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Apparently there are html pages online consisting of every practical word in the english language.
I have a bit of a cold -- just some sneezing, and a little sore throat. It's pretty much better, especially after napping all morning, and my trip plans are intact. I wrote the vipassana registration committee an idiotic email asking if shorts were "absolutely forbidden," when it was clearly stated in at least two places that shorts were forbidden. I don't know what's wrong with me sometimes.
I decided that I don't need half the crap I had decided to go out and buy. A good way to smartly analyze excessive vacation baggage is to consider each item and think to yourself, "what would happen if I forgot this at home?" much of the time, the answer is "not much." I applied this algorithm to my "to buy" list, and it shrunk by about two thirds.
However, I do still "need" a prepaid cell phone, unscented deoderant (this is specified), and some audio tapes so as to record onto them two thousand mp3s. Actually, more like fifty. But this illustrates how nice an ipod (or ipod-like device) would be, coupled with one of those car cassette tape deck adapters.
There are other portable, less-expensive, large capacity (+20 gig) mp3 players on the market, which will keep coming down in price. I'd be more inclined (and able) to buy one if it didn't cost $400, obviously. This sort of device is hardly a novel idea. It's just that apple has a marketing department of unparalleled genius.
A second reason I don't want to buy an ipod is that I refuse to join the yuppie masses, salivating and lusting after an them in unison. There isn't any immediate danger of my suddenly becoming "young," "urban" or "professional," so perhaps it's a moot point. However, emulating one of the teeming hord of young urbanite hipsters is something I actively seek to avoid.
The only difference between today's yuppies and the yuppies of the 80s is that today's brand is less honest with himself; he pretends to hate his own shallowness and materialism and vote green (or even democrat), while the 80s yuppie proudly embraced it and voted republican.
I suppose selfishness vs. Compassion is the distinction -- at least according to credo, modern-day yuppies care about the environment, poor people, etc, while 80s yuppies proudly didn't give a shit about anyone but themselves. The problem is that their actions achieve, or at least support, the same ends.
The term "yuppy" still applies to both, by definition. I'm skeptical as to how much of the modern yuppy's altruism constitutes an affected "liberal" superiority complex, and how much comes from genuine compassion. Probably a bit of both. This is my principle criticism of american liberalism, or rather "the american left." the real kicker is that most of these people have incomes above the median, and if their wealth were redistributed it might curb their ability to purchase ipods.
It's not so much the ideas of liberalism that I'm against -- who isn't for the environment? Who isn't for feeding the hungry? Who isn't for peace? It's just the culture of the left, and the fact that they tend to enjoy the lifestyle that's been afforded to them by a conservative marketplace, in the usa's both foreign and domestic policy. One can argue that their goal is an equitable society, and until that's in place they're going to buy ipods (or maybe an equitable society means "ipods for all").
I think it's the attitude of superiority that gets me most. If most of them weren't such collosal assholes, I would be more inclined to embrace that policy. As it is, I'm ashamed to call myself a liberal, democrat, lefty, green, etc, even though that might be an accurate description of my convictions, because the culture is so repulsive to me. It's a shame, really.
Their acts don't match their idealism, but I guess this is old news.
Many (most?) of them might agree with me, and tell me that their politics "don't fit into a category, man." this is largely bullshit. Everything can fit into a category, even though some things fit better than others. Urbanite young assholes fit into the category of "liberal" pretty well, I think. Second of all, ok, sure, your politics and your acts aren't identical to my stereotype. This is true. But you can't talk about anything without stereotypes, otherwise known as categories or names. Everytime we give something a designation, we're applying a stereotype.
Call that thing in front of me a "guitar." does this imply that it shares identical properties with all other things I call "guitars"? Of course not. They're different colors, some are electric, some are acoustic, nylon string, steel string, etc. But it's useful to create the name, or category, or stereotype of "guitar" and do some lumping, just so we can talk about it and deal with it.
Maybe there are two or three urbanite young hipsters who support the war in iraq, drilling in alaskan national parks, and exterminating the homeless, who don't politically self-identify as "liberal."
Even though there's a massive, overwhelming correlation betweeen espousing green politics and running around going to nightclubs with your ipod, this doesn't mean one has to have anything to do with the other, when it comes to everyone else. Of course, doing that would imply not being a social conservative (there are gay people at such clubs), which is sort of part of the whole "conservative" mindset. But I tend to think of that as irrelevant -- people against gay marriage, homosexuality, or evolution are just insane, and not worthy of serious consideration. But there's some room for discussion on economics, where opinions and attitudes tend to gravitate to extremes on either side.
Is there ever a place for any degree of social conservatism? What would the total absence of it mean? I'm not sure.
I've known several self-identifying libertarians who make a big deal out of explaining how they're above the american liberal-conservative dichotomy because they don't mind gays running around, and yet they're all in favor of the free market. Woo! Congratulations! However did you manage to transcend human thought like that, and achieve a new plane of intellectual existence?
If you think intelligent design is a load of crap and you don't want to give all of your money away to feed joe crackhead in the alley there, that doesn't make you superintelligent. Pollitical dualism is only a little bit stupider than drawing a quadrant over socially and econmically conservative and liberal. Even if people can lie anywhere on that quadrant, I still tend to think it's oversimplification. But then I'm contradicting myself, because I talk about how reductionism is necessary (names, stereotypes, categories) to talk about or do anything. But both situation don't fit preciscely into one rule, or name or category. Ha!
Maybe my whole problem is that I'm defining "liberal" by who tends to espouse this point of view, and those people tend to be objectionable to me. Just a meaningless correlation, that shouldn't affect my own convictions. If some prick with emo glasses asks me if I'm liberal, I'm going to say "fuck you, no" just because he annoys me so much.
I like conservatives, even though I don't agree with them, because they're so unconvuluted -- it's hard to argue with a self-interested person who espouses self-interest. On the other hand, it's hard to take seriously a self-interested person who espouses giving all of their stuff away to distribute to the masses, when I'd hear some serous yelling if I were to steal his ipod.
I think I just hate urbanite, educated, hip youngsters, and most of them happen to be liberals. But then I think of the real reasons they are liberals ("it makes me appear smart" and "it makes me appear to be the good guy"), and I just cringe, so I'm inclined to reject liberalism. But I think I need to rise above this correlation, and ignore those idiots. I admit to myself that I don't want my wealth redistributed, and at the same time I don't want people to go hungry. There's nothing preventing an individual from redistributing his own wealth, though.
New idea: the only people who should be taken seriously are younger conservatives and older liberals. It's pretty normal to be idealistic when you're younger, and practical when you're older. Par for the course, even. But younger conservatives and older liberals have thought the matter through.
I've known conservatives who tell me they've given to charity, which is iffy (what charities? How much in terms of percentage?), but it's a nice idea -- they say "i don't need the government telling me how and where I give money." this makes sense, except that I'm not sure anyone does a great job of it if they administer it themselves, as in "does the greatest good for the most people."
I don't know too many liberals who give away everything they have, and then keep working hard to make more, so as to give that away, too. It's a tough conundrum, and I guess the solution, as always, lies in the middle somewhere. Nothing dramatic -- just help people while retaining some self interest, and avoid living in brooklyn with an ipod and other manifestation of an egomaniacal superiority complex.
I think I made a cool map to the meditation center. I printed it out. Drawing maps even remotely to scale is for the fundamentally uncreative.
The area along I-95, between and including baltimore and new york city, is hell. Hell might extend above new york, but I've never been there, so I don't know. I've rolled along hell's path many times in my dark past, usually to visit "the ice-queen," otherwise known as "xgf#4," so I could enjoy her frigid company while she smoked pot and didn't change her facial expression for days at a time.
Anyway, close to the path the flames are the ugliest and the hottest; concrete, factories, toll-booths, rest-stops, billboards, delapidated buildings, cars, filth, grime, grit, soot and evil, for hundreds of miles.
There must not be many drives across this country that are as ugly. Skipping i-95, and going through pennsylvania and upstate new york instead, would tack on two hours and a few dollars in gas to "mission: vipassana." so, I hold my breath, and gasp at the scalding, sulphuric fumes that linger and mist over the road through hell.
I might decide that the additional two hours is worth it. Yeah, I think I'll do that:
I sometimes wonder if people think I occupy my time in strange ways. I remember it puzzling someone when I devoted an entire illustrated blog to correct automobile side mirror-adjustment. These maps to shelburne, MA, are a similar thing -- my autistic side coming out (obsession with and enjoyment of maps and diagrams). But also, I just like to draw nice-looking things. And, of course, they're useful, even though they wouldn't have to be so aesthetic in order to be useful. They serve many purposes. They have many names.
Wall-socket porn:
I want my cable modem back. This router sucks. I hate it. I can't even serve a webcam.
It is a special day today: my blog's 100th birthday. Well, not really. But today I start the 100th page. Maybe it's time to stop now.
There have certainly been signs -- for one thing, I can no longer host my domain at home. I got a wireless router, which appears to the outside internet to have a different IP address than my actual computer. However, the DDNS service that I use to direct my domain to my IP address sees the IP address of my actual computer, and so does any DDNS client I run to update my IP automatically with afraid.org (my DDNS service).
So, no more hosting of my domain here. A temporary solution is to stick it in a folder in my SDF webspace, and redirect my domain there as a temporary (permanent?) solution. I looked into $1 hosting, and that might be a nice idea. I don't know how reliable it is, though -- I've heard some ugly stories.
On top of this, FTP on SDF is broken -- in order to update, I have to paste my new blog text right into my unix shell. Pain in the butt. Oh well; it was nice to have a local server for a while, but now those halcyon days are over, it seems, unless there's some brilliant solution to the router-IP address problem that I'll come upon. Maybe I'll just say "screw it" and have comcast change it out for the old modem, and get a wireless router if and when the time comes. That would make more sense, come to think of it.
The reason the cable modem was replaced with a wireless router was to get my 1999 imac upstairs hooked up to the internet. It didn't work. But, now we're wireless enabled, for some reason.
The 11th draws near, when I take off for shelburne, massachusetts for the vipassana meditation retreat. Long drive (8 hours with no stopping and slight speeding -- in reality, more like 9).
Anyway, I'd like to post a cake of some kind to celebrate this centennial of sorts, but, as I said, ftp is down. So, I'll settle for an ASCII image. My blog's actual, yearly birth-date is celebrated with a cupcake with candles on it.
For it's quasi-centennial, since it's such a momentous occasion and happens every 2.3 years (based on one cycle), I'll do a chocolate cream pie, with a candle, which is a little weird, but I aim to please; also, this particular pie has a funny little crust-island in which the candle can sit without sinking into the chocolate cream-bog. I'll email an image to myself, because my blog would be disappointed by an ASCII-pie.
I think I'm getting weirder.