Recently in pith Category

i've seen posters of obama photoshopped to look like hitler. well, let me tell you, obama is no hitler.

he has czars. no self respecting fuhrer would appoint czars.

HOW TO PROGRAM IN JAVA:

step 1: for problem X, think of how to solve problem X in a sensible language, like Python or Ruby
optional step 1a: implement solution in Python or Ruby
step 2: Ask self: how would a self-loathing anal retentive masochistic fascist with lots and lots of disk space approach this problem?
step 3: write down answer to step 2
step 4: compile and run your java code.

i used to envision the blog as a place to record my most brilliant and pertinent thoughts, a non-wetware storage for all the brilliant brain droppings that i could save before they got flushed away into the sewer of my ADD.

lately my blogging has been under assault by the twit-like allure of facebook statuses, which compel me to arrive at witty (or not) self-absorbed one-liners instead of page after page of rambling self-absorbed bloviation (which firefox claims is not a word, but is nonetheless). and, were that not enough, lately the very brilliance itself of my random thoughts has come under question, by, ironically, the very same random thoughts. oh, the pain of thinking i'm not as clever as i am, or at least, if i am, the sad suspicion that that cleverness has netted me not much after all. also, this gorram cold i've got won't go away and is really dragging me down. but that's life, so i can't hold it against, uh, it.

but anyhow: i thought a thought today which i figured was both somewhat clever and somewhat reassuring. it goes a little something like this:

remember the future? remember how it was all bright and happy and you were looking forward to it and couldn't wait until it arrived? and then, remember how suddenly the future turned all grim and stuff and now the future more or less sucks and you're really kind of not looking forward to it all so much anymore?

well, depending on your understanding (or perception) of the nature of time, it's still the same old future. unless your idea of the future was the first three months of 2009, the future is still ahead of us, and it hasn't changed any since when you thought it was super duper, the only thing that's changed is your imagining of it.

and of course, by "you" i mean "me" and all that. the cheery part of this fabulous epiphany is that the grimness of the now-future is just as much an illusion as the golden rainbows of the then-future. unless your future horizon is very, very near, your view of the future is likely very wrong.

"jared would like that one," i said, as i emerged from the crapper. i waited for the inevitable question...

"jared?" asked hops.

"it was a footlong!" i explained.

now they're Designer Jeans.

Helooooo resale value!

after i got thru the parrot hills, my heart rate refused to go much past 130bpm. that was good. or bad. i must be training right, i thought. or, i'm overtrained. it could actually be either one. i didn't pat myself much on the back, i think it's probably the latter.

then, after about mile 45, the heart said "wtf, not done yet? fu!" and wouldn't go much below 150 even when coasting. yup, overtrained. bleh.

if john mccain is such a maverick, you know, so very "independent", why isn't he running as... wait for it...

an independent?

this is weird.

really weird. really really weird. i'm a bit weirded out.

loneliness and i are old friends. it's not that we like each other, it's not that we enjoy each other. no, but we're comfortable with each other. we let our hair down in the presence of each other, we let it all hang out. we quickly groove into old routines, old habits, like a well used machine that's just returned from the shop and is eager to once again perform its old function, move along its old and well-established, well-known orbit.

no, i don't especially like being alone, but i've had so much practice at it that i've built up whole frameworks of Dealing With It, which I had thought I could discard like outgrown underpants, but, like outgrown underpants, I kept locked in drawer for no particularly good or recognized reason, until one day, unexpectedly, I had reason to put them on again and find out that they fit just fine, after all, and weren't as worn out and stained as I'd seemed to remember them.

In the movie "Heat," which I almost watched this evening, but didn't, because I found the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" first, the De Niro character says, "I am alone, I am not lonely." It's clear from his acting (man, that guy can act, can't he?) that he's lying. And yet, he's not. His personal code of conduct keeps him perpetually alone, and, like me, his aloneness permeates his life to the point where he's become as comfortable with it as he is with his own skin. Comfortable is not the same as beloved, of course, and this is brilliantly portrayed in his simple statement.

Thinking thoughts is what I do best, and writing about them brings out more thoughts, and clarifies the ones that I've already managed to have, such as they may be. But now is not the time for writing, though I think the topic is important. Now is the time for bed, and the thoughts will have to remain void and unformed, a universe of realization unrealized, an analyzed reality unrecorded, until I once again have the right balance of sorrow, time, and rye to scale my walls and record how i really feel, for all the giant load of usefulness that brings.

this is posted outside my cubicle at work. (i confess, i stole a copy from one of my neighbors. shame on me!)

the note invariably gets a huge laugh from everyone who reads it.

i wish i had that kind of comedic gift.