As always, "b-dogg" is making fire 

I guess Ahren isn't the only one that loves his kitty

a spinal tap is bad
three are a hundred times worse
doctor, why do you suck?

Three is always fighting for status. Zero, one and two have establishe dthemselves as essential entities in the universe as we understand it. Zero – a start, an absence, a destination, a center. One. A point of identity. The oneness of the universe is one of the two major philosophies. The twoness being the other, binary logic dominating our thought, our language, or understanding of the world. The tension between one and two drives the artistic and spritual development of the world at large. The tension between one and zero drives survival and progress, the technological and scientific development. But a three. It wants to be in the club so badly, and perhaps the other numbers would even consider it a full member, but it is a place it can never feel secure. And so it inherently posesses a tentativeness, and a restlessness, always poised for the next step, sometimes in retreat, sometimes in advancement. It coopted christianity as a vehicle for ascendence, and has done a pretty great job of it. It has captured the imagination of the mystical domain, offering a myriad of appearances, coincidences, and other highlights of an unstable configuration (joined by 7 and 13). Thus, even as it presents a shaky point for relationship, it also can provide the extra tension to make a group interaction more unique.

A weekend of three (with excellent family cameos) proves to be as spectacular as expected. I get to see the birthplaces of and spend time with the families of two of my favorite people in the world. I get three awesome sets of phish. And the first appearance of a group dynamic destined for greatness, a group long anticipated, and finally logistically feasible. Having had my full share of the tenuousness of three, I am inclined to mistrust it a little, but when I think about it I realize that it just requires you to understand better, and adjust continuously, so that the inherent imbalance is permeated to reveal a valuable relation. Three lends itself to music as the place where individual ideas are easy to bring forth, but there is enough variation within the group to develop an idea really far. I am excited to see if music can actually make three into a balanced form.

"...To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death of one's own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head, and with joyfulness, consummated in the midst of children and witnesses: so that an actual leave-taking is possible while he who is leaving is still there, likewise an actual evaluation of what has been desired and what achieved in life, an adding up of life [...]"

"From love of life one ought to desire to die [...] freely, consciously, not suddenly overtaken..."

- Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

In youth, death is merely a fantasy, a conceptual construct that we are acutely aware of, but which nonetheless lacks reality. But when old age sets in, death becomes an everyday occurrence, perhaps no less scary, but much more apparent and vivid. being young, i can reason from a distance about what i want my own death to be like, but, of course, i do not have the capacity to empathize with someone facing it as a real event, likely to transpire some time in the next few years.

My grandfather makes a good example. He has felt depressed for the last 10 or 12 years, pretty much since we moved to the US. his life previously was not particularly joyful. he'd been unhappily married for forty years, he was forced to retire by a boorish manager from a job he was great at and could have kept doing for many years. he loved reading, spending time with his family. at least he was at home in lvov. then we moved here, and he was thrust into a world he could not understand, could not relate to. the challenge proved too much for him. he lacked confidence in his abilities, so he did not attempt to learn the language or understand much of the culture. he allowed himself to feel useless and his will to live slowly dissipated.

Fortunately or unfortunately his depression has reached a plateau in the last few years. he finds happiness in his daughter and grandson, he likes watching the news (in russian). he used to like reading, but he started losing his vision a few years back, apparently due to a brain tumor. one of his last sources of enjoyment thus disappeared.

with the wisdom of a life nearing completion, my grandfather often wonders what it all was for. he sees the mistakes he made, which made his life much less happy than he should have been (marriage, lack of divorce, etc.) he is not sure if it all was worth it. but more importantly he feels useless now. he feels like a burden and does not, intellectually, see a point in continuing living, but finds no palatable option to change the time and situation of his death. he hopes that he has a peaceful death in his sleep, and does not want to suffer from new sickness.

the instinct to preserve your own life is pretty strong. for a lot of us, probably stronger than even the instinct to reproduce, especially now that sex has been separated from conception. is instinct the source of the cultural constructs that suggest the preservation of life at any cost? is that the reason we as a society scorn euthanasia? we are immersed in a constant drive to live longer, which unfortunately often jumps ahead of the drive to live better. And thus we find ourselves at a time when millions of elderly people, often not able to support or take care of themselves, live for 20 or 30 years past retirement. How many of them would say they are living great, fulfilling lives? how many benefit from their contribution to the functioning and advancement of society? how many are capable of doing so. some great exceptions are obviously out there. john glenn going into space. g.h.w.bush jumping out of a plane on his 80th birthday. rummy running the DOD in his twilight years. Reagan "defeating communism" in his. do you see more of these people or the listless ones? or are these exceptions to the general trend?

i can't help but agree with nietzsche. controlling the method, circumstance, and timing of your death (barring other unforeseen circumstances) seems like the appropriate way to go out. i want to devise a system for myself where i can cap a slippery slope, and once i fall below a certain level, both in physical and mental terms, i can move on. obviously it is hard to define quality of life in just those terms, and if you are still enjoying yourself and your drive to life remains, that is what counts the most. in fact, it's hard for me to imagine losing that feeling and drive. but if it happens, and the will does not come back, why try to stretch existence?

i hope to see you all at my funeral. it will be an awesome party. we'll play our greatest hits, take some e, and sail away into cosmic unity on a big prankster bus, our LAT (life aptitude test) scores tatooed on our foreheads, and two coins left to our name to pay the ferryman, whether he take us across the river, or leave us on it forever, chanting "om".

There is one thing to be said for the Hong Kong - it does not discriminate. Kicks you out one night, and welcomes you back the next, like the matron whore of a crackhouse, with open arms and no questions, as long as your money is green and plentiful (i only have a loose conception of what a crackhouse is actually like). the level of kitchiness in this spring break outpost apparently was not previously sufficient, so now the new waitress uniforms expose the entire area from the bottom of the boobs to the top of the hips. the patrons huddle around scorpion bowls, seeking group happiness in the intoxication of "1..2..3..drink!", the stereo expounds the virtues of getting your freak on, the golden tee is plentiful (even for the cheaters, you know who i'm talkin about), and you are guaranteed at least one group rendition of "livin on a prayer", always dubbed the best he's ever seen by the DJ.

the highlight of the evening was when my girlfriend for the night came back from dancing with another boy and "whispered" over the blaring speakers - "he has a hard-on", which was followed by a good 10 minutes of 2nd grade pointing and giggling (yes, i do giggle).

"alcohol, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems"

I came across this article - an interesting defense of socialism tinged with a bit more pragmatism. Socialism and Education . Education has always seemed like the area that calls for the most socialist, egalitarian methods. It seems like it really should be the second largest priority after defense, for all levels of government, but it just isn't. that's a shame.

the weekend brought another interesting experience. a friend of mine has a 100-gallon salt-water fish tank, which is better than any TV i had ever seen. on sunday he went out and bought a giant sea aenemie (SP?) because he read about the symbiotic relationship it had with clown fish (and he owned one named Nemo). the aenemie, despite being a glorified plant, proved to be awesome, as it acclimated to its new surroundings. it managed to change it's orientation 180 degrees, from facing downward to facing upward by continually inflating different parts of itself and using its "tentacles" to propel itself around the corners of the rock.

the really interesting part came, however, when, about 30 minutes from the new guest's arrival, Nemo discovered the aenemie. bear in mind he had never seen one in the course of his brief fish tank existence. as the other fish watched, green with envy (though that might have been the floating algae), nemo nuzzled medina (i didn't name her), helped her right herself, convinced her to open up fully and let the cilia flutter freely in the breeze of the artificial currents, and made a nest in her (admittedly vaginal) center. with almost no capacity to learn and no prior experience, his firmware dictated a behavior, which made for a great nature show. and medina, while being generally hostile, allowed him in without zapping cause she "knew" him too.

as cool as our own learning mechanism is, there is a lot to be said for this kind of innate recognition and understanding. reason is a great tool to let us adapt to new situations, and obviously doing that in an evolutionary, generational way is substantially slower, but isn't it a joyous occasion when your instinct brings you a beautiful connection or a useful experience, and the mind does not have to explicitly interfere.

the most awesome is probably internalizing reasoned knowledge into an instinctual understanding, where a new skill becomes so second nature that it flows out of you as you observe. determining how to optimize and speed up this process would probably be the most valuable discovery for me ever. until then though, it's practice practice practice.

a conversation with a developer in my group.

d: i finished the code. here, look at it run
i: that's great! wait, why are you using the wrong button?
d: oh i told you before that the button that was specified didn't work.
i: you told me you hadn't figured out how to get it working yet, and i told you it needed to work. (note: it is pretty clear that there exists a way to make it work)
d: oh, but i talked to ____, and they said we could use the other button.
i: ____ is wrong. using another button doesn't really make sense.
d: oh.

is it any wonder george bush declares the war done only to have hundreds more american soldiers get killed subsequently? everyone is same.

I spent about an hour this Saturday night arguing about welfare reform with a very informed, though bleeding-heart liberal girl named Jess, who spent a few years analyzing that very subject at a policy think tank. I channeled Ahren in order to make the argument a little more interesting, and to make Jess expose the true basis of her positions. An hour later our friends made us switch seats at dinner in order to interrupt the argument, which had at this point devolved to a "moral dilemma", which naturally involves raised voices, etc.

the details of the argument are not tremendously important - it centered on one particular stipulation of welfare reform that my new friend disagreed with - setting a limit on how long someone can remain on welfare. the crux of her argument was welfare of the children, and that we as a society are "morally obligated" to do what is best for the children, and, consequently, for the parent, yet we also, as a society, or government, or whatever, can in no way restrict someone "moral right" to create said children.

what i realized is that both the left and the right suffer from the same major issue, preventing me from identifying with their core, and are not making an effort to appeal to me and my kind. they defer to moral authority as the ultimate arbiter, and as the underpinning of their position. that is stupid because if you are not willing to question or justify your morals, then you simply come to an impasse in attempting to convince someone of your point. plus most of their morals are sort of stupid.

all they need to do is say this. the goal of society is to provide a relatively stable, secure environment for individuals to pursue their own goals, in as open a way as possible, for them, their kids, etc. then different sides can argue how to best accomplish this goal - devoting more or less resources to particular programs, providing certain social services and not others, etc. i think this is still the core idea behind the founding of this country, and it is basically a good one. it is a macroscopic version of the same problem which each of us experiences as a consequence of living - balancing out short-term goals with long ones, figuring out how to earn a living, and how to distribute the resources that our work gets us. and it does seem like a good number of people are doing exactly this.

so why is deferring to morality as the criteria for governing a problem? because it distracts from approaching government just like other aspects of life - come up with a hypothesis and a method for verification, run the test, determine if the result is what was expected/desired, and keep or remove the policy. this would also make the legislators and their constituents expose their true goals, and thus the policy could be fairly assessed by the public as a whole, not only as to whether it works, but also as to whether people agree that the goal is a worthy one to pursue and that it is in line with the fundamental goal stated above.

i recognize that what i state as the goal for society represents a statement of my own moral conception. obviously when goals are at stake, there is no away around biasing things in your own direction. i would be thrilled to hear a cogent argument against using these goals as a baseline though. take your best shot, idol worshippers.

-Friedrich

p.s. until this weekend i also forgot how fun it is to argue with individuals who claim that people do things for reasons other than self-interest. it's just not possible to lose when your interpretation of reality is so much more lucid than theirs.

Ticketmaster word of the day: banker
Insignificant unless you consider that I was getting my Coventry ticket. If there was any doubt of a final Fluffhead ...

I think i am starting to love Google's GMail. As if 1 gig of space wasn't enough, the targeted content has a ton of potential. here's a "related site" i got next to an email from Ahren: The Curmudgeon's Disturbing Links. A whole new automated source of hillarity ensues.

how many better things are there than your dad grabbing the belly dancer at his 65th birthday? 

new orleans DOES rule 

ticketmaster word of the day:

effable

\Ef"fa*ble\, a. [L. effabilis; ex out + fari to speak.] Capable of being uttered or explained; utterable.

I always thought it meant something else. oh well, my definition is better.

I decided to start the summer off right this year, so I headed north on Saturday to try and get some hiking in (thank god for Ahren's inspiration). After a web search, I arbitrarily picked Mount Morgan, a 2200 ft. whale of a mountain (like a teeny tiny whale), located in the Lakes region, about 2 hrs from Boston. 2.2 miles each way, with a Mt. Percival loop option. due to errands and a much needed haircut, i set out around 12:30, got through most of the weekend slacker traffic, and finally hit the New Hampshire border, where the mass. shittiness ends, and the pretty green forests begin.

The drive was awesome. my new car (still new cause she's got no name) is a joy to take anywhere, with the air conditioning, and the cruise control, and the radar detection, and the cd playing capabilities. trey's new CD is awesome - orchestral guyute is excellent, and the other songs are solid too.

the emerald landscape managed to erase all my remaining memories of the frigid winter, and resurrect my belief that new england is just a beautiful place to live. the drive was largely uneventful (aside from the bag of beef jerky i managed to consume). When nearing my destination, I stopped by a tourist info office to find out if there are other good trails, and where would be a decent place to camp. It is amazing how those places are always staffed by happy old ladies, who don't really know how to help you, but make you all warm inside with the knowledge that yes, your grandmother could also be this nice and happy (but she's not). she did tell me though that the hike i was about to do featured a view that is on the yearly "come visit new hampshire" magazine, so that was cool.

mt. morgan greeted me with a myriad of mosquito varieties, all just itching to get some of my sweet sweet blood. and get it they did. i quickly changed into my brand new hiking boots, covered my skin with 80% deet, and sprinted up the mountain to get away from my new friends. the heat and humidity conspired to remove first the last ounce of shame i possessed and then my shirt. time and distance melted away after about 20 minutes, so that i had no idea how long i'd been going, how much longer i had to go, or whether i was still the same person. i did discover a fellow hiker headed in the same direction as me. i started out slightly ahead of this middle-aged born again christian (my imagination started getting the best of me at this point), but every time i stopped to have a drink of water or rest, he would pass me. winning the race became an obsession for me.

the trail kept getting steeper and steeper, and the day hotter and hotter. thankfully the bloodsuckers stayed at the bottom by the lakes. the new boots initiated a conflict with my feet, which the socks simply were in no position to mediate. my clothing drenched, i was determined to beat my opponent to the top. i passed a dense spider cocoon containing thousands of flies and mosquitoes. i felt a sense of gratitude for all the hard-working spiders that kept the forest clean for me.

finally neck-in-neck, we reached the trail split. to the right, an easy .2 mile ascent. to the left, a .2 mile cliff climb. it was too hard to pass up. i gave up the easy victory for a fun challenge. scaling the cliff, squeezing through a tiny cave, to emerge on the other side to the best view i've seen all year. dozens of little lakes, dotted with islands, little houses, and boat trails. a panorama extending to all sides. i took it all in. took a picture or two. as i breathed the thin mountain air (yeah right) and looked down upon the world, my fucking cell phone started ringing. my grandfather frantically trying to reach me to understand what appointment he had in 3 weeks, clearly a very urgent matter.

the spell broken, i completed the ascent to find my foe snacking on the spoils of his victory, and greeted him with a cheerful hello. apparently we were not the only ones to reach the top, as my miniscule friends promptly set up orbits around me, and proceeded to fly into my ears, nose, mouth and shorts. my meditation was cut short by my inability to concentrate on just one bug, so i proceeded to Mt. Percival. It turned out to be no Morgan, but still a reasonable peak. It was all downhill from here.

the descent was great. the tiredness melted away as i converted all my earned potential energy. i alternated between a walk and a gallop down the steeper parts, which is one of the funnest forms of physical activity i've ever done (i clearly need to try mountain biking). it's just amazing how you can be moving way too fast for you brain to process the changing surroundings, and yet you feel your body adjust and your feet find the right places to step, avoiding all obstacles, and propelling you inexorably forward.

as i was completing the hike, it started to rain. suddenly everything smelled so great and fresh. the trees absorbed most of the rainfall, with only a few drops reaching me. the sound would tense and relax, as the rain tried to figure out how serious it was. apparently not very, cause it stopped before i even reached my car.

in the end 5 mile loop took a total of about 2.5 hours. the thunderstorm gathered, and i skipped camping in favor of my comfortable bed. driving through the thunderstorm was great. i stopped to get liquor in a rest area, at which point my radar detector told me, for the first time ever, that a train was approaching, which i could only assume was my cue to get my ass home.

new hampshire rules. who wants to go next weekend?

Courtesy of Aram: www.godhatesamerica.com. Today's headline: "The American Army is a Fag Army!" Be sure to check out the songs.

shame. getting kicked out of the hong kong on a wednesday night. how might you ask can such a thing happen? imagine yourself as a somewhat inebriated, somewhat naturally stupid person, let's call him ilya. a large man comes through the crowd and unnecessarily pushes ilya on the way. not one to be slighted, ilya gives him a nudge in the back to send him on his way. large man does not appreciate the nudge. large man also turns out to be a bouncer. ilya is asked to leave and is escorted out to the tune of the bouncer's whining about an elbow in the back. hillarity ensues.

god i am dumb sometimes.

i read a cool book - Nietzche's Genealogy of Morals. It's a collection of three essays addressing the conflict between "master" and "slave" moralities - setting up the conflict, showing how christianity and other creeds fall in the slave camp, proposing where guilt came from, discussing the role of the priests (a.k.a. the elsworth tooheys of the world), and finally lumping together science in its metaphysical reliance on the existence of truth with religion and god. the crux of the discussion is how slave morality has to deny the present in order to make people feel better and to, in turn, subjugate the masters.

One of the interesting points that came out of the book for me was the concept that the individuals that define their own morality are the ones better off than the those who attempt to follow the morals of others. even if that morality is the denial all that is "good", if you are the one implementing it, and forcing it on people to your own advantage, you are better off than the guy who accepts something as "good" because everyone else does.

obviously this is nothing new (although it is cool that Nietzsche came up with this stuff when he did), and as liberated, acid-tested, free-thinking individuals we are all busily creating our own codes for making decisions, interacting with other people, and, generally, living. So, at the risk of exposing the meagerness of my blog reader population, what are your morals and guiding principles? and to make it more interesting, where do you think they come from (family, society, your own brilliance, etc.)? i'm gonna think about mine too and save them for the next entry.

what's the point? well, i think this is an important step on the path to founding a religion. and a conversation that would be fun to have stoned and in person, if all you fuckers didn't live so far away. and it's a new opportunity for ahren to make bad jokes, which distracts him from all the hot vegas grannies.

p.s. the spell checker suggestion for "ahren" is "harem".

i was in austin yesterday, and saw the worst accident ever. it is the kind of stuff that theoretically only happens in movies. as we pulled up to our hotel, we saw a car crashed into a wall, with the whole top missing, and a truck about 20 feet away with remnants of said car fused underneath it. it seems unlikely that anyone survived. it is really sad, but what is most amazing is that the setting was just a small, mall-like drive through a strip of hotels. the fact that someone was able to reach the speed necessary to completely shear off the top of the car as they slammed into a truck, and that the driver did not see the truck in this completely open area is remarkable. i know it's not nice to speak ill of the dead (that must be a religious thing of some sort, right?), but if someone can invent a plausible explanation in which the accident was not the driver's fault, i'd love to hear it.