Mario is currently taking apart his computer to clean the fan. So far there is $524.64 in the pool - bets on how long it will take for him to send it to the land of beyond-repair. If you want in on it, call quickly, the odds are in favor of sooner rather than later.
Pei: nice, u become more and more understanding and accepting just like I do. good
Mark: and u r becoming modest like me
Pei: u have nothing to do with modest
And now I must take leave to go cry in the corner.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
50,081
Finished my novel today, though I won't officially admit it till 3.4 milliseconds before deadline - midnight tomorrow. Meanwhile it's time to get drunk beyond all reasonable limits. Or at least have some ice-cream. Or get really really really ridiculously drunk. Ah, life is full of choices when one doesn't need to be alive the next day to finish a novel.
To be honest...damn...there is no way to finish this sentence. Scratch that from the shorthand. No, don't write this down. Stop writing what I'm saying. Ugh, nevermind. Stupid stenographer...hmm, didn't think you'd write that.
My drive for writing this novel gradually disintegrated as the month wore on. By two weeks in, I was pretty bored with where the plot was going. However, I couldn't have the one or two people that still have respect for me lose that last drop. So I kept writing words like a really intelligent and good looking zombie, occasionally having a burst of creativity and writing readable content, but mostly trundling or trudging or whatever it is that guy in A Knight's Tale was doing when he lost his clothes to gamblers and found himself left only with dignity and nudity for companions. No, I have absolutely no idea how that analogy is relevant, but there are whole books that are entirely irrelevant. Catcher in the Rye for one.
Now that the novel is done, I'm in the position of that Jew with his hive of sheep and gaggle of cows living in his bedroom/kitchen/living room/house with him, when he goes to the rabbi and the rabbi says "now let the beasties out." My day is suddenly a good two hours longer and I feel as free as a naive American thinks he is.
Having written the worsd 'naive American,' I am reminded of Native Americans, a subject which was responsible for many admissions of ignorance a week or so ago. I had just seen a French movie where the main character was discussing the relative carnage of various centuries. The 20th century wasn't the bloodiest, he claimed, with a violent death metedout to a mere hundred million. By comparison, this character stated, the 16th or 15th or whatever century was the last for Native Americans, was a bloodbath. The combined forces of European colonists murdered "150 million" Native Americans.
My often misanthropic words belie the intrinsic optimism of my nature. I am trusting bordering on gullible. I listen to people with an innocently agape mouth, unprejudiced ears and dilated pupils. I believe pretty much anything anyone says when I don't have the option of arguing with them. As this Frenchman was merely a few pixels, and fictional ones at that, he could not be challenged even if I spoke French. So I took him at his word and thus had to endure Mario's horse-like neighing when I decided to show off my knowledge to him. By his estimate there were 10 million at most, and 9 million of those he attributed to his penchant for being an order of magnitude optimistic. I decided to research the question on Wikipedia upon regaining my composure lost in the unforgiving storm of Mario's ridicule.
Turns out, there were anywhere from 10 to 112 million plus or minus a tribe or two. Hard to believe that it's so exact, but that's modern statistics for you.
Armed with this knowledge, we headed to the Sunday feast at the Hinshaw's and demanded of everyone there in turn to give their estimates. At the end of the meal we came to several conclusions:
1. All Americans know how many Native Americans there were, but no two can agree on so much as the order of magnitude.
2. There was definitely at least one Native American.
3. Native Americans were most probably counted by being shot. So a Native American may have been counted many times depending on his/her relative immunity to bullets. Let's hope we never have to take a census in China.
To be honest...damn...there is no way to finish this sentence. Scratch that from the shorthand. No, don't write this down. Stop writing what I'm saying. Ugh, nevermind. Stupid stenographer...hmm, didn't think you'd write that.
My drive for writing this novel gradually disintegrated as the month wore on. By two weeks in, I was pretty bored with where the plot was going. However, I couldn't have the one or two people that still have respect for me lose that last drop. So I kept writing words like a really intelligent and good looking zombie, occasionally having a burst of creativity and writing readable content, but mostly trundling or trudging or whatever it is that guy in A Knight's Tale was doing when he lost his clothes to gamblers and found himself left only with dignity and nudity for companions. No, I have absolutely no idea how that analogy is relevant, but there are whole books that are entirely irrelevant. Catcher in the Rye for one.
Now that the novel is done, I'm in the position of that Jew with his hive of sheep and gaggle of cows living in his bedroom/kitchen/living room/house with him, when he goes to the rabbi and the rabbi says "now let the beasties out." My day is suddenly a good two hours longer and I feel as free as a naive American thinks he is.
Having written the worsd 'naive American,' I am reminded of Native Americans, a subject which was responsible for many admissions of ignorance a week or so ago. I had just seen a French movie where the main character was discussing the relative carnage of various centuries. The 20th century wasn't the bloodiest, he claimed, with a violent death metedout to a mere hundred million. By comparison, this character stated, the 16th or 15th or whatever century was the last for Native Americans, was a bloodbath. The combined forces of European colonists murdered "150 million" Native Americans.
My often misanthropic words belie the intrinsic optimism of my nature. I am trusting bordering on gullible. I listen to people with an innocently agape mouth, unprejudiced ears and dilated pupils. I believe pretty much anything anyone says when I don't have the option of arguing with them. As this Frenchman was merely a few pixels, and fictional ones at that, he could not be challenged even if I spoke French. So I took him at his word and thus had to endure Mario's horse-like neighing when I decided to show off my knowledge to him. By his estimate there were 10 million at most, and 9 million of those he attributed to his penchant for being an order of magnitude optimistic. I decided to research the question on Wikipedia upon regaining my composure lost in the unforgiving storm of Mario's ridicule.
Turns out, there were anywhere from 10 to 112 million plus or minus a tribe or two. Hard to believe that it's so exact, but that's modern statistics for you.
Armed with this knowledge, we headed to the Sunday feast at the Hinshaw's and demanded of everyone there in turn to give their estimates. At the end of the meal we came to several conclusions:
1. All Americans know how many Native Americans there were, but no two can agree on so much as the order of magnitude.
2. There was definitely at least one Native American.
3. Native Americans were most probably counted by being shot. So a Native American may have been counted many times depending on his/her relative immunity to bullets. Let's hope we never have to take a census in China.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Chinese Logic
Yesterday was a very challenging day. Having slept a total of four hours, and not consecutive ones at that, I was pretty much a zombie. My most wakeful moment was struggling to fall asleep at 2AM after zombie me had the brilliant idea to drink a pot of coffee. But, I finally got back on a normal sleeping schedule. No more going to sleep at 7AM, at least till tomorrow.
I dreamed of a cool new string instrument. I was walking in a field with this girl named Mindy who I'd never seen before, and she was carrying what I knew in the dream was a tuba case, but what I knew immediately with equal certainty upon waking was a cello case. Apparently the dream me has no idea what a tuba looks like, though when I go back to sleep I'll probably write this comment in my dream blog in reverse, with equal disdain. To make things even clearer, Mindy said that she was carrying a violin. The dream me didn't see anything strange about that. When we got across the field and ended up in some city at some open mic, she took it out of the case and played a little to warm up. The 'violin' was a bit smaller than cello, and where the strings go over the bridge in the direction opposite to the neck, instead of going at a downward angle, they went up almost perpendicularly to the wood. Mindy played the strings at that end of the violin instead of in the usual place with a modified bow, and would add little flutter-like flourishes that I've never heard on a string instrument. Then of course, someone showed up and ruined everything, and you can guess easily who that was. He didn't wake me up, but he took over the dream with his own agenda at the open mic.
(We're in traffic. There's a newspaper salesman standing on the yellow line selling the Houston Chronicle. A cop flies right past him, siren blaring)
Mario: Psh, if that newspaper salesman was any good, he would have sold that cop a newspaper.
(studying chinese characters)
Mark: guess what you get when you put the radicals for 'tree' and 'several' together.
Mario (having had dibs on the book): machine?
Mark: hmm. Pretty obvious huh?
...
Mark (flipping forward a couple of chapters): okay, what about 'sun' plus 'thumbtack'
Mario: uhh. A ray of light?
Mark: think more obvious
Mario: solar flare?
Mark: no, 'hundred.'
Mario: ah, that makes sense.
...
Mark: ok, this one's really obvious. 'moon' plus 'knife.'
Mario: ...cheese?
Mark: 'canoe.' Come on dude, trust your intuition.
There were some other good ones, some making sense, some just strange. I kept waiting for the moment of epiphany where I would suddenly understand the Chinese way of thinking and 'horse' + 'woman' = 'mother' would make sense, but the more I read, the more I began to fear for my life if this epiphany did indeed happen.
Some others, for your enjoyment:
'big' + 'drop' = 'too much' (Makes sense, even to us logic-based Americans)
'woman' + 'house' = 'peace' (This is what I'm talking about when I say the Chinese go to far with their perverse sense of humor)
'too much' + 'too much' = 'wife' (This is apparently the same in every culture)
I dreamed of a cool new string instrument. I was walking in a field with this girl named Mindy who I'd never seen before, and she was carrying what I knew in the dream was a tuba case, but what I knew immediately with equal certainty upon waking was a cello case. Apparently the dream me has no idea what a tuba looks like, though when I go back to sleep I'll probably write this comment in my dream blog in reverse, with equal disdain. To make things even clearer, Mindy said that she was carrying a violin. The dream me didn't see anything strange about that. When we got across the field and ended up in some city at some open mic, she took it out of the case and played a little to warm up. The 'violin' was a bit smaller than cello, and where the strings go over the bridge in the direction opposite to the neck, instead of going at a downward angle, they went up almost perpendicularly to the wood. Mindy played the strings at that end of the violin instead of in the usual place with a modified bow, and would add little flutter-like flourishes that I've never heard on a string instrument. Then of course, someone showed up and ruined everything, and you can guess easily who that was. He didn't wake me up, but he took over the dream with his own agenda at the open mic.
(We're in traffic. There's a newspaper salesman standing on the yellow line selling the Houston Chronicle. A cop flies right past him, siren blaring)
Mario: Psh, if that newspaper salesman was any good, he would have sold that cop a newspaper.
(studying chinese characters)
Mark: guess what you get when you put the radicals for 'tree' and 'several' together.
Mario (having had dibs on the book): machine?
Mark: hmm. Pretty obvious huh?
...
Mark (flipping forward a couple of chapters): okay, what about 'sun' plus 'thumbtack'
Mario: uhh. A ray of light?
Mark: think more obvious
Mario: solar flare?
Mark: no, 'hundred.'
Mario: ah, that makes sense.
...
Mark: ok, this one's really obvious. 'moon' plus 'knife.'
Mario: ...cheese?
Mark: 'canoe.' Come on dude, trust your intuition.
There were some other good ones, some making sense, some just strange. I kept waiting for the moment of epiphany where I would suddenly understand the Chinese way of thinking and 'horse' + 'woman' = 'mother' would make sense, but the more I read, the more I began to fear for my life if this epiphany did indeed happen.
Some others, for your enjoyment:
'big' + 'drop' = 'too much' (Makes sense, even to us logic-based Americans)
'woman' + 'house' = 'peace' (This is what I'm talking about when I say the Chinese go to far with their perverse sense of humor)
'too much' + 'too much' = 'wife' (This is apparently the same in every culture)
Thursday, November 27, 2008
One Hour of My Dream Life
This morning, three hours after the morning I went to sleep on/in the comfortable chair at the Hatten hacienda, Mario shook me awake with a laser-guided stream of words: "Mark, wake up!" Since the phrase contained my favorite syllable in any language, I shot up like a bolt, only to hear "Do you want to go back home to sleep?"
Being a pushover, a genuinely nice person, and not wanting to walk the twenty miles back, I acquiesced to his request. So Mario drove us home, and I crashed immediately upon entry. I wasn't in any condition to do push-ups or pull-ups after the Thanksgiving feast, so I took advantage of the well-placed floor in the louge. For the next hour, I went through dreams at an unprecedented pace.
The first dream was a series, with a two-out-of-three victory for happy endings:
I dreamed I bit something, and suddenly felt a tooth go to pieces. A tiny metal ball came out, as well as another metal part, leaving me a useless crater/thimble. I would need to add toothpicks to my already overlong brush-floss-mouthwash-pray-to-God-of-Teeth routine. But then I realized with great the joy of waking that this was just a dream, and fell back asleep full of gratitude to this practical joke for being just that. This time I dreamed that I bit something and my tooth pretty much vaporized, if such a term is applicable to teeth. It is definitely applicable to dream teeth. I once again fell into misery and self-pity, and woke myself up with my funeral dirges dedicated to my tooth. I may have woken the neighbors as well. Anyway, happy again, I rushed to tell Mario about the experience. I told him about both dreams, and then, just before he could reward my story with a quote worthy of posting here, I woke up again.
That wasn't the end for me though. This was an hour long nap after all - three twenty-minute Uberman REM cycles. As soon as my head hit the floor, I was hanging out with Natasha in NY. Now, Natasha is a pretty impulsive person, even in reality, but don't worry, this was a PG dream. If you are imagining otherwise, that is your poetic reading license, and good for you (and write to me about it). My version was unequivocally clean.
So Natasha decides she needs to pee, and I don't question her. She gets on her back, tucks her legs in and assumes the Dreamed Natasha Peeing Position (to be featured in the next six Stephen Chow movies). Being a gentleman of outstanding wisdom, I say "I'll cover you," and sit on her knees with my back to her.
A second later, I feel warm jet washing my back. "Not cool," I think, followed by "where is your sense of professionalism?" But my thoughts do nothing to ward away the warm jet. It continues to polish the already smooth surface of my latissimus dorsi. I get up, because I have no wish to be more than the already 89% soaked with urine. I start running around like a boy playing pterodactyl, but with more practical reasons. To my astonishment, the warm jet pursues me. Knowing for a fact, or at least a damn good theory, that Natasha is not a guy and can't possibly possess such proficiency in the sniping arts, AND being too much a gentleman of outstanding wisdom to look her way and find out, I suddenly find a light bulb in my head and turn it on. And I realize that it's the two open water bottles I have in my jacket, upside down, left over from a previous dream. I dare anyone to say now that dreams are useless to remember! If I had remembered those water bottles, I would have kept Natasha safe from the everpresent NY spectators, instead of sacrificing her privacy to my undying love for dinosaurs.
Believe it or not, there were another two dreams during that hour. The first:
I dreamed that I was at Barnes and Noble's, but in some faraway land called dreamland. Some guy walks up to me and asks me if I'm the author of The Time Traveler's Wife. Stupidly, I say "haha no," though I undoubtedly had praise coming had I said "why yes, I'm Audrey Niffenegger." I don't remember the details of the rest of this encounter, just the vague feeling of being insulted with one of the more strange American children's-section-unprintables (CSU's).
And the second, otherwise known as the last dream, is unfortunately a CSU to its very dreamsoul. Or at the very least, the intent to commit a CSU. It never got past intent because Mario stepped in at that right/wrong moment, shook me awake with a cattle prod from the year 2312, and demanded whether I wanted a pillow. Are we sensing a trend? Count on Mario to ruin something that can only happen in a dream. And that leaves nothing to tell that wouldn't end on a cliffhanger, so I will spare you the unresolvable suspense.
Being a pushover, a genuinely nice person, and not wanting to walk the twenty miles back, I acquiesced to his request. So Mario drove us home, and I crashed immediately upon entry. I wasn't in any condition to do push-ups or pull-ups after the Thanksgiving feast, so I took advantage of the well-placed floor in the louge. For the next hour, I went through dreams at an unprecedented pace.
The first dream was a series, with a two-out-of-three victory for happy endings:
I dreamed I bit something, and suddenly felt a tooth go to pieces. A tiny metal ball came out, as well as another metal part, leaving me a useless crater/thimble. I would need to add toothpicks to my already overlong brush-floss-mouthwash-pray-to-God-of-Teeth routine. But then I realized with great the joy of waking that this was just a dream, and fell back asleep full of gratitude to this practical joke for being just that. This time I dreamed that I bit something and my tooth pretty much vaporized, if such a term is applicable to teeth. It is definitely applicable to dream teeth. I once again fell into misery and self-pity, and woke myself up with my funeral dirges dedicated to my tooth. I may have woken the neighbors as well. Anyway, happy again, I rushed to tell Mario about the experience. I told him about both dreams, and then, just before he could reward my story with a quote worthy of posting here, I woke up again.
That wasn't the end for me though. This was an hour long nap after all - three twenty-minute Uberman REM cycles. As soon as my head hit the floor, I was hanging out with Natasha in NY. Now, Natasha is a pretty impulsive person, even in reality, but don't worry, this was a PG dream. If you are imagining otherwise, that is your poetic reading license, and good for you (and write to me about it). My version was unequivocally clean.
So Natasha decides she needs to pee, and I don't question her. She gets on her back, tucks her legs in and assumes the Dreamed Natasha Peeing Position (to be featured in the next six Stephen Chow movies). Being a gentleman of outstanding wisdom, I say "I'll cover you," and sit on her knees with my back to her.
A second later, I feel warm jet washing my back. "Not cool," I think, followed by "where is your sense of professionalism?" But my thoughts do nothing to ward away the warm jet. It continues to polish the already smooth surface of my latissimus dorsi. I get up, because I have no wish to be more than the already 89% soaked with urine. I start running around like a boy playing pterodactyl, but with more practical reasons. To my astonishment, the warm jet pursues me. Knowing for a fact, or at least a damn good theory, that Natasha is not a guy and can't possibly possess such proficiency in the sniping arts, AND being too much a gentleman of outstanding wisdom to look her way and find out, I suddenly find a light bulb in my head and turn it on. And I realize that it's the two open water bottles I have in my jacket, upside down, left over from a previous dream. I dare anyone to say now that dreams are useless to remember! If I had remembered those water bottles, I would have kept Natasha safe from the everpresent NY spectators, instead of sacrificing her privacy to my undying love for dinosaurs.
Believe it or not, there were another two dreams during that hour. The first:
I dreamed that I was at Barnes and Noble's, but in some faraway land called dreamland. Some guy walks up to me and asks me if I'm the author of The Time Traveler's Wife. Stupidly, I say "haha no," though I undoubtedly had praise coming had I said "why yes, I'm Audrey Niffenegger." I don't remember the details of the rest of this encounter, just the vague feeling of being insulted with one of the more strange American children's-section-unprintables (CSU's).
And the second, otherwise known as the last dream, is unfortunately a CSU to its very dreamsoul. Or at the very least, the intent to commit a CSU. It never got past intent because Mario stepped in at that right/wrong moment, shook me awake with a cattle prod from the year 2312, and demanded whether I wanted a pillow. Are we sensing a trend? Count on Mario to ruin something that can only happen in a dream. And that leaves nothing to tell that wouldn't end on a cliffhanger, so I will spare you the unresolvable suspense.
No time to write, just to plagiarize
No commentary today, just content. In no particular order.
(Mark and Mario drive by a girl lighting up a cigarette)
Mario: (emits what can only be described as a coo)
Mark: is that your favorite brand?
Mario: nope, just a cigarette...I'm kinda quitting
Mark: when are you starting up again?
Mario: as soon as I find my ID
...
Necessary background: there's a pull-up bar on our door. To come in, you must first do eight pull-ups or thirty push-ups. We figured this would make us more healthy/in shape.
...
Mario: the bar on our door is making my smoking habits worse. I have to smoke before I go into the room, because I don't know when I'll risk coming out again
Mark: yea, same with food. Being healthy is making us fat and prime suspects for cancer
(funny when out of context)
Mario (after taking a while to find a book that was right in front of him): I find things in five seconds whether it's a man in a stack of beans or a book in my face
(getting it done, in the general rather than specific definition of the word 'it')
Ben: no, I'm actually more likely to get things done when I'm busy than when I'm not doing anything
(we're around kids, gotta keep it clean)
Ben: I didn't know [I'd rather not offend that person, so insert your own name here] was gay
Mark: I didn't either. But then I woke up one day...and he was
Ben: I didn't know [ditto] was straight
Mark: I didn't know either. But then I woke up one day...and he was
(Concerning the above: don't want to be prejudiced for one version or the other just because one happened and one didn't)
I'm kind of starting to worry about Mario's relatives. I made cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner, and they actually ate it. They currently plead temporary insanity, but in my book - temporarily insane once -> temporarily insane forever.
Tip of the day: cold showers are really really cold. Don't be a hero.
(Mario's talking about penguins, Daniel comes in)
Mario: they swim like forty miles an hour
Daniel: chickens?
Mario: uh...yea, if a penguin's pulling them
(about Chinese people, and why there's so many of them)
Mario: well they have reincarnation over there, don't they?
(talking about what going Dutch means)
Mario: what is it when the girl pays for everything? Is there a word for that?
Mark: yea, a keeper
(Mark and Mario drive by a girl lighting up a cigarette)
Mario: (emits what can only be described as a coo)
Mark: is that your favorite brand?
Mario: nope, just a cigarette...I'm kinda quitting
Mark: when are you starting up again?
Mario: as soon as I find my ID
...
Necessary background: there's a pull-up bar on our door. To come in, you must first do eight pull-ups or thirty push-ups. We figured this would make us more healthy/in shape.
...
Mario: the bar on our door is making my smoking habits worse. I have to smoke before I go into the room, because I don't know when I'll risk coming out again
Mark: yea, same with food. Being healthy is making us fat and prime suspects for cancer
(funny when out of context)
Mario (after taking a while to find a book that was right in front of him): I find things in five seconds whether it's a man in a stack of beans or a book in my face
(getting it done, in the general rather than specific definition of the word 'it')
Ben: no, I'm actually more likely to get things done when I'm busy than when I'm not doing anything
(we're around kids, gotta keep it clean)
Ben: I didn't know [I'd rather not offend that person, so insert your own name here] was gay
Mark: I didn't either. But then I woke up one day...and he was
Ben: I didn't know [ditto] was straight
Mark: I didn't know either. But then I woke up one day...and he was
(Concerning the above: don't want to be prejudiced for one version or the other just because one happened and one didn't)
I'm kind of starting to worry about Mario's relatives. I made cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner, and they actually ate it. They currently plead temporary insanity, but in my book - temporarily insane once -> temporarily insane forever.
Tip of the day: cold showers are really really cold. Don't be a hero.
(Mario's talking about penguins, Daniel comes in)
Mario: they swim like forty miles an hour
Daniel: chickens?
Mario: uh...yea, if a penguin's pulling them
(about Chinese people, and why there's so many of them)
Mario: well they have reincarnation over there, don't they?
(talking about what going Dutch means)
Mario: what is it when the girl pays for everything? Is there a word for that?
Mark: yea, a keeper
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Primitive Time Machine
Started playing Final Fantasy VIII yesterday - a famous if outdated RPG. RPG stands for Really really really ridiculously long but having a mildy interesting Plot Game. This is the worst type of game in the world, and unfortunately also my favorite. It is the kind of game that eats right through your time. If you have jet-lag and you need to disappear ten hours from your schedule before you can go to sleep, you play an RPG. With the advent of the first non-text-based RPGs in the early 90s, they were briefly considered as an alternative to general anaesthesia. However, the side-effects were determined to be incomparably more harmful to health.
Did you know that every year, five hundred million people in the United States alone, die of starvation because they are in the middle of an RPG and can't so much as take a five minute break to fill up on Tootsie Rolls? This is tragic, and considering our population is three hundred million, completely false, but it's distressing nonetheless. In China, the same statistic gives a number twice as big, though of course equally false.
Anyway, if you decide to follow in my footsteps, I would start with Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII, the tried and true classics. If you're still alive afterward, you've earned yourself the right to decide the next ten titles on your own. Safety tip? Start out weighing four hundred pounds.
Kinda funny, from today (while watching Jack Bauer on 24):
Jack Bauer: You saved my life.
Mario: So, if you save someone's life twice, what does that mean? Cause if you save it once they have to be your slave.
Mark: You have to suppress two urges to kill them.
Mario: No you don't. You can suppress one and be their slave.
Did you know that every year, five hundred million people in the United States alone, die of starvation because they are in the middle of an RPG and can't so much as take a five minute break to fill up on Tootsie Rolls? This is tragic, and considering our population is three hundred million, completely false, but it's distressing nonetheless. In China, the same statistic gives a number twice as big, though of course equally false.
Anyway, if you decide to follow in my footsteps, I would start with Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII, the tried and true classics. If you're still alive afterward, you've earned yourself the right to decide the next ten titles on your own. Safety tip? Start out weighing four hundred pounds.
Kinda funny, from today (while watching Jack Bauer on 24):
Jack Bauer: You saved my life.
Mario: So, if you save someone's life twice, what does that mean? Cause if you save it once they have to be your slave.
Mark: You have to suppress two urges to kill them.
Mario: No you don't. You can suppress one and be their slave.
Monday, November 24, 2008
I tripped
Today Chun sent me some mind-blowing stuff. And also this cool optical illusion:
Blow My Mind
I spent the next half an hour staring at that woman, trying to place what movie I'd seen her in, and then another half an hour trying to get her to spin the way I wanted. Needless to say, this was very frustrating. I'm used to women unquestioningly doing what I tell them. But practice paid off.
Good news: 50% of the time, she does my bidding 100% of the time. I say the magic word and she switches direction.
Bad news: the other 50% of the time, she does the exact opposite.
More Good news: Chun says she will be learning this optical illusion move in her next dance class.
I sent this to Gene and he's now torturing all of his co-workers. If they're half as excited about it as he is, by nighttime I'll probably be receiving an IM from my friend in Shanghai: "Dude, friend send me link. You should to see this, it make crazy to brain."
And, changing the subject...1...2...3...
Gene has a severe case of spiritual ADD. Every month or so, he tells me about the latest greatest get-enlightened-quick scheme. By that moment, he's bursting at the seams with enthusiasm, and lives and breathes the new idea if not in life, then on AIM or the telephone.
Anyway, his newest philosophy is roughly this: "You can't do anything to get rid of your own ego. The best you can do is surrender every occuring thought to Buddha/Christ/Insert Other Messiah, and let it be taken away from you."
Necessary background: ego is THE obstacle to enlightenment.
Anyway, in terms of practice, this means: you think about your grandma in the shower - you surrender it to Buddha, you think about my grandma in the shower - you damn well surrender it to Buddha, you think about how depressed you are - you surrender it to Buddha, you memorize Pi to 2,000 places - you surrender your elitist ass to Buddha, you think about how good you are at this surrendering business - you surrender that too. To Buddha.
But since it's Gene, he's so enthusiastic that he's willing not only to surrender his own ideas, but other people's ideas and other people themselves.
Mark: i'm impressed they made this image (see above)
Gene: i am impressed more than u
Gene: because i surrendered your impression
Mark: haha
Mark: too funny
Gene: not too funny for me - i surrendered it too
...
Gene: mom surrendered it to me
Mark: ya'll are a bunch of cowards
...
Gene: your thought is false
Mark: not as false as urs!
Mark: surrender urs immediately
Gene: i surrender u
Mark: oh shit
Gene: and shit too
...
Mark: u sure love being an ass
Gene: why not - i surrendered my shit
Gene: this morning for an hour
Mark: you just surrendered this conversation to my next blog entry
...
I'm afraid the rest is unprintable.
Blow My Mind
I spent the next half an hour staring at that woman, trying to place what movie I'd seen her in, and then another half an hour trying to get her to spin the way I wanted. Needless to say, this was very frustrating. I'm used to women unquestioningly doing what I tell them. But practice paid off.
Good news: 50% of the time, she does my bidding 100% of the time. I say the magic word and she switches direction.
Bad news: the other 50% of the time, she does the exact opposite.
More Good news: Chun says she will be learning this optical illusion move in her next dance class.
I sent this to Gene and he's now torturing all of his co-workers. If they're half as excited about it as he is, by nighttime I'll probably be receiving an IM from my friend in Shanghai: "Dude, friend send me link. You should to see this, it make crazy to brain."
And, changing the subject...1...2...3...
Gene has a severe case of spiritual ADD. Every month or so, he tells me about the latest greatest get-enlightened-quick scheme. By that moment, he's bursting at the seams with enthusiasm, and lives and breathes the new idea if not in life, then on AIM or the telephone.
Anyway, his newest philosophy is roughly this: "You can't do anything to get rid of your own ego. The best you can do is surrender every occuring thought to Buddha/Christ/Insert Other Messiah, and let it be taken away from you."
Necessary background: ego is THE obstacle to enlightenment.
Anyway, in terms of practice, this means: you think about your grandma in the shower - you surrender it to Buddha, you think about my grandma in the shower - you damn well surrender it to Buddha, you think about how depressed you are - you surrender it to Buddha, you memorize Pi to 2,000 places - you surrender your elitist ass to Buddha, you think about how good you are at this surrendering business - you surrender that too. To Buddha.
But since it's Gene, he's so enthusiastic that he's willing not only to surrender his own ideas, but other people's ideas and other people themselves.
Mark: i'm impressed they made this image (see above)
Gene: i am impressed more than u
Gene: because i surrendered your impression
Mark: haha
Mark: too funny
Gene: not too funny for me - i surrendered it too
...
Gene: mom surrendered it to me
Mark: ya'll are a bunch of cowards
...
Gene: your thought is false
Mark: not as false as urs!
Mark: surrender urs immediately
Gene: i surrender u
Mark: oh shit
Gene: and shit too
...
Mark: u sure love being an ass
Gene: why not - i surrendered my shit
Gene: this morning for an hour
Mark: you just surrendered this conversation to my next blog entry
...
I'm afraid the rest is unprintable.
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