March 13th thru the 19th, 2005

Sunday March 13th, 2005

Monday March 14th, 2005, Pi Day (3.14)

Who Wants to Talk Philosophy?
Okay here is what I thought of as I was falling asleep. I was thinking about The Bible and how I don't cotton to much of what Christians do since they always go back to this book. It's just a book, and while they claim it's God-inspired (or even written) that's only because the book itself says such things. They trust it because they were taught to, by people who were taught to, who themselves where taught by such people, and so on, back to some authority who more or less TOLD them to respect it.

Now many of you have heard me rant about this before. I am not, however, going to address that intrinsic spirituality or the futility of authority or even the fallacy of cause-and-effect. I mean, I will some other time, but not right here and now.

No, I want to talk about how I don't trust this book because more or less I don't trust any book, and I have come to this seat of distrust thanks to my having, to a degree, studied books. It's this part: "to a degree" that I want to get at. I have not dedicated my entire life and every waking moment to books, but I think I may have dedicated more time to it than most. Is this enough? How specific does a person have to get in a subject to be able to have an expertise?

Here's an experiment. Have a friend draw on a piece of paper "an animal" such that one recognizes that it is an animal, but not what sort of animal. Considering the hierarchy of taxonomy, how specific does one need to be to draw "an animal"? (What does "sort" mean in this context?) There is kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. If your friend draws what is obviously a doglike creature, she has gotten as specific as a "family," which is fairly specific (we know that it is either a wolf, coyote or dog: has hair, produces milk, and possesses a backbone). Perhaps your friend manages a vague four-legged thing. This is still specific as being in the phylum Chordata. (And at this point I would normally start to talk about contexts: that the only thing that makes it an animal is that in the context of plants, fungi, protisti, and monerads, everything else is an animal. But how do you draw that? Go talk to Derrida or Saussure).

The point is, one DOES need to descend the levels of specificity somewhat in order to have enough understanding... but how much? I have read enough books to know how words work, haven't I? I have not read every book, nor read on every subject, nor most of any subject, or from any era... but I have read enough, I think, to say I "get it" on the subject of words. And I know what words and books can do. And I think I know what the can't do. Since I don't trust words, since I understand them enough to know they are (in my opinion) meaningless, I feel that The Bible is not an authority and therefore all actions it alone inspires are pointless. Vindictives on homosexuality, premarital sex, culinary choices, modes of dress and conduct-- these are all predicated on believing a tome that is nothing more than arbitrary.

The short version-- I think I have read and studied words enough to be able to say The Bible is no more important than any other book, including ones that are 100% in contradiction to it. Therefore, I consider all (social) arguments based on its contents tautological at best and in this way pointless.

Epilogue: This is also my castigation against claims of greatness in Shakespeare and some of the other old masters they tell us are brilliant-- they have based modern rubrics for judgment on those works themselves, and so of course such works are considered great (or even holy). BUT, if a person finds great pleasure or solace in The Bible or Shakespeare, why not say its because the reader has brought something from within to the experience, rather than insist that the book must be, intrinsically, superior or perfect? The irony is that insisting that the work is perfect-unto-itself acts to pass judgment on this who do NOT find it inspirational. And I think I have studied life enough to be able to say that nothing is perfect if it warrants examination at all-- perfection is invisible.

Tuesday March 15th, 2005, The Ides of March; Persian New Year

I went to the gym and worked out for half and hour while listening to Finger Eleven and Allister. Then I came home and did lots of laundry. Then in the afternoon I was a bit bored so I went to the bowling alley and ate a cheeseburger. Then I bowled 6 games for $6 thanks to a coupon. I bowled a 141, 203, 116, 149, 171, and 126. On that 116 I got 4 splits in a row, and on that 126 I think I was just tired. Then I went to the gym again and listend to Tool. Then I came home and cleaned myself up and then I went to the weekly coffee night. Then I went to Quiznos and then I came home and then I watched 2 episodes of Angel and then I went to sleep, on the couch.

Screw you, Dr. Evilplans.

Wednesday March 16th, 2005

Ye olde DVDs
I watched The Slums of Beverly Hills, a movie I have been meaning to see for about ever, since I think Natasha Lyonne is awesome. It was an okay movie. Let me ask you this: If a movie starts, the very first seen, with a single dad taking his only daughter to buy her very first bra, ever, can this be anything but a coming-of-age movie? And everyone knows I hate that sorta thing. But, hey, there's a scene where Natasha and Morisa Tomei (the sophisticate's Alyssa Milano) are tossing a vibrator back and forth while dancing, so I shall not complain. So there you go. Hooray for Netflix. I also watched the first two of three episodes of Nova's The Elegant Universe but I won't complain about how awful it was until I finish watching the third episode tomorrow.

Good Food
In the evening some of us went to the Yarrow Bay Grill in Kirkland. It always cracks me up when $$$ restaurants call themselves "grills." Anyway, part of the 25 for 25 thing going on now, like last week. I had curry crab cakes, the duck, and a dessert called Chocolate Chocolate Bang Bang-- not too bad. The food was good, I suppose, but the place was a bit hoity-toity for my tastes, but maybe that's just Kirkland.

Thursday March 17th, 2005, St Patrick's Day It's Almost Noon I went to the Bally's in Lynwood to check it out and see what the racquetball situation is. The have some kinda damn league that plays there from six to nine. Grrr. Then I came home to a conference call and the last episode of The Elegant Universe. I thought the book was crap, but I hoped this version would be more lucid. No. It was like 3 hours of introduction-style talking. I mean I feel like I have read the first 10 pages of the book over and over again. Basically, it all comes down to a problem physicists have, getting theories of gravity to work with theories of the other natural forces. String Theory might do it-- but it might not, and it's not testable right now. We don't even have the math to find out if it will ever be testable. How long did it take me to tell you that? A few seconds? Well after three hours, a bunch of repeatition of the above, and some super-slick graphics, that's all I've got. Meh. I'm going bowling. I Didn't Go Bowling At the last second I got a call from the ANT and we went to the U District to have lunch instead of my going bowling. Thank goodness. I needed some calmness. I picked up a cheeseburger at Orange King and we walked to The Hub where she got Pagliacci. That's when we saw it-- Dane Cook will be at U-Dub on April 4th! Excitement! The ANT went back to work and I bought some sunglasses, then home to work, work, work... off I went again to play racquetball with Omfoir at Bally's in Lynwood, which lasted hours! Here, let me be purient: We went at it for two hours, pounding away nonstop. I showed her everything I had, and she took it all, showing me a thing or two as well. I haven't perspired like that in a long time; water tasted like wine whenever we managed a to take a break, before going at it again with renewed vigor. I can't wait till we do it again. Heh. To Err is Dysfunctional, To Forgive Co-dependent. That was a random quote by Berton Averre from http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3. It has nothing to do with anything. After racquetball food was discussed and a failed attempt at obtaining a Shamrock Shake left me utterly depressed. So I fetched Brown Rice Salads from The Sunlight Cafe and then I convened with Omfoir, Squidevil, and Chancellor at SD's for The Apprentice and the aforementioned salads. Lemon Tahini Bliss. And then my friends made me homemade shamrock shakes! They rock the socks off the world. Then home. Sleep: a REM thing.

Friday March 18th, 2005

Home Sapiens Do It With Knowledge
Yes. I went to the gym in the morning, listening to Chevelle. Good old Chevelle. I'm glad they've finally gotten famous, cause that means money, and that means they will be making more music. At home I worked a bunch and downloaded some music from Squidevil. Wow does he have a TON. For lunch I had a pork sandwich at Texas Style BBQ, and met up with Lesque for some bowling. No point in telling you the scores since we didn't even finish the second game-- we just hanged out and talked. And then she had to go back to school and I downloaded more music and then I went to the gym with the ANT but I was too tired to really DO anythihng. Then back to her place where she and her betrothed made chicken marsala. Excellent. Then we played Hoopla. Fun. Then we went and saw The Ring Two. Uh...

Not a scene goes by that someone isn't standing in a pool of water. Naomi Watts reprises her role as Rachel, a woman dedicated to reversing her previous life as journalist first, mother second. But it may be too little, too late. The daughter she never had wants to be the son she forgot she was raising, and will punish her for crimes, specifically, the illegal copying and distribution of video tapes. Her son, Haley-Joel Osment's heir-apparent David Dorfman, turns in a performance the likes of which we have not seen since The Sixth Sense. No child actor today has his skills at wearing dark make-up under his eyes. Together, the two wade through scene after scene, drenched to the bone, making this a sort of Jaws-on-land-without-the-shark-or-Roy-Scheider. In this way, comparing the dead little girl, Samara, to Richard Dreyfuss is no accident-- each let their hair do their acting for them. Can it be long before the Academy Awards starts to recognize a category for "Best Use of Hair"?

Speaking of Academy Awards, look for Best Actress winner Sissy Spacek pass the horror torch from her days in Carrie to academy-award nominated Naomi in a cameo at a bizarre jail where her punishment for being the mother of a bad TV actress is to clip newspaper articles all day long. Look, too, for the ever creepy Elizabeth Perkins-- when she is talking to the young Aidan, how can we not be reminded what she did with academy-award winning Tom Hanks in the film Big? How can we not wonder if Aidan is the next Tom? How can we forget the wetness of Cast Away?

In the end, Nakata's message is clear: if you make illegal copies of videos, the FCC should push you into a well. And then you'll be forced to watch black and white TV for the rest of your life. Cruel and unusual punishment? Perhaps, but that's what horror movies are all about.

Saturday March 19th, 2005

After that I met up with Peezeewoes who needed help with her Mac laptop and the internet. We had lunch at the Blue Star. I had ham. It was a ham day, turns out. After her I went to Barnes and Noble to read through iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition. Got some good notes. I learned about www.audible.com, variable bit rates, sprote.com, how to join tracks, www.kavasoft.com, ipodviewer, pod2go, and iSpeakIt. What's all that mean? Who knows. Look for my parody iPod accessory advertisment tomorrow. Oh, I also bought the Constantine (Score) Soundtrack and some mac magazines. I DIDN'T buy The Punisher Soundtrack because, after reviewing all the tracks at a listening station, I figured I could buy the few songs I like from iTunes.

Home again and then to Serafina, alone, alas. Oh well. I'm over it. I ended up having the oilest foods in the house. Some sort of cripsy pork appatizer, an oily salad, and a pork chop thing with very oily potatoes. The food all tasted excellent, though. Then I went home and listened to the Constantine Soundtrack and browsed Mac magazines till I dropped off.