Ambiguous

Holiday or Vacation?

2017-03-14T11:34:00.002+11:00

Went home.

Might move back there.

Dreamed of the convent ghost. It talked to me this time. Led friends through the attic room in the side staircase, then up to the skylight altar area. The moon was showing through a cloudy sky.

It followed, it spoke. It was a ward of the nuns. I didn't understand the rest.

The feasting hall had vanished, as had the old safe tunnel and refurbished dangerous one. They led to the same guardpost but now the cracked wall under the archways was fenced off.

The drop from a pipe onto a different pipe under the bridge and bike path was still there, and now I had the idea of adding a solvent to the moss to burn it off without slipping. The fumes might affect the rest of the tunnels, but the wind blows strongly there and it might be okay.

The abandoned factory the pipe led to is still there; I didn't visit after last time but I imagine the doors have been locked again, though the windows and railings will likely still be broken.

How much further does the Epping line have to extend to reach Brooklyn?

The importance of green in my life is apparent now. Though I would rather help someone dye a pug red than read stories to adult children.

Tidepool and reef.

This wonderful place

2015-06-21T10:48:00.003+10:00

I find myself in my dad's hometown this father's day.

So I thought I'd take the time to post some pictures of the shape of my life, and hope that makes a decent enough present to make up for my absence.

I'm sure he's out there somewhere, wishing I still lived at home.

Sure.

Thanksgiving 2014

2014-11-28T05:17:00.000+11:00

Thanksgiving spent in the north country with my family.

We just finished a delicious meal. I baked rolls and a cheesecake with my cousin, and my aunt took care of the rest.

Conspicuous lack of people, which had me almost in tears when we said grace, thinking about those that were not at the table.

The snow continues to fall, and this land is beautiful.

I am recharged.

New York

2014-11-09T12:26:00.001+11:00

I'm from a city of ~2.3 million people.

I'm from a town that you could blink and miss while driving, county route 23.

I think to myself today that I miss my home. But I am home. This is my home too, these people are my people.

I think of the bush, the yarra, the heat of an oncoming summer.

I think of brown snakes on the goat's trail sunning themselves in the afternoon sun, the gums singing in the breeze, the shifting patterns of shadow they provide.

I think of my friends. You know who you are.

I love this country here, but the country I learned to love was a few close family members and a specific feeling of being in up state new york.

Now I'm in the city. It is busy, people worry about the same nonsense they do all over the world. I see through the myth, I see through the advertising, media, prestige.

I found an anarchist book collective. I'm going to volunteer.

I am excited by the amount of friends I don't even know that live here. I can feel their presence in this place, I can almost hear their stories.

I know I must return to the place of my birth. I know this endless dream of travel and exploration of the world will one day end.

But I push on, every day, knowing how little I know. Waiting for fullness.

Nobody cares where I am from. Nobody cares what I have seen. That is the most sobering and beautiful part of this place. Insignificance.

I aim to disappear; I don't want fame, fortune or public recognition.

I want to live here, learn what I can and move on.

Margaret Gel (´・ω・｀) Raw Alcohol Recovery

2014-11-01T17:05:00.002+11:00

Having just finished chatting with a friend about alcohol addiction and staying sober, I have decided to help someone I met on twitter dot com drink everclear, which is nearly pure alcohol (I'll be referring to it as Ethanol, or EtOH, deal with it), without burning their mouth.

Here are some recipes, if you don't have the ingredients, you can buy them. They are easier to get than pure alcohol, so I assume you're functional enough to get them before you start drinking.

Hibiscus infused ethanol:
1 bottle ethanol.
5 dried hibiscus flowers.
Put the dried flowers in the ethanol and wait an hour. Or a week. Whatever.

Candy infused ethanol:
1 bottle ethanol
Candy.
Use whatever candy you think will taste good and give it a good color, if you care about color. Wait until the ethanol tastes like candy. Bonus points if your pour the ethanol on the candy and then eat the candy.

Bacon infused ethanol:
Too complicated for you. Don't try this at home kids.

Now, cocktails. I hate imperial system, so i'm say this once, 30mL ~ 1oz, 45mL ~ 1.5oz.

Hibiscus skinny bitch:
An low crab drink for people who hate crabs. or carbohydrates.
Build on ice (put ice in a glass and pour ingredients on top in the order they are written)
45mL hibiscus infused EtOH
10mL lime juice (juice from a lime wedge, just squeeze some juice in)
soda water to taste.

Note: drink contains no crabs.

Iocane powder
It is what you don't taste that kills you.
Build on ice
30-90mL ethanol
30mL amaretto (almond flavored liqueur)
top with milk

Jelly shots
Don't bother, too complicated and you have to wait like an hour or more for them to set.

Filthy Martini
Shake (put in a thing you can shake liquid in without spilling it, tupperware or old take away containers work, and if they have salt and some grease in them that is better)
90mL ethanol
30mL pickle juice, from any kind of pickles, but I like gherkins with dill and mustard seed, sometimes blue cheese stuffed olives are good too.
vermouth rinse (this is a bullshit waste of time, and who needs to buy a bottle of vermouth just to use too much of it and ruin a drink)
Shake the juice and the ethanol together with ice, then drink it. Garnish with pickles. Or just do shots of the ethanol with pickle juice chaser.

You're welcome, I'm out.

Droop

2013-01-19T19:49:00.000+11:00

they are constantly undressing,
tossing their clothes about recklessly
the ground fills with the colors of fire
and goes 'crunch' underfoot.

Картина не соответствующих

Google drive

2012-11-08T20:31:00.002+11:00

Proving once again that the internet never forgets anything. I have discovered some old poetry I wrote on google drive.

Now public for the first time, I hope anyone who reads this vomits with disgust.

Eyes shut
Toward our center
Leaning in

Lips brush
Eyelids flutter
Nerves fire

Moistened
Skin brushes skin
Certainty

Confidence
Exploring sensation
Excitement

Breathing
Clock stops ticking
We love

23

What do you talk to your friends about?

2012-11-05T11:37:00.005+11:00

She stood. 'Then it is settled' said she, 'I shall go to find the object that will remove desire'.

It was not settled, other's grumbled and griped.

'Why, what for?'.

'Is there a purpose or do you just want to do something?'

She sad down, pondering.

'If I do find it, I will stop wanting it. Then I will be at peace.'

'and then what?'

'I don't and can't know'

'more peace?'

'Doing something is better than doing nothing.'

The others made farting sounds that meant 'why?'

'Doing nothing is oft better than anything. At least when you do nothing, nobody gets hurt'

There was no need to say that was not her intent; accidents could happen and she knew outcomes rarely had any connection with intent.

'Where would you look?' a cautious voice inquired.

'I would start by asking the smartest person I know'

'You wouldn't understand what they told you, if they even answered your question'.

'Then I'll ask the most honest person I know'.

'Their answer would insult and upset you'.

'The most straightforward person then'.

'Good idea, if you know who that is'.

Her shoulder's sunk; she did not know, no one could.

'Maybe I'll use my intuition'.

'Maybe you already are'.

'Oh, okay'.

There was a long pause, while nobody said anything of consequence.

'It can't be too big, or someone would have found it already'.

'Or too small, significant, but not obvious'.

'If you know what it is, why are you looking for it?'

'I don't'

'Then how will you find it'

'I know what desire is!'

'You already have that'

'Then I'l look for the opposite'.

'You couldn't find the opposite of red, what makes this different?'

'I'm sure it was there, somewhere. I am just not good at color.'

'But you're good with desire? Don't answer that!'

'hrmmph'

'okay fine, something surrounded by a lack of desire?'

'something ugly?'

'something disgusting?'

'something boring?'

'No, all those things have opposites and provide contrast. It has to be something I feel nothing about'.

'Does it have to be something?'

'Yeah, we've got plenty of nothing'.

'It can't be that obvious can it?'

'Why not?'

Shangers and mash

2012-11-02T16:29:00.000+11:00

Duolan park and modern art museum.

Beautiful, I showed up before the lazy artists got out of bed and started deconstructionism. So I spent my morning walking the park and doing a bit of taichi with some folks that thought I was weird but warmed immediately when they realized I knew the movements and spoke their language.

They told me that warm water was better for my health than chilled water, which could upset my stomach chi. Then we all smoked a cigarette and said goodbye.

There was a giant dragon made from plastic in the blue and white china style. I didn't care for it.

At the modern art museum, the deconstructionism was in full swing. The theme was water based ink, used in traditional chinese calligraphy.

I really liked the dead bird that lacked any anatomical correctness.

There was a really cool washout of a sunset with a sunset in the background. In the final piece the canvas is washed out to sea.

I bought a cheap bag with a kangaroo on it and had breakfast at a sushi place.

Baby Pack

2012-06-21T11:38:00.001+10:00

Shut eyed amidst
The mind refolds unvoiced screams
Shut eyed amidst
The witching hour of moist dreams.

Atain illumination
Upset the nominally precise
Atain illumination
Reject formality in paradise.

Derpington and research

2012-05-07T12:19:00.001+10:00

I have always taken the view that with care and concentration, it is possible to avoid injury.

The only time I have severely injured myself while cooking, I was busy having an arguement regarding determinism (oh hohoho very funny) and turned to rebut a point whilst removing a chunk of my thumb.

In the spurting blood I saw a mistake, allowing myself to be distracted, attempting to be of two minds when one would suffice.

Now I sit before a database, reading thousands of cases of people injuring themselves doing things that I do daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, along with other things it is unlikely I will ever do.

But why? What is the underlying reason? Popular opinion in the injury prevention community is that all injuries are preventable. Less popular but certainly present is the opinion that mitigation and control measures can reduce severity and incidence, but that a base rate of injury must always occur regardless of due care.

The most disturbing possibility to me is that injuries are never accidents, but rather subconscious actions undertaken in reaction to mental or physical stress.

Ennui, ennui, ennui, must be funny

2012-03-06T13:02:00.000+11:00

When days like this, the world is cold
Memory overtakes me; I walk through life
Drifting through nostalgia, rationale regret reaches
Where warm emotion cannot radiate
Sinking into the depths, exploring dispassionately.

Eugenics

2012-03-03T12:16:00.009+11:00

I have recently been drunkenly expounding the supposed virtues of eugenics. While many of my literate friends may read this as bluster or write it off as cynicism or misanthropy, I have a point, I think. Let the following make up your mind as it may well

Eugenics is not bad, far from it, it is by definition good. Words do not reliably retain the meaning of their definitions. Perhaps a closer look is in order.

Lets clear the air first. Most people hear eugenics and don't think 'like eukaryotes only different'. They think of human beings being locked up en mass for no sane reason. Emaciated faces and general despair. It is a pretty bad scene and it would be uncharacteristicly classless of me to attempt levity when describing it.

So maybe a few definitions are in order.

Sterilization: Rendering an organism incapible of reproduction. Sterile, clean, happy.

Fixing: When you sterilize a broken pet. Now it is fixed and so much happier that its sex hormones are in a jumble.

Ethnic cleansing: Mass sterilization of an ethnic group. Keep in mind that sometimes sterilization takes the form of murder.

So the whole, clean and fixed thing has a bit of negative connotation to it and the language certainly seems to be suggesting a certain fetish for distinction, seperation and cleanliness. We'll talk about why some people dislike contraception another time though. For now I would like to examine some byproducts of eugenics.

Humans have created selective breeding programs since they realized how the whole thing worked (in plants and animals). Probably the most popular term for the results of long term human eugenics programs would be 'domesticated'.

Inbreeding wolves to get dogs, pigs to get faster growing pigs, cattle to get constantly lactating bovine , avians to get constantly menstrating chicks (with a period that is delicious with pig).

A few other achievements. Wheat, corn, irish resistant potato, beans, chickpeas, bananas, Staphylococcus aureus. I think you get the idea.

Most if not all of these interesting genetic experiments were carried out with fixing and sterilization.

The whole thing makes me a mite bit uncomfortable. And not without good cause.

So how does one do this eugenics thing? Well simple. Decide on an idea of 'good' (your miliage will vary), then attempt to impose that idea on a living organism via direct and indirect modification of its DNA. Et voila! Eugenics.

Problems arise when attempting to define good. I won't bother addressing that pile of stupidity here, suffice to say that if one pretends good does not exist, one sees all the good that does.

So eugenics, certainly a mutated and differentially defined term, much maligned and not without fair judgement.

But what possible benefits or future medical advances, breeding rights and patented DNA do we have to look forward to in the future? I will discuss that another time.

BOWEL HATRED (I was going to call it silence)

2012-02-22T21:25:00.003+11:00

Walk and sit
And then walk more
And sit and walk
Then wait and hear
That there
Is simply
No one
There.

Silly old max

2011-11-20T19:25:00.003+11:00

Reaching your 21st year
You grant yourself a smile
But after 21 years of pain
You're going out of style

A million deaths await
And a billion secret pains
Uncertainty about your future
Checking twice when changing lanes

Slowing down and chilling out
Finding balance and accord
Playing safe and being smart
and getting really bored

It is all downhill from here
Full of problems to forget
Growing old is a fine foul thing
but you haven't grown old yet

So party hard and fuck the rules
return nature's push with a shove
Do it hard and do it smart
And always follow love

Occupied toilets are useless.

2011-10-31T17:29:00.004+11:00

Preoccupied space
Public land is not free
Don't pitch a tent on the bus
Sitting next to me

Taking it back?
From the wealthy hoarders?
They gave it to you
They are rich without borders

What purpose, what reason?
Are you all young James Dean?
Or worse seeking freedom;
A cause with no means.

Still you stuck with your protest
Under law well protected
Then in came the police
doing just as expected

Standing firm, yet retreating
You stuck to belief
And nobody died
Which was a relief

You do not know hunger
You are unready to die,
You know things must change
But you do not know why

Revolution changes everything;
No Ideals, No Success
Now quoting a modern philosopher
I digress:

"You say you wanted evolution
The ape was a great big hit
You say you want a revolution, man
I say that you're full of shit"

On idealism I rate you highly
On focus it's much worse
And don't get me started
On who was here first

I do not trust your cause
Sympathetic it may be
You might speak for the 99
But you can't speak for me

You can stand in the rain
With a head full of mace
While I empty my mind of
Preoccupied space

Train ride scrawl

2011-10-31T16:29:00.003+11:00

Numerical modes
Measure comparative joy

I'm talking about score
and capitalist ends
My nihilism in gameplay
enduring trends

Lesson one, pre 8-bit
on a monochrome screen
In a house with no light
and a grue left unseen

8-bit Zelda, in a cave
An old man tells the risk
'It's dangerous to go alone,
take this'

The lesson you learn
to take what you're finding
accumulate resources
to stop you from dying

Lesson two, 16-bit
Mario and Sonic
collect all the shineys
like shopping on chronic

Then if enough rings
or coins you amass
You can stave off the moment
You're pushing up grass

Sometimes hearts measure life
All the hits you can take
But this kind of symbol
seems a mistake

A heart is for passion
for fear, love and strife
Real hearts give you magic
to summon a knife

It is for this reason
I keep my eyes peeled
For things to collect
Who knows what they may yield

Lesson three, score and competing
achievements and progress
A right way to play
Causing infinite regress

Primate minds take time
To measure mine
against yours
and time taken
occupied squares
number of kills
bases left bare
destruction compared
like robots at dinner
Then the most desolate soul
is declared the winner

What I learned from these games
I have nothing to prove
When two people fight
Then two people lose.

Fourth lesson, 3D
is just a fad
Trading appearance
for the fun that you had

Fifth lesson minecraft
A game with no end
try not to die
and don't kill your friends.

Peace

Dreams

2011-10-08T12:39:00.002+11:00

I slept on my back and dreamed I was a turtle struggling to write itself into a PKD fanfic.

Supposedly I will be getting a refund for my overheating dell studio 15. I recommend it to people who use laptops in extremely cold conditions. Maybe penguins

Space and time

2011-08-23T17:17:00.002+10:00

Jeremy Camilleri has made beautiful noises. You should listen to them and download them for free. Then send him money to encourage him to make more.

I don't know if that will work, but it is awesome music all the same.

http://weareraw.bandcamp.com/album/war-order

Sleepless

Sleep
Why sleep?
Without sleep sound is soft and muted
Warm words wilt
Sweet suggestions
Fall faintly on my ear

I feel growth, a world of dreamlike statues
Impermanence and uncertainty unknown
Why worry while today becomes tomorrow
Time passes, but only when I check my phone

Then daystar bursts forth and ruins everything.
Ultraviolet burns soft seretonin, like vinegar from wine
To exhausting, exasperating, melatonin.
Then oblivion is the best peace I can find

Good night,
Foul day.

Real Ideal

Dreams are immortal
Humans are not
Love will live forever
While lover's bodies rot

Ideas rob power from you
Grasp firm to what you touch
The intangible is noble
But the price is far too much

Abandon all your dreams
Or they will bleed you dry
Existing on your firm beliefs
They feed, they live, you die

Grimdark

2011-08-11T18:39:00.002+10:00

Rain fell from the sky, making things on the ground soggy.

I was on the ground, looking for something.

I looked up at the sky, not expecting to find anything but rain up there.

It was then that I saw it, the rain.

I became a cloud, floating above the cares of the person I was.

Then it was over, a ray of light pierced my chest and I was back in a soggy body, lying on the ground.

Yes, you can brownies

2011-06-06T02:07:00.002+10:00

For anyone interested in good brownies. I adapted this slightly (more cocoa) from a recipe from Amy. The 'yes, you can' refers to the capacity to produce more moist and delicious brownies than packet mix.

Since they are stupid easy to make, you should feel bad for ever using packet mix.

Cream together 1.5 cups sugar, .75 cup butter. That is, mix together until creamy.

Add dash of vanilla and a pinch of salt.

Mix in 3 eggs, do not beat.

Fold in the dry ingredients:
.75 cup flour
.75 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder

Of course you already have your oven preheated to 180 and a pan greased. So dump the mix in and bake for 45-50 mins until a skewer comes out clean.

Leave in the pan for a little while after baking to let them firm up.

Enjoy with milk unless you are lactose intolerant. If you are intolerant I wish you would learn to accept other cultures. Eat some yogurt.

I was going to take a picture, but I got drunk on the weekend with some friends and ate them all. :[

Instead here is a Bort.

Modern Warfare 11: Child Soldier

2011-05-29T03:48:00.002+10:00

I think a really well done game could have you playing as a child soldier. With the tutorial mixed into the indoctrination and regular beatings. Maybe see a friend or two get shot trying to escape or just not living up to standards.

If a stealth aspect was included it could really add a powerful element, having you train your combat skills a few times on a range and later on live villagers. Then dumping you somewhere fighting other children.

Ultimately you attempt to escape, pants shittingly tense stealth sections of breaking out of camp unarmed, then escaping across a desert, avoiding patrols, wild animals and rival warlords before finally reaching safety.

The victory scene shows you in a refugee camp, surrounded in barbed wire and armed guards. A different prison, still dreaming of freedom.

I didn't think twice about extracting organs from the little girls in bioshock

I like my arrest like my period, bloody and nonexistant

2011-05-23T16:22:00.002+10:00

How do you make drugs and drug use appeal to the demographic that thinks 'chemicals' are somehow dangerous and 'natural' is somehow healthy.

Whelp, you don't. The collective unconscious has absorbed more than 70 years of fear mongering and fear stories. Acid in your spine driving you insane? Cannabis causing schizophrenia? Acetylsalicylic acid tolerance leading to use of harder drugs?

Well the last one is true.

Medicinal use is a great argument, but ultimately avoids the important issue.

Freedom to do whatever you like with your own body.

Which we have by the by, but we don't have the ability to posses dried flowers and chemical compounds that react with our bodies. Why? I am not really sure.

Stealth legislation might work, bury it in rhetoric regarding police protection and better use of resources and you might well find yourself in luck.

If the opposition is not above point scoring, and they aren't.

Democracies are only as strong as their weakest participating member.

Reduce those participating or make them stronger then.

Hax!

2011-05-15T05:03:00.001+10:00

Hold up, I'll hook you up with a moist devil's food that is superior to packet mix.

From my dear old Aunt Eva.

1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
.5 cup cocoa
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
.5 cup shortening (I use butter)
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup hot water

Mix dry except soda. Add egg, vanilla and butter. Stir through.

Pour hot water over soda, add to mixture, bake in 8x8 pan at 350f for 35'

Progression profession

2011-05-11T13:46:00.002+10:00

I like a good progress bar on games, do you?

A sense of achievement and a solid endgame to work towards are essential reinforcer in goal oriented behavior. For instance, the time it takes me to go from picking a pokeball and naming my rival 'rapist' to utterly ruining said rival's shit after the elite four when he now goes by the dubious nomenclature of 'champion rapist', is virtually identical to when I first played the game.

The markers that ticked up for me were badges and pokemon level. I was not concerned with catching them all, and I only did so once, on a particularly boring transatlantic flight. While sitting next to a lady who smoked and complained that she had to sit next to a damn kid.

She made more noise than I did! Not to mention the constant coughing and trying to subtly smoke while crammed into the window seat of economy class.

Ahem.

So Gyms, I can speed up a bit on a replay by knowing what requirements each has, making sure to pick up a Butterfree to buffer my Charmander against Brock while I am in the forest. But the intermediary time between Gyms and the travel and fetch quests between cities is held up by the need to fight anyone who looks at me. Sure I could skip them, but without leveled up pokemon, the endgame became a grind fest or a painful use of revive and repel only to reach the elite four with no hope of winning.

The only difference between my first play through and subsequent ones was my awareness of how far I had progressed. True I did things a little differently, but the outcome was a similar time.

The progress bar became visible.

Jumping over to two other classics I have replayed. Super Metroid, took 14 hours to explore fully the first time I played it, and 3 hours the second time. Internet tells me that less than 1 hour is possible.

The shortened time span works greatly in its favor, replay value is up and I felt like I was playing with fast forward held down once I knew where to go next.

The other classic, Metroid Prime, felt faster on the replay, but not the same way. It was faster, a difference of 14 hours down to 8 between first an second play through. But there was a big old percentage bar sitting there on the pause screen monitoring scanning progress and exploration. I knew how fast I was progressing the first time.

I have largely opted out of modern gaming in the era extending past the PS2 and N64. I'll get there eventually, but I suspect that achievements systems, while driving people to acquire and finish bad games, will do nothing to improve replay value.

Stupid ice shriekbat.