Andrew Brinker

A Few Updates to Themes

Thu, 24 May 2012 08:27:02 -0700

I’ve done a bit of reorganizing with my Tumblr themes. I’ve password protected my development sites, and moved all support to a single support page, with a single format for support requests. This is designed to make support easier to manage (checking three inboxes daily was a bit tedious). At some point it would be nice to actually have a bug tracking system of some sort that allows people to look for similar questions to theirs (or at least allows me to direct them there after they ask), but for now this will have to do. If you have a support question for one of my Tumblr themes, just go over to the new support page.

Beyond that, I have some plans for my Tumblr themes that I intend to implement once this school quarter is over (which is in three weeks for me). These include:

Way more theme options!
Responsive!
Generally improved aesthetics!
A full modification guidebook for each theme!

My general goal is, at least for now, not to make new themes, but to really add quality to my current themes. For some, I may have to refactor the entire theme, but Metalab’s current work with redoing Fluid (and pushing the new update to all current users) has inspired me to do the same. So, anyone who currently enjoys Cento/Architected/Room will not to have to lift a finger to get the same amazing experience, and anyone who wants the old one will still be able to. Altogether, it’s a win/win.

So, there are some great things coming down the pipeline right now, and I hope you all like what you see. I don’t plan on rushing out updates like I have in the past (when I accidentally broke photosets in Cento), so it may take a little while. It should be worth it.

On We Go

Wed, 02 May 2012 22:03:38 -0700

I have a lot of homework tonight, and I’ve been working on it for a while now. But I’m taking a break to write this. I’m taking a break because I haven’t been, and it’s tiring, and I’m starting to realize that, in fact, breaks are very important. So, I’m taking one, and checking Facebook, and writing this.

Yesterday, at the suggestion of a friend, I went to see a documentary entitled “Miss Representation” in CSUSB’s Student Union theater. It was a good film, with a good message, but afterwards I was left with a little pit in my stomach. I realized that I live in a world where I benefit from things like this. I am a straight white male. I benefit from sexism, and racism, and homophobia. And I don’t like it.

I don’t like it because these things are disgusting and despicable. I don’t like it because I have lots of female friends who are very bright, and have big dreams, and I want them to realize their dreams. I don’t like it because my first best friend was a guy named Manowah Amponsah in Kindergarten. He was from Ghana. I don’t like it because I have multiple gay friends, all of whom should be able to live their lives without fear of persecution or prejudice.

And I don’t like it most of all because I don’t know how to combat it. Obviously, on a micro level, standing up when I see someone being racist or sexist or homophobic is something I can do. But on a macro level, what do those changes amount to? I can chastise a racist, but will they stop being racist? Probably not.

There’s been a hubbub recently about this idea of “hipster racism”, or “ironic racism”. People being racist in a sort of joking-haha-but-yeah-I’m-still-totally-being-racist sort of way. It’s terrible, just as much as any “normal racism” (what does that mean? Racism shouldn’t have a norm.) It’s terrible, because people find it funny, and because the tone itself is disarming. It’s terrible because it throws so much away when its done, and serves to lessen the meaning and horrific importance of racism as an issue. It makes racism a punchline, the end of a joke that keeps people with darker looking skin lower on the totem pole.

In the past on this site, I’ve blogged about tech. But frankly, I’m beginning to realize how little the minutae of the tech world matters. It might be interesting, it might be neat to read about, but in the context of this world we live in that latest social app or the most recent SEC filing is of fairly small import. It’s not a resolution, it’s not a sudden wake-up call to be a social advocate. But I’m going to be writing about other things now, and this is just the start of it. Consider this the prelude to a new blog. The same site, same writer, better topic.

I’m going to be blogging more soon (hopefully). I hope you like (or at least, find interesting) what I have to say.

On we go.

A song I made just now. Recorded straight into GarageBand on my...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 23:20:11 -0700

A song I made just now. Recorded straight into GarageBand on my MacBook Pro. Sorry about the train in the background and the barking dogs near the end. I live near train tracks, and my dogs bark whenever a train passes.

Anyway, this is “Without You”.

I love TV

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 23:05:06 -0700

I love television. A lot. When I get home, whatever I’m doing: surfing the web, working on homework, writing, Minecrafting, and so on, I have the tv going. And I pay attention. I pay attention to the people, and how they move, and interact, and what they mean by their words. Not what they say, what they mean.

I was watching Parks and Rec tonight, and something hit me: Leslie Knope is fighting for her city’s soul. In a time of hardship and dissillusionment, with a government that’s failed, a park that’s disgusting, and an economy flailing, she’s fighting for survival. Not her’s, but the town’s. When Bobby Newport threatens that Sweetums will leave, holding an economic gun to the city’s head to garner votes, it’s not about an election, it’s about the town, something the show’s writers make abundantly clear.

Knope is, in many ways, a liberal ideal. The perfect person who cares for nothing more than the people around them, and who sacrifices themselves in the pursuit of the greater good. Even in a position of authority or leadership, the demeanor isn’t one of superiority, but one of humility and selflessness. It’s what I think liberal political theorists would like to imagine they all are, and it’s a wonderful ideal to hold. Leslie Knope is a nearly perfect human being (with an abiding love of waffles and whipped cream, on top of everything). Not a bad role model.

After the episode, as thoughts of this nature floated in my head, I wanted to read about it, a critical analysis of the episode, a discussion of something beyond the way the show did in ratings or how the cast looks. But I found nothing, and I realized: entertainment reporters don’t get it. It’s “entertainment”. That’s all it is. When Leslie gives a heartfelt speech about caring for her town, or when Andy’s recapping Rambo (and possibly presenting some solid foreshadowing), it’s little more than a dance by animals for our entertainment. This makes me sad. Film has long since been afforded respect as a place to work out and portray the idiosyncrasies and problems of the world, yet television is hardly looked at as such an art.

Maybe it’s the length, maybe it’s the vast number of throw away shows with throw away stories, maybe it’s apathy. All I know is, I’ve seen some of the greatest stories of my life played out on television: President Bartlett’s Peace Summit with Israel and Palestine on The West Wing, the slow slow death of one chemistry teacher on Breaking Bad, Sherlock’s “suicide”, the loss of Marshall’s father, and the impermanence of love in Liz Lemon’s life. All great stories, full of meaning, and characters whose hearts break and whose souls seep out of them. All just waiting to be talked about, and pondered. And delivered to us in a wonderful, condensed package. No one even notices. How sad.

I love TV. I wish the people who wrote about it did too.

Types of Loud

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:38:44 -0700

There are two types of loud. The first is jarring and disrespectful. It asks no pardon, forcing itself upon you in your lack of things to stop it. It is the loud that breaks your moments and your contemplation, reminding you you’re alone.

The second is warm and friendly, and greets with a smile every day. It is the laughter of friends, the whistle of tea, and the cheers of a sports game. It reminds you: you are loved.

As Is The Custom

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:16:44 -0700

He broke upon the door like garbage breaks upon the shore, full of very little of itself, and much of something far larger than it. In a place of little pressure, and so much air, too much, some would say, as the sun beats hot and the swimmers do not swim because oh god there is garbage in the water. He crashed onto the floor inland, and pulled himself up with casette-tape jellyfish arms, formed with strands of mixtapes made by middle schoolers of decades past, like he had been, and felt now.

The single piece of information he needed most was also, coincidentally, the one he was least likely to receive at the moment. He was sad, you see, as many of us are in time, as events occur in our lives about which we have little to no control, but which effect us greatly. Like many of us similarly have, he drank to quench his sadness, and though he didn’t know it, he was quickly approaching a level of intoxication so great that it would likely find him soon after seated in a nice, warm coffin, riding along in an equally nice, warm hearse. This he had increasingly less control over.

And what he didn’t know was that, as he drank himself dead with scotch, mouthwash, and anything else even mildly alcoholic he could get his hands on, the phone rang somewhere else in the house, far enough away that he would not hear it. It was her, the girl for whom he drank. She wanted to talk to him, and apologize, and was in fact considering an offer of dinner, or rather, an invitation to dinner. It would be him who would pay, as is usually the custom. And they would most likely laugh, and be happy, and most importantly, he would be happy. And not drunk, as is the custom. For being drunk at these sorts of things is about as proper as being alive at your funeral, and kind of puts a damper on things for everyone else.

But he did not know the phone was ringing, and so he kept doing what he did, and drinking himself further away from anything resembling humanity, and further into the fur of some hideous, disgusting monster that would, without reason, tear him apart, and die.

Mr. Taylor

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:26:03 -0800

James Taylor at the end of a long day soothes my soul. It gets restless after hours pass, and I find myself in a state of wild nothingness, where passion burns and melts action, and I do nothing. It’s that mix of fire and rain, that pain, and that calm exhaustion, that brings me back to James Taylor, the Carolina in my mind.

I’ve been walking my mind uneasily lately, as thoughts spin around and never settle. I haven’t posted much lately, and I apologize again. Life’s been odd.

There’s a girl I like, but I haven’t blogged about it because I’ve been uneasy with doing so. Don’t know why. I’m good at a lot of things, this isn’t one of them. Relationships, I’m sure essentially all teens can agree. Whether it’s the quiet one in the corner, or the pregnant one fearful for the future, as an age group, we suck at people.

I’m going to a conference soon, but once again, I don’t know what to say about it. That I’m excited? I am. I am very excited. It’s the CSU Honors Conference, where the Honors programs from the various California State Universities meet and give presentations on things their seniors have been working on. CSUSB’s Honors Program only recently started up again, and so we have no Seniors yet, and won’t be presenting, just viewing.

In a way, that’s nice. No pressure, just learning, absorbing the knowledge of other people. It’s in Fresno too, and I like traveling. Next year it’ll be here, can’t wait for that.

An issue I have with blogging is the perennial question of whether my own life is interesting enough to write about? I don’t want to bore people, and I hate for people to look down on me. Mark Twain liked to say that it is better for people to consider you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. So sometimes I think I should just shut up.

But no, I keep writing, because it’s in my blood, which burns with a fire not even Mr. Taylor can soothe. I hope to be able to really blog more soon. I have Spring Break coming up in just a few weeks, and that will hopefully free things up a bit. Like with so many other things, can’t wait.

"It’s like setting a jar of moonshine on the floor of a boxcar full of 10 hobos and saying,..."

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:52:50 -0800

“It’s like setting a jar of moonshine on the floor of a boxcar full of 10 hobos and saying, “Now fight for it!” Sure, in the bloody aftermath you can say to each of the losers, “Hey, you could have had it if you’d fought harder!” and that’s true on an individual level. But not collectively — you knew goddamned well that nine hobos weren’t getting any hooch that night. So why are you acting like it’s their fault that only one of them is drunk?”

- On the idea that everyone can get rich, from “6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying” by David Wong of Cracked.com.

I know that Cracked is a comedy site, and not really a place to go for deep philosophical discussions of economics, but darn it if this isn’t one of the clearest indictments of the idea that everyone can be upwardly mobile.

The history of the “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster....

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:15:07 -0800

The history of the “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster. Absolutely fantastic.

How Far We've Come Since Pong

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:23:15 -0800

Saying the internet changed things is old now.

Let’s talk about one of the following:

Education
The Economy
The death of manned space travel.
The environment
Gay rights
Women’s rights
Religion and the government
Campaign finance reform
OPAC

Or, quite honestly, just about anything else.

The internet’s not a new thing, and talking about how far we’ve come since Pong is stupid. Move on.

An Apology

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 20:50:27 -0800

I haven’t been blogging much these past few days, and I just want to take a moment to say that I am sorry. Things have been pretty busy, and I’ve been working on a few projects that have really taken up my time. They’re all pretty cool (and I look forward to sharing them in due time), but I won’t say much more at the moment.

I do care about this blog, and I’ll be updating soon with a bevy of shiny new things for you all. In the meantime, I hope everyone is content with the knowledge that I bought myself a hat yesterday, and the whole time, I was thinking about that hat, and how nice I will look in it, and how wonderful it will be to wear a hat that actually fits, and… oh, I guess that has nothing to do with you guys.

Sorry about that.

Frank Chimero’s new site is awesome. So awesome, in fact,...

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 07:33:00 -0800

Frank Chimero’s new site is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I am taking a little break from my usual self-involved discourse (which has, honestly, been thin as of late) to mention it. Please, go take a look.

Here’s another link in case you missed the first one.

Do it. For yourself.

Room: My Third Tumblr Theme

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:34:34 -0800

My third Tumblr theme, Room, has just been approved by the Tumblr Theme Garden. Room comes with a slew of awesome features, and is designed to look beautiful and be functional simultaneously. It comes with 16 simple and powerful theme options, like:

Twitter updates in the sidebar.
Disqus commenting.
Google Analytics
Full group blog support.

I hope you all like the theme. I plan on doing some small updates here and there over the coming weeks. If you have any thoughts, or ideas for the theme, please send me a message either here using the ask feature on the theme’s showcase page.

The Quiet, Quiet Wind

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:31:00 -0800

The children played in pastures, running in circumscribed arches, then breaking off cotangentially. The air rushed through their faces, lifting them to fly. Their father smiled as he watched, thin-armed glasses sitting placidly on his face. His smile, small and mirthful, twitched, rose and fell as his mind stretched and collapsed, waxing contemplative over the day. They looked like their mother. He watched his children’s movement with his eyes, which ever yet wandered up and over the fields, to stare at the sun.

Their laughter broke up in the sky somewhere, and turned to dull aches of chartered atmosphere. The father thought of land, his land, and how it was his. His Tourette’s smile rose again. The sun was breaking on the laughter, and falling only calmly down. Abiding on the faces of the kids, it danced and played as they did in their spheres, which tilted about and never changed. The glow it proffered was peace, offered with white flag for their spirits, and equal in measure to them.

Soon they went inside, as the sun’s glow faded off their faces with their electric souls. Sleep even sooner met their eyes, and the laughter passed away, and dinner was consumed, and laughter for a moment resumed, and they slept.

The father, in the kitchen, twitched with will never to shake, and holding something in, broke a little more inside. The roof cracked, and tiles smacked the grass below as they were shaken off like molted skin. And the father, now decrepit and depressed, wept like the trees outside, for the sun sunken down below the edge, and the quiet, quiet wind, and the sphere that for all its tilting, wouldn’t move.

A Morning

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:01:00 -0800

The sun was a bastard for rising so early. Jamie Watkins, splayed askew below the weight of sweat-drenched sheets, contemplated whether this act was a purposeful provocation. He felt the sun’s warmth seep through the windows, and shifted the dampened sheets uncomfortably. He had sweat all through the night again, something his physician had sworn was finished. He would have to call and schedule another appointment. Now wasn’t the time.

He lifted the heavy, dirty sheets off his chest, and slid his legs out slowly to hang along the bedside. His feet touched the ground, feeling little strands of carpet meander their way through his tired toes. It was a pleasant greeting, and the edges of his mouth turned upward in a bout of little heavenly praise. The tail of a cat drifted past his leg, only slightly stimulating the dew-touched folicles. Sensation was still only slowly proceeding, and with head bowed it seemed to accept the tail with a mild and timid raise of an arm.

Jamie was always slow to get up. His cat Lucas, a tabby in the upper-mid range of the feline BMI, flopped around on the carpet as if to entice Jamie to stand and draw forward. Lucas stared with eyes reflecting the sunlight from the un-curtained window, and his stare developed the sort of glassy look one sees on the eyes of the comatose or the disingenuous. Jamie wondered if Lucas wasn’t similarly disposed.

Rising slowly from the bed, Jamie felt his knees straighten and protest slightly at the expense of effort. He wasn’t in bad shape, if anything he was fairly fit, but his legs seemed at all times to murmur curses and profanities towards the waiting world. It was in this mindset that they protested and then fell quiet as Jamie stretched and began the quiet shuffling commute out of his room.

Lucas followed closely, entreating Jamie to refill the food bowl now sitting empty just outside the kitchen. He moved forward, and back, and along Jamie’s path, hoping at each intersection to derive an affirmative response. The response he received was little more than a few muttered words along the lines of “shut up, cat”. But without the requisite English skills, he assumed it was something pleasant.

The noise of cat meows now replaced with sounds of eating, Jamie found himself still damp and drifting towards the shower. The shower head loomed overhead as he approached it, and after a quick undressing, stood directly above as if asserting dominance. Jamie didn’t notice, or care, and his mind went to thoughts of calls to physicians, and whether those particular physicians should be told off. The water seemed to make its way into his brain, and soon he was thinking of sailboats, and the cost of buying one, and the impossibility of owning one, and the prospective joy if that impossibility were ever reached.

The rest of the morning was spent in that way; mind sliding back and forth like unsecured boxes on the deck of the Maybeth, a name he settled on sometime during a vigorous brushing of teeth. He would take it out to sea, and drop anchor somewhere pleasant and remote. It wouldn’t matter if his skin were damp, and he’d swim every day. He could fish when he wanted, and break coconuts, to use as a food source, or an instrument. He day-dreamt now of clacking them together, and for the first time all morning broke into a full-fledged smile, chuckling to himself as he noticed his own demeanor. He looked up at the mirror and laughed.

He had, at some point, stopped paying attention to his brushing, and he saw now a ring of foam had formed around and over his lips, giving him the look of a dog, rabid and mange-ridden. He took some water from the faucet and removed the bits of toothpaste foam, thinking that this may very well be the highlight of his day. Spitting the rest of the toothpaste out, and taking in some water soon to follow suit, he remembered instantly the business of the day. Today, he had to fire people. Not just a few firings. He was a lower-level department head, well, Executive Vice President of Shipping and Receiving. And today, it fell upon him to announce a new round of layoffs.

The meeting where he’d been told wasn’t a pleasant one. His superiors and equals, arrayed around an oblong wooden desk, sat in varying degrees of discomfort. For half, it was a sort of solemn frustration, for the rest, a concern that this was perhaps the meeting for their own sacking. Not a pleasant place to be.

Jamie hated layoffs, and he liked the people he worked with. But he’d been told in terms so clear you could drink from them that either he layed off 30% of the department, or he was out. As much as he hated layoffs, he hated being fired more.

So, he shuffled to his room, and stepped into his trousers, and wrestled on a shirt. He wrapped a tie like a loosened noose around his neck, and fidgeted and fixated on varying details for several minutes. Lucas had returned, and now curled and caressed his way between Jamie’s legs. Jamie could see bits of cat fur sticking, clinging fatalistically to his pant legs. He shooed Lucas away, and reached for the nearby lint roller. Rolling first calmly and then furiously at his pant legs, he acted in sudden fervor against the lint. But it clung, and wouldn’t let go, and after minutes of this frantic combat, Jamie ceased and accepted that maybe it wouldn’t come off right now. He sighed a sigh of contemplation and resignation, and finally, donning his jacket, made for the door.

Firecrackers

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:30:00 -0800

Firecrackers. Stark, quick footed down the corridors. Up and out of bed and launching, lighting firecrackers.

“Why me?” he thought. Having barely fallen bedside, he pictured now the slightest little flames, and saw them billow and smoke to life. He wondered if this warranted caring, and in answer to himself gave little more than a noncommittal grunt. Perhaps the same grunt they would give at the billows, perhaps the one they’d give at the sight of him. He had a hunch, and tossed it sideways walking down the stairs, that drew their eyes. He hated when they stared, but loved when they were quiet. Their distracted stupor, when it came, was therefore favorable to him, and left him with a smile that only animated further the grotesqueness of his state.

As he landed on FLOOR THIRTEEN, words the signage screamed so readily at its entrants, he peered about for flames or sparks that would flag the very spot these hudlums hid. They knew that he was coming. Every action undertaken was telegraphed by wood-panel-wire to the floor below. His steps, hard and heavy, were not once cryptographic tools. He had therefore consigned himself to hunting, stumbling forth in search of bandits, thieves, and Romeos each and every time they struck.

This time it was firecrackers. Originality they have, but few points did this score with him, achingly ajar in his gait, who now found himself the cat to their mouse. What fairness was there in his position? Their limber legs could take them hither and to the basement. Lower still their arms might take them, shovels burying them in neck high holes of effort. He had no such strength, physical or of will, and so these chases often ended in the spot where they began: with him, the man so pained to live, lying crooked in his bed. He counted sheep and burning children to pass the time, and slept.

Physics and Nirvana

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:21:24 -0800

I got a 90% on my Physics midterm. It’s okay. I could have done better.

This seems to be a recurring problem. The comparison of actual accomplishments to a percieved potential accomplishment. All achieved things become lesser based on that ideal, and you end up losing one of the greatest motivators for further effort: a sense of accomplishment. It’s called the “Nirvana Fallacy”. That’s the afterlife, not the band. At any rate, as much as I tell myself that 90% is good, I can’t shake the twinging feeling of failure.

I feel like a failure a lot. As I’m spouting off facts to friends, as I’m taking tests, as I’m writing this, I think to myself “No one cares. You’re nothing but an encyclopedia. Your thoughts are shit”. It’s not a good way to think about yourself. Unfortunately, telling yourself that doesn’t seem to matter.

I’ve been going this blog seriously for about two weeks now, and I can’t help but think that I’m getting worse. Maybe some of these posts are like the sudden burst of warmth before you freeze to death. A last ditch attempt to live on. Maybe they’re a precursor to something. You don’t know.

Not knowing is exactly what brings about the Nirvana Fallacy. You don’t know how things would have gone otherwise, had the situation been perfect. So you fabricate a world where you cured cancer, and wrote the great American novel, and got 100%. That world doesn’t exist, but it seems preferable to the one you live in, and so the comparisons live on. You become increasingly morose, only making it harder to snap up and realize that 90% is pretty good.

I think I might be fine with pretty good.

The Immorality of Wealth

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:47:00 -0800

Sorry I haven’t been blogging much these past few days. I’ve been working on some reorganization, some projects, and time got away from me. I’ve caught it now, and scolded it a bit, and it promises me that this won’t happen again. So, with that dealt with, I think I can begin.

I watched “In Time” a few days ago. It was an okay movie, decently acted, but with little to nothing that stands out as even worth remembering. Except the message. For those of you who haven’t watched In Time, it’s the story of a world where time is quite literally money. At 25, your clock starts, and you have a year left to live. You can earn more time by working, or gambling, or fighting, or stealing, but if you don’t you’ll die. The most important quote, one that the film feels the need to repeatedly and emphatically state as if unsure that you heard them the first time, is that “for a few to be immortal, many must die”.

There we have it, the central concept of the film’s philosophical bent. Buried in the action, and the beautiful 20-somethings, and the Justin Timberlake, is a little nugget of an idea I can’t help but take issue with. The film tries to act as a parable of the real world, and in a less-than-sly leeching off the concepts of the 99%/1% dichotomy misses a key point. In the film, time is money, and because of the inherent importance of a person’s life, the stealing and hoarding of money becomes the literal murder of hundreds of thousands. But they forget that in the real world, time isn’t money. Certainly they are related (one doesn’t get money without putting in time), but the relationship isn’t 1 to 1, and there are other ways to spend your time. You have emotional needs, things you want to do as an individual, and by conflating money and time, the writers are forced to simplify life to little more than work and more work.

I am not saying that those who are rich may not also be immoral, but I do not believe the idea that wealth is inherently immoral. There are those who make the case that no one gets rich on their own, and this is true. But say you make a company, building computers out of your garage. You save up, and invest in the parts you need, and you search around for buyers, and grow, and grow, and soon you can hire people. Thanks to their efforts, you can now make more computers, and more money, and you keep growing.

Soon you’ve got a sizable business, and you’re improving your models, and innovating, and you hire a marketing team, and beef up your product team. You hire some more managers, and all of these people work together to make the product. Things are good.

The business keeps growing, and years later you’re a wealthy man. Your business went public, and you made millions. You did it by selling a product that people wanted, and by managing your business well. You hired good people, and positioned yourself well in the market. Are the individual people in your business, the people who built the individual parts, and made the posters, entitled to the same amount of money you earned? Or, more importantly, are you inherently a bad person for having that money?

I don’t think so. You gave people jobs, and a product they wanted, and you’ve reaped the rewards of all that. Should you pay your workers a fair wage? Yes. Should you treat everyone at your company well, and respect their basic human rights? Yes. And would it be nice if you donated to charity? Absolutely. You’ve got money to spare.

But you owe people nothing beyond that. Everyone owes to those around them nothing more than basic human decency and respect. No one else is entitled to the fruits of your labor, and if they get those fruits, it should be because you’ve given it to them out of a feeling of fellowship, not because someone else has ordered you to. If you’re forced to, the decency is gone, and acts of good become acts of legality.

In “In Time”, the main wealthy businessman is essentially a loan shark. That’s a bad man, loan sharks are bad! Yes they are. But not all rich people are loan sharks. And at the end of the film, the viewer is left with a truly sinister idea: that they are.

Identity

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:01:05 -0800

I’ve been trying to come up with the words for this for some time. It’s not always easy to write what you think, because you don’t quite know your own thoughts yet, or you’re afraid to write them down. I feel like that sometimes.

I love The Big Bang Theory. It is one of my favorite shows. But I’ve felt as the seasons have gone on that the characters, once interesting and fresh, have become stale. This is an issue of time. When they debuted, the only thing to judge them against was other characters. They were different then. But now, you can judge them against themselves, and in many ways they have become (Sheldon in particular) facsimiles of their original selves. No longer socially awkward geniuses, they feel like average people who happen to be smart, with a socially stunted friend who treats them as inferiors and whose lack of growth has left him like a statue in their otherwise moving lives. It is a sad thing to see.

This issue isn’t isolated to characters either, because in essence, we are characters. When we talk to other people, they don’t see our whole selves. To do so would be overwhelming for all parties involved. They see a picture of who you are, presented as a moving, full-color talkie, and you are now playing a character based on the entirety of your being. But these characters you play are, in their own little ways, different to different people, with differing levels of intimacy, and different movements and attributes and histories. As these worlds collide over time, and the internal logic of your own characters’ narratives are judged against each other, and even more insidiously against the narratives of the other versions of you, you develop into a crashing, disruptive state, where you can either consolidate to one (the characters becoming the “real” you), or you can allow things to continue full bore, open to all. you become in essence nothing more than what Sheldon Cooper is now, a sad and tired facsimile of yourself.

There is a lot of talk about true-heartedness, and being true to yourself, but which version of yourself should you be true to? And when? Most people are not one person, but a collection of perceived persons who flit in and out of actions with others, and talk sometimes with each other over coffee. It’s why such a thing as cognitive dissonance can exist. If anything, cognitive dissonance is your own judgment of one self against another, because of your own inability to recognize that you have been anything less than true.

I worry sometimes about this, as I struggle to write what I think. Because my thoughts are in flux, between selves, passed between conversations, and formulating, flying in the air. I worry about being true, and honest, because I often don’t know who I am. Rather, I don’t know which me I am. The scientist, the writer, the video game lover, the reader, the jokester, the dramatist, or nothing more than the sad old friend who could never grow. If someone can tell me which, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Coffee

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:27:00 -0800

I’m trying something new today. Per the advice of a wonderful friend, I am sharing a story I wrote. It is supposed to be fairly funny (and I hope you find it so), but just as a warning, if you are bothered by any strong language or mature themes involving the beverage habits of addled writers, you may want to leave. In fact, might I suggest a more family friendly site, like the Congressional Budget Office, where good times are just a monitor-flip away.

At any rate, here it is. It is called: “Coffee”.

Typing dumb upon the keyboard, sitting pretty in a chair so well worn that when you get up the shape of your ass keeps writing. You wonder what you’re even saying now. The sun set hours ago. It’s probably going to rise soon. What time is it? You got rid of the clocks a month ago. Gosh, that was a stupid idea, wasn’t it? You wonder why you did that. It had something to do with that girlfriend at the time. Emily? Erica? Jessica? Ashley? Fuck, you can’t remember. She hated clocks though. How pretentious.

This article was probably already due to your editor. Have you missed your deadline? If you had a clock, you would have known by now, but you don’t. Oh wait, isn’t there a clock on your computer? Look around, look around. Fuck! No, you have to get this article done. It has to be turned in to the editor, it possibly already had to be. You might be fired. In which case, finishing it doesn’t particularly matter. Isn’t there a clock here? Oh damnit, stop wasting time. Finish the article.

Do you need coffee? Yes, you need more coffee, that’ll solve the issue. You can’t write right now. You don’t have your coffee. Caffeine is like a brown sludge of blood, life flowing through the mug and into something like your heart. Empty at the moment. No passion here. You need some coffee.

You think you just got coffee. Did you actually get up? Did you? Look down. Is there coffee? Yes. Yes, there’s coffee. Okay, crisis averted. You got coffee. You can get to work now. Get to work finishing that article. What is the article on again? It was something you had talked with your editor about. He really wanted this article. It mattered. But of course you didn’t do the research on this one. Your editor told you something, and like an idiot without his coffee you forgot to research. That’s why you’re in this pickle. That’s why you might get fired. You’re up at 12:1:2:3:00 (?) O’clock, and writing an article for something you know nothing about. Something your editor cares about, and you’re maybe probably late. Yup, you’re going to get fired.

But anyway, who cares? It’s just a job man! You can get another job. You’re a marketable (semi-marketable) 20-something with a beard that says “life-experience” and a t-shirt that says “I have this beard ironically”. Nicely done. You can do this. You think the article is supposed to be on tax reform. Jesus, that’s boring. Probably why you didn’t actually research. Damnit, where’s the coffee?

The words are flying now, you’ve got this. Your words flying out the beard-enclosed mouth-hand connection (your beard is THAT long?) and onto the screen. Two pages, damnit, done. You’re done, right? Proofreading time? No, no time for that. You’re editor is probably already mad. Because you’re maybe probably late. Yup, probably. Maybe. Possibly. Fuck. Hit the send button already! No time for fancy spellcheck! Send that thing. The coffee’s gone, the sun is creeping somewhere around the hemisphere waiting to tell you that it’s time to wake up, and it better not catch you still awake. Last time that happened, the hangover day-after, beer-breath, so-suave-with-the-ladies-not-so-much you had a hard time. So hit that send button. Get it done. You can do this! The coffee’s out, but man you have this, conquering the words, tamed them into paragraphs, you did. Yup. Because that’s how you roll. At who knows what time in the morning/night.

So there you go, you hit send, and damnit it was golden. Your editor would be proud. He WILL be proud. And you’re probably not fired. Probably for sure. I mean, man, you’re a journalist! So good you don’t even research. That’s for the old-world. You just write, about tax reform, about amazing beards, about ironic t-shirts. After all, isn’t that pretty much all of life. Some giant joke just waiting to be understood? Some giant game just waiting to get played? And you played it. Showed it how you didn’t need research, didn’t need sleep, or anything. Just needed coffee. The coffee’s gone. You’re done. You can go to sleep now. You’re probably not fired. Good job.