grade, i assured the kids around me that my father had a million dollars. of course, i blame my faulty english and ignorance of large numbers, but i was sure we had a million dollars. after all, a million didn't sound like so much, doesn't everyone have it? clearly, we didn't have a million dollars at the time but i had no clue what a million was anyways so i was adamant in my defense of it. now that i know what a million is, i can't conceive of anyone having a million dollars, at least in the next twenty years or so. do you know how much i could do with a million dollars? i could retire for life! actually, not really. a million just doesn't go as far as it used to. a million will fetch you a nice home in san diego with spending money for about five years. maybe.



some people have accused me of being spoiled. like of having a spoiled upbringing, mentality and all the negative connotations that are associated with the word "spoiled." and to my detractors i say, "yes, i'm spoiled." i grew up in the crotch of luxury; i got a car at sixteen; for most of my life, summers were job and burden free; post-college, i scammed my parents to fund years of dilettante existence. i've felt, at various times in my life, that i was supposed to be able to do this, supposed to get that -- travel to different countries, take snowboarding vacations, etc. allowance was a birthright, not something to be earned or deserved.



but i never really put two and two together (until a few years ago) that i lived a privileged lifestyle. after all, i went to school with kids who had giant mansions, complete with multiple staircases and three acre backyards, indoor pools, outdoor pools, brand new BMVs, rooms specifically set aside to hold toys and play things, pool tables, horses. in comparison to the plastics, we just got the econo version of what everyone else got. ah, the warped reality that is private school.



so what did the silver spoons treatment result in? well, fiscal irresponsibility for one. while i don't think being well off leads directly to fiscal irresponsibility, i do believe it's a major contributing factor. why be fiscally responsible when it's never been an issue? while my tastes have always been utilitarian and never extravagant, money never seemed to be an endangered resource. despite my parents' (or rather, my mom's) best efforts to instill the "money doesn't grow on trees" philosophy, i lost something in the translation. part of the reason my mom loves me more when i have a job is that having a job will make me eventually realize the true "value of a dollar." obviously, my mom isn't a big fan of the "money ain't a thang" generation. shame.



the other thing with being spoiled is how easily one can set aside standard life issues. it's easy to ignore worries about having a job and supporting oneself if mommy and daddy are always behind you holding up a giant safety net. people ask me, "hey, aren't you worried about not having a career or a job or an anything?" most of the time i say "nope, not really." part of this is my natural lackadaisical attitude but part of it is that in the back of my (un)conscious mind, there was always a fall back plan. i had the luxury of dawdling around until something desireable came my way, most people don't get this.



i've heard that to spoil your kids is to ruin them. while i don't totally agree with this statement, it is somewhat true. if your kids are used to getting everything, why would they work for anything? then again, i know many kids who've always had everything and didn't emerge with a lax work ethic or a divine right of kings mentality. so, rhetorically speaking, was it just me?

i agree with katz when he says that monogamy is "one of the pillars of heterosexual marriage and perhaps its key source of trauma." it's almost impossible for two people to be all things to each other sexually, and the expectation that two people can or should be all things to each other sexually -- that they should never find another person attractive or act on that attraction -- does a great deal of harm.



human beings didn't evolve to be monogamous, and everything from divorce rates to recent impeachment proceedings prove, i think, that the expectation of lifelong monogamy places an incredible strain on a marriage. being monogamous is hard work; it's not natural (even disgraced virtuecrat william bennett concedes this point!) and it doesn't come easily to human beings or very many other mammals. but our concept of love and marriage has as its foundation not only the expectation of monogamy but the idea that where there's love, monogamy should be easy and joyful.

-salon, what does marriage mean?-

ax² + bx + c = 0. i don't know anyone like agnes, who subtracts things from themselves that are exterior and borrowed. i think maybe it takes till a certain age before you have built up enough of yourself that you can even think about subtracting things. right now everyone is trying to find themselves by addings things to their persona and identifying through that. sure hobbies can change, old habits, lifestyles fade away, but really, is anyone trying to come closer to their "sheer essence?" when i hear "sheer" all i can associate with that is pantyhose.



i wouldn't even know how to define someone without listing their hobbies, interests and attributes. if i told you that a friend was "outdoorsy, loves techno music, reads non-fiction and hates the simpsons" doesn't that give you a decent picture of them? aren't we really only a collection of our likes and dislikes? i have to meet an agnes, before i can properly put into perspective what kundera means by his passage.



and are personality traits part of the adding and subtracting? do terms like "outgoing, generous, somewhat neurotic" belong in the same identifying category as interests? is it possible to change personality traits as easily as hobbies? if not, then maybe this is what kundera is talking about -- getting to the sheer essence of a person.



i feel like if you take away all my interests, hobbies, likes and dislikes, i would be an amorphous blob with no definition or direction. i need the exoskeleton of the world to prop me up, i need to be defined by other things to figure out who i am. i need to be easily parceled down into my various component interests. i need this to know where to shop, which section of the bookstore to head towards, which radio station to listen to. my friends need this to know what to talk to me about, what to buy me when they make millions of dollars. acquaintances need these tidbits to remember me by. nobody remembers a jon who is nice, but a jon who is into comic books? a-ha!



isn't this how everybody does it? am i missing something here?

power up. i have this theory that i apply to all of my friends, or to people i've met. i think there is one thing about them that stands out. this one thing is so interesting, or so out of their general character, that it must be asked about. usually it's a strange trait, or an interesting background, something not run of the mill that you don't happen upon every day. sometimes it's something so tiny that the explanation can take three seconds. "wait, you have eleven toes?" "yup, i was born with an extra one." "cool." sometimes this one thing can lead to further discussion or insight into your friend. sometimes it's just a useless fact to store away.



the choice of which of your friends' characteristics qualifies as "the most interesting one" is variable and highly personal of course. what i may find most interesting about someone might be boring to you, or vice versa. one of the easiest examples i have of this is ameer. here's your halfway normal half persian half caucasian guy. who just happens to read/write/speak korean. whut?! isn't that veird? of course, ameer could have many captivating traits but this one just sticks out to me. actually no, this "super trait" shouldn't be relative. it should be objective. i'm changing my definition. everyone in the room, who knows the person, should be able to pinpoint exactly what that one thing is that's most intriguing. there, game on.



conversely it's also possible to have no super trait at all. but i'd like to think that no one could be this boring. then again, maybe one person has so many super traits that one trait cannot be pinpointed, so thus, not having a super trait wouldn't automatically condemn someone to boring status. this theory is full of holes.

pumps and a bump. a few years ago, my friend introduced me to the idea of "hipsters." who or what is a hipster you ask? the definition off of the hipster handbook says that a hipster is "one who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term 'cool'; a hipster would instead say 'deck.') the hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream. a hipster ideally possesses no more than 2% body fat."



another definition is: "(hipsters are) people in their late-teens to mid-20s who attempt to grow a personality by blindy adhering to counterculture, if nothing more than to be fashionable. usually seen sporting grungy clothes as if to say, 'oh wow, i'm a unique individual with a quirky sense of style.' and listening to boatloads of indy-rock garbage. usually attempts to appear offbeat, yet trendy and cultured to compensate for lack of redeeming social value."



or "someone, usually a teenager or 20something, who adheres to a counterculture ranging from indy-rockers to neo-hippies to skaters. they tend to define themselves by the music they listen to, and the outlandish clothes they wear. hipsters are opposed to other countercultures like goths, metal-heads, and gangstas, and they also avoid preps, eurotrash, white trash, and jocks."



as explained to me, a hipster the next stage of evolution for an indie person. i'm not sure if being a hipster means adhering to a particular genre of music, but i feel like this must be so -- i doubt hip hop hipsters exist and if they do, they have a different name. as far as i can figure, a hipster is a snob of the highest order -- always a great thing in my book. the motivation behind being a hipster is to be the zag when others are zigs. and this credo is more important than actually having off-beat tastes. as soon as enough people get on a certain bandwagon, the hipsters are the ones pulling the cord and getting off at the next stop. after reading kundera, i believe that hipsters must be the ultimate "adders."

"in our world, where there are more and more faces, more and more alike, it is difficult for an individual to reinforce the originality of the self and to become convinced of its inimitable uniqueness. there are two methods of cultivating the uniqueness of self: the method of addition and the method of subtraction.



agnes subtracts from her self everything that is exterior and borrowed, in order to come closer to her sheer essence (even with the risk that zero lurks at the bottom of the subtraction). laura's method is precisely the opposite: in order to maker her self ever more visible, perceivable, seizable, sizable, she keeps adding to it more and more attributes and she attempts to identify herself with them (with the risk that the essence of self may be buried by the additional attributes)."

-milan kundera, immortality

because hipsters take their tastes so personally -- identifying themselves with their likes and dislikes -- it's an affront to their self worth if people deemed unworthy or tasteless suddenly like what they like. an accessible example if you will. since i have no hipster bands to reference i will pretend that n*sync was once hipster. in this scenario, n*sync was an undiscovered gem of a band. "oh, you listen to jt and the gang too? you must be cool enough to hang out with me." but as soon as n*sync blew up, the hipsters had to leave the room because being associated with the common masses was just too unbearable a thought.



i'm not sure i can personally subscribe to this philosophy but i sure do respect it. it takes a certain will power to give up things that you like just because it's been tainted. then again, it can be argued that hipsters never actually like anything, they just like things because of what they represent. how great is that? they've taken the physical world of likes and dislikes into the metaphysical realm. i love hipsters. they're so philosophical and deep.



i want a token hipster in my life but i don't know any. so how do i meet one? where do they hang out? what do they look like? what's the speakeasy password? can i fit a hipster into a pokeball? apparently hipsters dress well and have a kooky sense of style. i'm not sure where the line is between being kookily dressed and looking like crap but i'm sure i'll know it when i see it.



when i approach a hipster-ish looking person, i'll ask them "so, are you a hipster?" if they say "why yes, yes i am." then immediately they are exposed as fake hipsters. a true hipster would never associate themselves with such an inclusive and general term right? thus the great irony in being a hipster. you are independent but easily categorized. you are part of a powerful taste mafia but can never consciously associate with it. this is the greatest club in the world. "i'm so in i'm out!" i want to be a hipster. because hipsters are cool and i want to be cool too. oh wait, i meant deck, i want to be deck too. do hipsters accept apprentices or something? is there a summer camp or evening class i can join? or at least a reality show i can watch?

to days of inspiration

playing hookie, making something out of nothing

the need to express

to communicate,

to going against the grain,

going insane

going mad



to loving tension, no pension

to more than one dimension,

to starving for attention,

hating convention, hating pretension

not to mention of course,

hating dear old mom and dad



to riding your bike,

midday past the three-piece suits

to fruits to no absolutes

to absolute- to choice

to the village voice

to any passing fad

to being an us -for once-, instead of a them



to apathy, to entropy, to empathy, ecstasy

-rent, la vie boheme-

where does he get those wonderful toys? i got me a limited edition classic nes game boy advance. i figure i needed a reward after so many hours of video game playing. some people say that i just pissed away ninety dollars. but i say, "i've bought what i deserve!" of course, this could HAVE been one hundred dollars spent towards my sidekick two but money is more valuable being spent than being saved. confucius say. anyway, there's a sick joy that accompanies any purchase over fifty dollars -- which is the amount that i define as "a big purchase." it's like "wow, i just spent money on something i totally don't need but i had to have. and i'll have to skip lunch for a week. hahahaha!" i'm just exercising my freedoms as far as i'm concerned. my freedom to starve and indulge in worldly pleasures. if people are fasting for religion, the least i can do is fast for gadgets.



i've limited myself to buying only two games for my game boy -- this is my ultra responsible side -- astro boy: omega factor and chessmaster. now if only i could find all my old game boy games. and if only i had somewhere to go that i might actually use a portable game system. this is the downfall of an impulse buy. it's like i want to get a game boy, a laptop and a portable email machine. but where do i go that i'm not ten feet away from a tv or a computer? form just doesn't fit funktion in this case.



my reasoning is that if i did have a laptop and/or portable email, i would go places other than work or my living room. i could go to quaint coffeeshops to read and write, i could venture out into the world to chat with interesting strangers. i could immerse myself in the environment of my peers. i could aim with friends from across the room while we're at a crowded and noisy bar -- in case i ever decide to leave the protective bubble of my friends when i go out. "411 man, u go 2 bar? cool. go get me a h2o with xtra ice yeah? thnx."



oh the delicious possibilities. i could do all these things if only i got the appropriate technologies first. instead of being a globetrotter in need of portability, i'd rather become portable after i'm wi-fi enabled. this is like buying a snowboard because that would be good motivation to start snowboarding. this my friends, is going full on ass backwards. or is it?



i'm also trying to design a bag (man purse) or a utility belt that will hold all my gadgets securely and protectively. so far the only people i know that can make bags are mostly knitters or sewers and while that is a great skill to have, a knitted utility belt just doesn't scream "cutting edge" or "superhero." does anyone know how to work leather involving lots of straps and pockets? i mean, anyone besides *ahem*. i would call people out but i don't want to reveal dirty little secrets to the world.

cool like dat. there are people getting paid to study the mechanisms behind being "cool" and "uncool." what is this crap? i've been studying/musing over this stuff for years and i'm not paid a damn penny. ridiculous. of course these people are doing it through brain mapping and stringent use of the scientific process but i contend that casual observation and personal bias can lead to the same results. nobody has, of yet, given me any money to support my life's work. maybe i need to get a phD and a few more IQ points, then i'll finally have some intellectual credibility.



tangent: i wonder which is harder to obtain, intellectual credibility or street/urban cred. my money's on street. it's easier to fake intellectual knowledge, at least for a few seconds. prime examples being all the retards who get jobs, or get into great schools, and you're left wondering "how'd they do that?!" anyways.

caltech's social cognitive neuroscience lab is doing a study on what it means to be cool. "unlike a mere written test, (this) experiment would use functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI, to measure my (the author's) subconscious response to 140 different products and celebrities, each of which had been assigned a coolness rating from 0 to 5.



depending on how successful my subconscious picks out the cool objects, i would be classified as one of three types: high cool (a "trendsetter"), high uncool(a "critic"), or low cool. ...high cools, i was told, had brains that lit up in response to cool objects. high uncools reacted strongly to uncool objects; they're the snobby tastemakers. the last group, the low cools, was the one i feared. low cools had scans that came out almost entirely blank. it didn't matter whether they were looking at a picture of michael jackson or mick jagger. they were, in effect, cool-blind."

in effect, you are shown cool things and uncool things, and you'll be monitored for when things effect you, positively or negatively. if they don't effect you at all, you are out of touch with reality and slapped with the disparaging "low cool" label. oh the horror. our intrepid author ends up testing out as "high cool," even though she introduces herself in the article as the queen of low cool. two other people who took the test ranked out as high uncool and low cool. the difference in the author's initial impressions of herself and the other guinea pigs, compared with the results, makes me doubt the veracity of the test but i'll set that issue aside for now. maybe my whole theory on "the more uncool you were at fifteen, the more cool you are at twenty five" holds some water. moving along.

the results from this test indicate that both high cools and high uncools "show activity in the motor cortex, which is normally engaged when the brain is thinking about reaching for something it wants. while that is expected in high cools, it is baffling in the high uncools. do they secretly like the uncool objects, or is it actually a sign of revulsion: a desire to hurl the offending objects far away? likewise, what is the meaning of the activity in the section of prefrontal cortex known as brodmann area 10 - one of several regions that have been tentatively linked to our sense of personal identity?



according to quartz (the researcher), high cool trendsetters, who define themselves by the coolness of their accessories, are more likely to picture themselves with the cool object and to imagine how others will react. but if this is right, why are high uncools defining themselves with respect to objects they dislike? quartz thinks it might be a sign of social anxiety: maybe the high uncools are worried about being seen with such lame objects. "or it might have something do with their sense of self," he muses."

okay, i've copied and pasted enough. just read the damn article. then we'll talk.