Rao's Famous Spaghetti Sauce - $7.99
As a frequent eater of pasta and pasta-related products, I've tried pretty much all of them. Prego and Ragu are a little bit sweeter, catering to the uncultured and uncouth "immature palettes" of those stuck in a 5-year old's rut of inability to appreciate the aesthetics of food beyond different foods on a plate not touching and things being sweet. These people were probably breast-fed for too long. But no matter. Catamites and gerbilers are fond of Prego and Ragu. One step up from these over-sweetened, under-spiced child's brines are sauces like Paul Newman and Barilla, which are (expectedly) a little bit more expensive. And then one step up from them is Emeril's line of sauces, which are roughly $5 a bottle. Very good, especially Emeril's Arabiatta (I suspect that Emeril came on the scene to create a compromise between Rao's and the lower-echelon brands -- I didn't see him and his sauces grinning at me from the shelves until fairly recently, when Rao's had been on the shelves for a while). But Rao's is one step up from that. $8 a bottle. The price screams "quality." It really does taste better. I don't know if it tastes $6 better than Ragu, since everyone puts a different value on their own aesthetics -- some put in a DVD of "La Dolce Vita" for two hours, while some flip channels between "Friends" and "The Home Shopping Network" for two hours. Fork over $8 one day and grab a bottle of Rao's Famous Spaghetti Sauce. It's only $6 extra, you cheap piece of shit; you can trim $6 from your glutinous weekly food budget -- just don't take your lunch at McDonald's one day, and voila: budget expanded in the interests of Spaghetti Sauce Quality. Truly, Rao's is something else. You have to try it to believe it. It's damn good. I've tried three varieties of Rao's Famous. Arabiatta is a spicy sauce made from red peppers, vodka sauce is a light red, creamy sauce made with vodka and ricotta cheese, and the puttanesca has various pork and sea creature products and secretions floating in it. Delicious. You owe it to your self-worth to try it, you unattractive Philistine.
Spyderco Civilian - $125 or so
This was my original Knife of Death, that I dropped on the sidewalk and that was taken by some passing person. This was the sharpest knife I'd ever seen -- while I was perfecting the art of flipping it open and closed, I cut my fingers several times on the scalpel tip as a mannishly welcome part of the learning curve. What I liked best about my Spyderco Civilian was that it looked really mean. It was serrated, and the thumb hole combined with the hooked tip made it look like the skull of some prehistoric bird of prey. The only disadvantage was that the tip was indeed paper-thin, and broke off when I'd poke random things with it. The problem with carrying a knife like this, intended solely to sever the tendons in someone's throat, is that one begins to realize that a knife is actually a very handy tool to have with you, and if the standard uses are disallowed because of the very fragile, tendon-severing tip, then eventually one becomes frustrated, pokes at something with one's spyderco civilian, and then the tip breaks off. Then, one sends the knife back to the company and claims that it broke in transit. This only worked once -- the second time I tried it, Spyderco just honed the broken tip a bit and scolded that I should be more careful. My Knife of Death, along with my Beater Pole and Pepper Spray, comprised my complete suburban arsenal, all carriable on my bike (the Beater Pole got strapped into what used to be the bicycle-mounted clip for my useless and shitty blackburn airstick). But, I lost my Knife of Death. Someday I'll buy a new one; one can get them for between $100 and $150 on froogle, depending on who's putting what on sale. But despite its lack of functionality as an accessory for Man the Toolmaker, my K.O.D. More than payed for itself in what it did for me psychologically -- namely, assured me that I would scare the shit out of someone if I pulled it in public. I want another one now. Maybe I'll buy one with my peep money, or perhaps my taking-care-of-Mrs.-White's-cats money.
Black Timberland Boots - $140 or so
When I had unlimited money in the form of surplus government school "loans" (haha), I went through a phase where I bought really nice foot-ware, because I decided that was An Important Thing to Do. I got some special bike shoes, some 1980s-style black-and-white Adidas sneakers, and some black Timberland boots. Those boots have turned out to be one of the 2 or 3 purchases over $20 that I didn't regret making, anywhere from an hour to two weeks afterward. I wore them to Paris, and even though they looked really stupid with my sweat-shorts and white socks (some of the Eurosexuals at the youth hostel commented), they were extremely comfortable. I did a huge amount of walking on that trip, and didn't get a single blister, case of athlete's foot, or ingrown toenail; my Timberlands treated my feet extremely well. They haven't even begun to fall apart yet -- the only damage they've incurred is on the back collar, where Katy chewed them a bit. Also, since they're black, I wear them if I ever need "dress shoes," perhaps in conjunction with a suit at a wedding or funeral. They're useful, comfortable, durable boots. I'd like to soak them with some waterproofing wax at some point. Also, they make me a solid 6' 5" when I wear them.
Odwalla Shakes and Juices - $3.00 to $5.00
Along with watching "Friends," Odwalla shakes are my other great shame. I realize 1. That they are a blatant effort to market "hippy" to yuppies, in the spirit of the $20,000 VW Bug, 2. That they are just another form of unnecessary calories, packaged in health-food wrappers, and 3. That any beneficial effects of all of those vitamins (even though one's body simply ignores overdoses of most vitamins and minerals, only using what it needs) can be enjoyed by simply taking vitamin pills, a bottle of which costs about as much as one Odwalla shake. But Odwalla drinks taste damned good. Even that medicinal, metallic twinge of some %2,000 percent of the RDA of riboflavin, or whatever they've spiked it with, is experienced as tasting good, probably because one thinks one is doing something beneficial for the body, similarly to how one learns to enjoy the pain of exercise. I know it's idiotic, but I like Odwalla shakes and juices. Especially Vanilla Honey Almond shake, Chocolate Boo-boo shake (or whatever), and their Carrot-Orange Juice. So good. But I don't endorse them; don't be like me -- rise above Odwalla shakes. What bothers me about Odwalla shakes isn't so much that they're not particularly good for you and only taste good. That's true of many things, including the Cadbury Fruit and Nut Chocolate Bar that I ate last night after dinner at Ricky's Rice Bowl. Odwalla shakes are marketed as being good for you. One sees this marketing, and thinks "I'll be good today and drink an Odwalla shake." Then, one is pleasantly surprised at how good something that's supposed to be good or you tastes. Then, one gets fat on Odwalla shakes.
Super Dimensional Fortress - $1.00 and up
This might very well be the best $36 I've ever spent. To give SDF a try, telnet to ol.freeshell.org and follow the instructions for creating a new account. After validation, (sending in $1) you get more stuff and the assurance that you won't be deleted, and after paying $36, you get even more stuff. There are various other levels of membership with various associated privileges (database, domain hosting, mailing lists, etc). A user like myself with a $36 membership gets webspace (with a subdomain, CGI capability and web statistics), filtered and sorted email, programming tools (various compilers), and social interaction forums (bulletin board, chat room, ytalk, send, naim, etc). Also, SDF gives users some gopher space, just to be iconoclastic and to renounce the "commercial internet," but I don't think many use it. The gopher directory is full of gopher pages that say "Here is my gopher page," etc. After I ssh (like telnet, but encrypted -- I use puTTY, as should all Windows users) into tty.freeshell.org (this will send you to a random SDF machine to better distribute the user load), I enter one of four commands: mutt (launches the email program of the same name), blog (sics a text editor on my current blog file, a variable that I change every week in my user profile), bboard (visits the bulletin board, where one can post mannishly on various topics and make annoying assertions about reality that engender debate within a few seconds), or com (launches the chat program, which serves largely as a place to play netris, a competitive, two-player version of tetris). For the first month or so of my membership at SDF, all I did was configure things (my random email quote, shell scripts that automate blogging and checking access logs, learning some particularities about SDF, just getting comfortable, etc). Also, there's local Usenet, which I played around with for a bit. And MUD. And Dopewars. Etc. But yes -- best $36 I've ever spent.
The peeps aren't going all that well. I think I'm freaking myself out by investing too much care into the pre-paint sketches. I haven't drawn anything by hand in years, and haven't drawn anything bigger than a class notebook doodle in even more years. It feels strange to touch a paper, pencil and drawing board again. If they turn out too badly, I won't feel right about exchanging them for money, and will flee the country instead.
I've thought more about my problem of loneliness versus my inability to interact with others. Interacting is difficult and awkward, but I get 'lonely' if I don't do it (it's almost a physical sensation -- hard to describe). Social activity is a means to an end. It's like eating with a rotten tooth -- incredibly painful, but you have to do it if you want to be satiated. Really, god damn this need for human interaction, human contact, and human company. It's the bane of my existence.
I took a nap today. It felt good. Here's what I want.
That's where things break down. I really don't know where I want to work. In an ideal world, I'd work part time with friendly, intelligent people in a well-lit office, independently on abstract problems, preferably ones that are creative as opposed to algorithmic in nature. But I can do algorithmic too -- see? I'm just an all-around employable creature. But there has to be, by definition, an element of creativity to problem solving. If you solve problems strictly by algorithm and pattern recognition, then I'd posit that it's not really 'you' that's solving the problem, but rather the rule-book. Do you like my most recent dualism? Creativity versus algorithms? I'm incorrigible.
I'm going to look for one of those email surveys to fill out here, because I'm running out of shit to say in my blog. Depressing. Oh well -- if you don't like it, don't read it. Haha. Loser. I'm a little worried that I'm running out of energy on this blog project. Maybe I need a format change -- poems from now on?
I'm not sure what makes my blog different from any other blog. They're all just solipsistic rants. Maybe it's time for a (gasp) indefinite break from blogging, yet again. Or, maybe I don't have to write every day. But it's helpful and good to write every day, and I may as well do it in a way that can be 'enjoyed' by others. I think I'll start writing porn stories -- that'll grab some traffic. I remember reading someone's rant against bloggers. One of the things he mentioned was that bloggers too often tend to 'metablog,' or blog about blogging. Also, depressive whining is hardly anything new in the blogosphere. Neither are poems. Nor politics. You don't see too much philosophy or spiritual stuff, so I have a leg up in that department. What's left? Product reviews? Short fiction? Plans for world domination?
My next three blogs, right there.
I went to HIRSS today and took some tests. I'm going back next week for more tests. In the meantime, I continue to not have a job.
Actually, that's not entirely true. My old manager at the UMBC bookstore is comissioning me to make a series of four drawings of marshmallow peeps.
I'll post the correspondance, and my initial sketches.
Amsterhiho (5:12:48 PM): deadbarnacle have you ever had a commission?
me (5:12:56 PM): hi ed
me (5:12:58 PM): no, I never have
amsterhiho (5:13:09 PM): How would you like to have one?
me (5:13:15 PM): describe it
amsterhiho (5:14:29 PM): It would not be for very much but you could at least say that you had one. I would like you to do a color drawing (in the spirit of easter) of Peeps.
me (5:14:41 PM): who's peeps?
amsterhiho (5:15:16 PM): The marshmellow candies of chickens, bunnies etc.
me (5:15:21 PM): ah...hehe
me (5:15:23 PM): interesting
amsterhiho (5:16:11 PM): I would like a drawing that I could frame that would be at least 8*10 and signed and dated by you.
me (5:16:22 PM): of peeps, eh?
me (5:16:27 PM): how many peeps?
me (5:16:30 PM): doing what? Etc
amsterhiho (5:17:14 PM): Of peeps Yah. Go to the Giant and look at their display of peeps and do something interesting. I'll pay you $100.
me (5:17:21 PM): wow
me (5:17:23 PM): ok
me (5:17:24 PM): hehe
me (5:17:39 PM): I can bring it to the bookstore one day
me (5:17:46 PM): is there a timeframe here?
amsterhiho (5:17:49 PM): To the Giant tally ho!!
amsterhiho (5:18:16 PM): When you do the work I'll pay you the $100.
me (5:18:20 PM): ok
me (5:18:27 PM): interesting
me (5:18:29 PM): :)
me (5:18:36 PM): ill put something together
Shortly after this conversation, I sketched my first peep on MS paint.
Then I added a second peep.
Finally, I added a background.
Ed's response was lukewarm.
so, I responded with the quintessential easter peep -- rising from the grave. The holy peep resurrection. It doesn't get much more easter-themed than that.Matt,
Before you settle in on one train of thought or idea for this work. Please go to the Giant and look at their display of Peeps. Peeps are more then just baby chickens, there are also bunnies and they both come in several day glow colors (yellow, pink, blue). You have to look at the display to get your inspiration. In the spirit of Easter think of this as the Passion of Kitsch.Good Luck,
Ed
Matt,
The Nuclear Destruction theme and violence/blood theme freak me out, however I do like your cartoons. My wife suggested maybe a cosmic theme. What ever we decide on the one thing that I do not want to do is compromise your creative nature.
Ed
At this point, I went nuts and sketched three additional peeps scenarios.
Surrealist peeps.
Extra-dimensional mathematical space peeps.
Field peeps.
Ed liked these three, and a modified easter peep (with a speech bubble containing something that doesn't involve blood). So, I'm working on a series of 4 peeps drawings. They're going to be watercolor and sharpie on watercolor paper. I have high hopes, and will take some digital photos of them before I deliver the final products. Today, I went out and bought watercolor paper. I actually have two sets of watercolors, so that shouldn't be a problem. If it turns out they've aged badly, I'll get some more. I'm kind of excited, actually -- I've done nothing but computer art for the past few years (not including classtime doodles).
me (10:35:34 PM): so 4 peeps -- medium of my choice -- at least 8x10 -- and include RIP peep, but take out the blood part
amsterhiho (10:36:17 PM): Yes, but you may want to think of some new but edgy dialogue.
me (10:36:22 PM): ok
me (10:36:33 PM): ill get to work the day after tomorrow
me (10:36:40 PM): have things going on tomorrow
me (10:36:44 PM): but ill keep you abreast
amsterhiho (10:36:47 PM): Run it by me.
me (10:36:50 PM): expect 1-2 weeks
me (10:36:54 PM): or less
me (10:36:55 PM): depending
me (10:37:00 PM): thats a maximun
me (10:37:08 PM): depends on when I can go out and get supplies
amsterhiho (10:37:08 PM): Just fine.
me (10:37:09 PM): sketches
me (10:37:10 PM): etc
me (10:37:18 PM): I can send you sketches
me (10:37:20 PM): as I do them
amsterhiho (10:37:34 PM): You will do a good job, send me sketches.
Stranger things have happened, I'm sure. Peeps.
I did all of the things I said I'd do yesterday. I woke up, got on the computer, rode to ricky's rice bowl at noon, looked around in borders for a bit, and then got home at 3:30 or so. I took a long nap on the couch until 6:00, when my mom came home. I went for another bike ride, this time around the lake (29 minutes). My mom watched her shows, but Star Trek wasn't on tonight, so we watched american idol for a bit. When she went upstairs, she turned off the TV for me.
Wow, it's actually amazingly late. Daylight savings is messing with my head.
I think the secret to life is sleep, food and exercise, all executed thoughtfully. I eat pretty well, considering. I hardly eat any sugar, and not very much in total, generally. I have my five staple items (hash browns, frozen burritos, rotini with sauce and parmesan, scrambled eggs, and black beans and rice with olive oil), supplemented with occasional trips to ricky's rice bowl for peanut chicken and vegetables on rice. Sometimes, I remember to take vitamins. I think I'll take one now, in fact. Taken. So, I eat quite well, I think. And best of all, I generally don't spend more than $30 a week on groceries, having sought out the five cheapest grocery items on the shelves. Well, there's rice, but I wouldn't know what to put on it. I don't eat very much, either; usually just two meals a day. Sometimes three.
I'm the master of sleeping. Every evening, I go to bed at 11-12, and get up from 7-8 the next morning. Actually, I'm in a bit of a hurry to finish this entry to I can go to bed.
I ride my bike a lot, too. And not just casually, either -- I really do race around the lake as fast as I can, and have to collapse in heart-attack mode on the grass for a few minutes afterwards. I think in general I'm pretty healthy, even if I am very fat. I heard that it's OK to be fat if one is active, but I'm sure it's not helpful to my organs to have that shit hanging off of them, nor to my heart and blood vessels to have to entwine around my fatty deposits, nor to my knees and back. I do better than some people, though.
Tomorrow, I go to HIRRS.
We'll see how that goes, yes? I printed out all of my various 'cover letters,' which are kind of funny to look at as a group.
Things are getting bad. I'm not sure how much longer I can go on like this. Ana is dependent on her mother (reasonably so, she being a 19 year-old college freshman), and it's doubtful that we'll be able to have a normal relationship until she graduates from college, and I'm 32 or 33. I wonder if I'll be out of my mother's house by then.
Every day is exactly like the next. I wake up at 7:30am, go downstairs, and get on the computer. I go for a bike ride, either around the lake, to a restaurant, to the grocery store, to alpesh's house, or some combination. Actually, I don't go to pesh's house all that often. But sometimes. I get home in the early afternoon sometime, and get back on the computer. My mom gets home, greets me, and she watches evening TV on the couch while I stay on the computer. After she goes to bed around 8 or 9pm, I watch Star Trek, and maybe something else if there's a movie on. Then, I get back on the computer. Finally, I go to bed around 11 or 12. The hardest thing is the social isolation. I have a difficulty being around people, but at the same time I have difficulty being alone because if my idiot implanted need for human company. I hate that people are gregarious creatures by nature -- pack animals -- and that I'm one of them.
I often remark that I hate people, but I think a more accurate statement would be that I hate myself for needing people. It's base, uncouth and pathetic.
If I could have two wishes, they would be to eliminate emotion and the need for human contact. If I had a third, it would be for a quick end.
I've been incredibly bored lately. Strangely, this is a recent phenomenon. I was always able to entertain myself entirely with a computer, by blogging, programming, drawing, making web pages, and reading other people's web pages. But all of this has been unfulfilling lately.
Wednesday, I go in for vocational counseling/training/testing/bullshit. The fact is that I just don't care -- I don't want a job, and I'd rather die than work.
I have the notion that my human interaction engines are quite screwed up. I should ask people I know if they think I exhibit strange social behavior. If another person looks at me, I don't know what I should do. I'm confused as the whether I should attack them, smile, say 'hello,' or start reciting h.p. Lovecraft. I wonder sometimes if I might be borderline autistic. When I was in college, I had no friends at all. Actually, come to think of it, I haven't had many functional friends since my brain injury -- most have moved away. I don't really do anything with anybody, largely because I wouldn't be sure what to do. I sometimes think that, in a very fundamental way, I don't understand social activity; its purpose, rules or dynamics.
I shouldn't force myself to learn to program, since that industry isn't doing well at all. What do people do if they don't do computers? Manage restaurants? Are there 260,000,000 restaurant managers out there? How do people get jobs? It seems like all the jobs in the gaithersburg gazette are for administrative assistants. How many administrative assistants can there be? It's very strange. I suspect that there's a secret newspaper being published for the elite that has all of the real jobs in it.
Tomorrow, I'll look forward to riding my bike out to ricky's rice bowl to get a medium peanut chicken bowl. Maybe I'll go into borders and read in the humor section for a while. Maybe I'll even ride around the lake. I got my time around the lake down to 28 minutes last week, but because it's been so rainy I haven't been doing that for the past four days or so. Today, I rode around the lake, and did it in 32 minutes. It was also a lot more difficult than it was only a few days ago. It's funny how exercise really needs to be kept up obsessively or else it gets unpleasantly difficult. Unfortunately, keeping it up obsessively is unpleasant in itself. So, exercise is doomed to be unpleasant.
I feel like there isn't much in gaithersburg, but I'm afraid that I'm going to find the rest of the world to be almost exactly the same: cars, strip malls, little patches of trees, people wearing clothes, standing upright, and sneaking little glances at you as you pass, and acre after acre of parking lot. I don't think it deviates much from this.
It's funny how things work out. Everyone always assumed that I'd go far, I think. I'm really pretty talented, in a way.
Well, last week's mac art blog is over. I think this week I'll not supplement the blog with any images, but just fill it with brutal philosophical content. Unfortunately, my mind is going completely blank. Last night I had another too-short night of sleep. My eyes are dry, I feel all shivery, and my brain isn't working quite right, even with bach on in the background (which helps).
I feel like I'm becoming too wrapped up in the SDF community, and that it's not healthy. Maybe no com (electronic chat-room) or bboard (electronic bulletin board) for a while. Particularly, there's one person who has decided that she hates me (to the point where she yells at me to leave whenever she sees me in the same 'room' as her), so that sort of makes use of SDF's social facilities unpleasant. I think she dislikes me because I was somewhat condescending a few times, but I really can't say for sure. I think she might just be mentally ill. Also, there was the issue of she inflating her netris scores by only electing to play weaker players and the ensuing gossip, a lot of which I instigated. See? This shit is just sick, a derrida-esque simulacrum of the worst kind. Tres postmoderne. Interacting with other humans isn't always what it's cracked up to be. Anyway, I think I'll take a break from interaction on SDF, but I'm sort of addicted.
Ana has a similar problem with palace, a visual chat in which 'avatars' (representing the user) 'move' around in 'rooms' and 'talk' to one another. It's similar to a graphical MUD (multi user dungeon, a relic of the very early net). She's addicted to palace, and I'm addicted to SDF. And, similarly to me, she's encountered social problems in her virtual world that have upset her more than what one would suspect some changing pixels on a screen of being capable.
What is it about these virtual realities, clearly preludes to madness, that are so enthralling? Surprise, here are my theories: 1. They are algorithmic, finite and controllable. They obey a very particular, limited and readily learnable rule-set that engenders successful interaction and easy moving about in the virtual world. This is in contrast with real life, for which no one has yet written a cogent and comprehensive instruction manual. This control manifests in different ways. For instance, if you don't like someone in virtual reality, you can simply 'ignore' or 'block' them (unless you want to hear what they're saying about you, haha), and they effectively disappear. Digital simulacra offer a degree of control not found in the 'real' world. 2. One can present one's self any way one wants to, assume any personality, gender, appearance, etc. Even if this is not blatant (for instance, a 50 year old city bus driver pretending to be a 12 year old field hocky player named 'trixie'), anyone caught in a digital simulacrum will subconsciously (and perhaps consciously) alter their presentation of 'self.' for instance, the pictures of myself that I make available on my website are of Thin Matt, and I'm not in a rush to replace them with more current representations, partly because I simply don't have many pictures of Fat Matt, but mainly because I don't want any pictures of Fat Matt. Not only can self be altered, but it can be selectively presented; parts or traits of deadbarnacle I don't want to show off aren't forced into the limelight, as they are in real life. Involuntary reactions like facial expressions and body language are under control, as is not being able to think of the right thing to say and consequently blurting out something dumb to fill conversational space. 3. Unlike real life, you can turn these virtual worlds off.
So, to sum up: people like (i like) VR worlds because of control of environment, control of presentation of self, and the off button. I've noticed that a number of computer addicts are control freaks, wont to yell at their computer if it does something they didn't expect it to do (but which they did, in fact, tell it to do).
My life constitutes abstractions and (sorry to keep using this word) simulacra. Right now, I'm listening to a digital recording of some computer synthesized music, controlled by a graphical interface on the screen. I had a dream recently about ana passing me over text messaging software a link to an article about something that was in itself a representation of reality. That's four layers of abstraction -- five if you count this blog (1. Writing about a 2. Dream in which ana passed to me over 3. Text messaging software a link to an article 4. About parents who 5. Pretend to flush their children's heads down the toilet).
And now I have a memory of just now writing about the 5-level abstraction, so memory adds a 6th layer.
Even when I do something as 'real' as ride my bike around the lake, the only thing I have are memories of it. What is 'experience' other than memory? The only thing that can ever be is the present, an infinitely small point of time. Every experience in my mind is a memory -- a simulacrum. So none of this exists. Everything is a ghost, a figment, an imagination. What is real? What is the matrix? Haha.
So, turn off the tv, turn off the computer, turn off the playstation, turn off the radio, and live completely in the moment, never thinking about the past or future, which don't exist, and which in fact constitute all of imagined 'reality' (which is by definition the only reality 'knowable' to us). Easier said than done, no?
I live in a dream world. What does it mean to go 'crazy'? Define your terms, and admit that your definitions will never match those of any other. Meaning is supposedly agreed upon, but it's really not. For instance, 'green.' does everyone agree what 'green' means? How do I know that what I experience as a 'green' quality of something is the same experience you have? 'green' can be measured in terms of electron wavelength, but this just assigns abstractions of sounds, pictures and numbers to 'green,' and doesn't clarify its experiential nature. Maybe I could have said 'phenomenological nature,' but I have some scruples.
Really, I'm too tired and got too little sleep to be talking about this baudrillard-derrida-berkeley (bdb) crap. Or maybe this is the best time to talk about such crap -- when one's brain isn't quite screwed on right.
Eventually, if one gets to know language well enough, one starts encountering that place where thought becomes language, and expanding language to the great complexity needed to mirror as closely as possible the infinite complexity of the mind. A mastery of language becomes a mastery of thought. I think this is what derrida did, and what some of those other french people did. Haha, french people.