Wiring Loose Inside My Head

The Intrawebs Kills Me Sometimes...

2008-05-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

Internet message boards are an unhealthy addiction. Sifting through an endless muck of worthless posts, you never really know what you're looking for, but when you find it, it's gold.

Take this little quip from Mentat over at Fark.com:

"I hope you younger farkers appreciate how lucky you are. Back in the dark days of the 80's, Satan had the vinyl record market cornered! Sure, we knew that KISS stood for "Knights in Satan's Service" and that Ozzy Osbourne drank the blood of aborted chicken fetuses, but it wasn't until some enterprising local preacher played a warped Alice Cooper record backwards at 33 rpm that we discovered that the Dark Lord had been slipping subliminal messages into our music for decades! These were evil messages too. Who knew that 80's cock rock advocated cheap sex and illicit drug use? We found out soon enough. It wasn't just glam and heavy metal that were infected though. Pretty soon those enterprising televangelists were finding satanic messages in such unlikely places as the Mr. Ed themesong and We Wish You A Merry Christmas! Some Doubting Thomas' wondered why Satan would bother slipping a pro-drug message into the Mr. Ed themesong, but hey, he's Satan! That's how he rolls!

Alas, the best laid plans of hell and brimstone finally came to an end with the invention of the CD. Lacking the ability to play the disk backwards, Satan was suddenly stripped of his primary mechanism of societal control. Hair Metal and Glam Rock came to an end and that's how we ended up with Seattle Grunge.

So the next time you load up your Satan-proof iPod, take a moment to thank Jesus for inventing the MP3."

Whoever said narratives were dead is, oh, so very wrong.

Objective journalism at its finest.

2007-12-23T14:59:00.000-08:00

[Will] Smith: 'Hitler was a good person.'

When scanning through my daily news forums, I came across this little misreport. World Entertainment News now finds it appropriate to slanderously misquote people, but apparently they have no qualms about defaming individuals character as a result of these blatant exaggerations.

If anyone would have taken the time to actually peruse the article, they would have found that what Smith in fact said something quite different than "Hitler was a good person." No, what he actually said was something more along the lines of "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today'. I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good'. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming" (actually, that's exactly what he said). I don't believe that saying Hitler's distorted view of the world justified his actions, it was simply the motivation behind it.

What is the drive behind this obvious embellishment? Do journalists have a specific agenda against certain people, or is it the mere fact that controversy creates news? Either way, it's not journalism: it's an intentional distortion of the truth.

There's Gonna Be Some Pissed Off Colombians

2007-12-06T12:15:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/05/drug.smuggling.ap/index.html

So the U.S. Coast Guard seized over 350 THOUSAND POUNDS of cocaine with an estimated street value of $4.7 billion dollars. $4.7 BILLION DOLLARS. $4.7... BILLION... DOLLARS.

$4.7 billion dollars is a lot of dough. "A lot" is actually an understatement, especially when you consider this to be a sizable chuck of the total budget of the federal government. Consider, for a moment, what $4.7 billion dollars can buy:

* 26,929 2007 Aston Martin DB9's (moderately priced at $168,000)
* 4,700,000,000 double cheeseburgers from McDonalds (roughly 75% of the worlds pop)
* 156,666 bachelors degrees (with an average tuition cost of $30,000)
* 188,000,000 cartons of cigarettes

What does $4.7 billion compare to:
* 28,484 US Senator yearly salaries
* The ENTIRE budget of the Dept. of Transportation
* Roughly one months expendeture in Iraq and Afghanistan

Pissed off Colombians indeed...

Back in the Day

2007-11-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

“Rollin’ houses” is what we used to call it, but to the layperson the juvenile act of delinquency consisting of decorating someone’s trees with the cheapest brand of toilet paper available is known as t.p.’ing. Yes, we understood that it was a bit of an inconvenience to clean up our artfully crafted adornments hanging high in the maples and firs, but where’s the fun if someone isn’t slightly aggravated? Besides, it wasn’t as if we hadn’t done our fair share of cleaning as well.
When I say “we,” I actually mean my posse of “house rollers” who made this nighttime event a tri-monthly occurrence. There were five of us, each with a specific duty when it came to enhancing the look of our clueless victim’s house.
On trees there was Wendell, Nick, and myself. We prided ourselves in swiftness and professionalism; the toilet paper was our paint and the trees, our canvas.
Special teams, as we liked to call it, was Ryan and Scott. Special teams had the specific job of garnishing the yard of the house with whatever we could get our hands on: cereal, forks, laundry detergent, you name it. Ryan was especially eager to take on this task due to his ease of cruising around in his wheelchair.
Ryan suffers from muscular dystrophy, but trust me, that doesn’t stop him from doing his fair share of what he liked to call “asshole antics.” In fact, many a sticky situation has been avoided because of Ryan’s seemingly innocent and benign nature.
On the night of what appeared to be a seemingly normal evening of house rollin’, we gathered our usual supplies from our usual warehouse (see: Dillons) and started started the trek towards our next victims house.
Parking several blocks away, we rationed the supplies out to the respective people and began scoping out the neighborhood for potential police callers and late night walkers. When the all-clear was determined, the first rolls of toilet paper were lofted high into the air and caught by the telescoping branches of a rather large cottonwood tree.
Continuing our mayhem, it suddenly dawned upon Ryan that we hadn’t actually checked the address of the house we were rolling and that a light was left on somewhere on the ground level floor. Sneaking up to the large bay window at the front of the house, Ryan cautiously peered in to see if he could make out any people who could possibly see what we were doing.
“Oh. Shit…You guys aren’t going to believe whose house this is,” said Ryan.
Wondering what he was talking about, I snaked my way up to where he was to see what exactly he was talking about. Oh shit was the understatement of the century. Lying down on the couch in the front room was Ms. Hesler, our second block English teacher we would have to see face to face on Monday morning.
Stepping back and regrouping my thoughts, I glanced at the address blazoned on the mailbox in bright orange numbers: 4601. The house we intended to roll was 4581. We turned down the wrong street…
Gathering everyone around to determine our next course of action, we discussed our available options.
“Lets just bail,” said Wendell. “She doesn’t know who did it, so we should just leave before we get caught.”
“I’m with him,” said Nick. “We’re being way too loud, so she’ll probably wake up if we keep going.”
Ryan, in his usual fashion, digressed.
“We’re neck deep in this,” he said. “I mean, if we’re gonna do the damn thing, lets do the damn thing!”
He was right: we were half way done with the house and there was no way of fixing the damage done. In our huddle, an unspoken agreement was reached.
Hesler’s house was the crowing achievement of our house rolling days. She was never the wiser.

"The first fall of snow is not only an event..."

2007-11-23T17:14:00.000-08:00

"...it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?"

-J.B. Priestley

Priestley had it right, the first snow of the season is a spellbinding time. The crispness of the air at the onset of winter, the permeating silence coupled with absolute stillness, the lightheaded ambiance that gives a tranquil sense of clarity; all facets of winter's first showing. This unique feeling is something unparalleled by anything else. Although cold weather isn't loved by all, the aura of winter's threshold is something which everyone can love.

"If you ask yourself
patiently
and carefully:
who is it?
who is it?" - Bjork "Who is It?"

The Internets is a Series of Morans

2007-11-17T18:44:00.000-08:00

From a message board:

"Yeah so i got grounded cus i was doing bad in a class but im passing now, well my dad went out of town right after that. So now i just fell into the wall and put a whole into the dry wwall, and he gets back at 4 today."

Yes, people actually type like this, which begs the question: Is the internet killing our language?

With all of the "social networking" sites like Myspace and Facebook becoming more and more popular, internet interaction is rapidly becoming an established form of human communication. In everyday interpersonal communication, a certain level of civility is expected in order to convey a given point, yet the internet seems to not work in this manner. Everything from grammar to spelling is thrown to the side and communication as a function seems to fail at an epic level.

The sampled paragraph at the beginning of the post is a prime example of communicative failure. The original poster not only fails to use the proper conventions of the English language, he fails to fully dictate what the hell he's trying to say.

Considering how quickly the internet is being integrated into everyday life, "social networking" sites are going to become more prominent means of communicating with people. Is the internet killing our language? Who knows, but it sure as hell isn't helping it.

"Well, I feel so good, ev'rything is sounding hot,
Better take it easy, 'cause the place is on fire,
Been a hard day and I don't know what to do,
Wait a minute, baby, it could happen to you." - Spencer Davis Group "Gimmie Some Lovin'"

Attention Aspiring Valedictorans: Intellectual Competition Is a Bad Thing

2007-11-14T23:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.9news.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=80952

In light of hearing complaints from top students about the fairness of the selection process, the Boulder Valley School District decides to eliminate the valedictorian honor and diversify it among the top three students. Not such a bad idea considering the relative size of graduating classes these days. The problem with this article, however, lies in it's closing line:

"Boulder Valley had previously abolished class rankings to reduce 'unhealthy competition.'"

Unhealthy competition?! Humans are competitive by nature. Competition is a basic survival instinct which has been been the cornerstone of our propagation, but when it comes to promoting intelligence it's considered "unhealthy"? Pardon the language, but if competition isn't advantageous when it comes to dealing with education, when the HELL is it?

We have entire markets devoted to promoting and selling human competition (think NFL), but as soon as education is involved, competitive motivations are supposed to be shucked to the side? Maybe this rationale can explain why America is seeing a decline in the overall quality of our public education system when compared to other first-world nations. By making competition in our education system a bad thing, the desire to excel is being pushed aside by those who wish to "level" the educational playing field. The current system of "proficiency neutrality" in public schools could very well be the reason why the system is in shambles. Markets need competition to maintain solvency, therefore the educational market needs more of it.

"Humble as a mumble in the jungle
of shouts and screams
That's the way the cracker crumbles
So I guess I've got to re-route my dreams" -OutKast "Humble Mumble"

Shit: The Wave of the Future?

2007-11-07T10:58:00.000-08:00

Think this is a joke? Keep reading.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/1105072jenkem1.html

It seems that Florida is having a recent surge of juveniles running amok and crazed out on the newest hallucinogen to hit the streets. What's this new drug? Their own excrement! Called jenkem, this new "drug" has its roots in Zambia where it is slowly replacing glue and gasoline as the huffer's flavor of the week.

"Jenkem is a homemade substance which consists of fecal matter and urine. The fecal matter and urine are placed in a bottle or jar and most commonly covered with a balloon. The container is then placed in a sunny area for hours or days until fermented. The contents of the container will separate then release a gas, which is captured in the balloon. Inhaling the gas is said to have a euphoric high similar to ingesting cocaine but with hallucinations of times past."

Aside from the obvious question of WHY, many people are asking...wait a second. What other question could their possibly be other than why? As in, "Why in this day and age, where scoring an ounce of pot is easier than for a minor than buying alcohol, are kids reduced to huffing raw sewage?" Or how about, "Why would one have even the slightest inclination to try this shit (pun intended)?" And lastly, "Why is law enforcement concerned with this?" Imagine living in a country where "possession of fecal matter with the intent to sell" is an all to harsh reality.

This is one instance where social Darwinism should be allowed to run its full course with no intervention...

"Saturn comes back around
Lifts you up like a child
Or drags you down like a stone to
Consume you till you" - Tool "The Grudge"

View From Memorial Union, Top Floor

2007-10-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

With Ipod in hand and headphones in place, a companionless student makes the trek from Henderson to somewhere yonder eyes can find. As he begins walking through Memorial Lawn, a sudden bounce begins to propel his step. As his walking becomes more vigorous, it becomes clear as to what compels this student to move in the manner he is: he's got his dancing shoes on. What began as a simple shuffling of feet under the streetlight has become a full ensemble of Egyptian walks, reverse chicken shuffles, and Turkish twists (think disco dance moves).

What is he listening to? Could be anything: Public Enemy, The Stones, Tiesto, hell maybe even Claude Debussy. Nobody knows, but he's the only one who cares. Gliding across the Memorial Lawn, the tiny dancer remains oblivious to the fact that he's being watched. He probably wouldn't care, however, because he's moving to the speed of sound.

"Dance, nothing left for me to do but dance,
All these bad times I'm going through just dance
Got canned heat in my heels tonight baby" - Jamiroquai "Canned Heat"

Eavesdrops of a Bartender Pt. 1: The No-Name Hopeless Romantic.

2007-10-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

Waking at daybreak on a Saturday morning, the cartilage in his toes crack as his feet touch the frigid floor for the first time in what feels like a millennia. As he rises from bed, the all-too-familiar rush of pain in his forehead reminds him that, yet again, a long night of But Light and Seven and Sevens doesn't pass without a price to be paid the next morning.

As he stammers to the bathroom, a sudden flood of liveliness springs forth and gives the slightest bounce to his step. In the drunken haze of what he called "last night", the unimaginable happened: he managed to land the phone number of an angelic debutante, a twenty-one year old beaut. So long have the glooms and heartaches of single-life hovered over his head, "But now," he thinks, "I can leave this rut." This phone number was his holy grail, his token to leave the lonesomeness of nights alone and dinners unescorted, his forlorn solitude replaced with pleasant companionship.

Getting the phone number, however, is only half the battle for he realizes the true test lies in what he does with it.

"I can't be your apologist very long
I'm surprised that you'd want to carry that on
Count your blemishes you can't they're all gone
I can't see your response putting them back on" - Built to Spill "Carry the Zero"

To err is human, to forgive, canine

2007-09-28T15:40:00.000-07:00

Dogs are one of God's most extraordinary creatures. Seriously. Steadfast loyalty, genuine compassion, and a resolute sense of curiosity, that's the doggy credo. A perfect accompaniment sans an all too human imperfection: rationale. While people have their excuses for drives and motivations, dogs live for their owners affection and love without excuse. Although dogs seem to be finding their way into the media here as of late (thanks Mike Vick, asshole...), it's definitely not in the ways they deserve.

There's no such thing as dog owners, only dog devotees. Humans have a lot to learn from these fine companions.

"Something calls to me,
The trees are drawing me near,
I've got to find out why.
Those gentle voices I hear,
Explain it all with a sigh." - The Moody Blues "Tuesday Afternoon"

Lose the Chain Mail

2007-09-22T18:31:00.000-07:00

The widespread integration of the internet into everyday life occurred (arguably) less than a decade ago, but two things have remained seemingly static since it's inception: endless amounts of pornography and an equally endless amount of chain letters. While pornography tends to be sporadic and ambivalent in it's exhibition, chain letters take a more subtle approach at remaining in-your-face. By sticking to a standard formula, chain letters always seem to find their way out of the mailbox of the creator and into the mailboxes of millions of unsuspecting victims. The "standard" chain letter can be broken down into it's individual parts:

1. Lucidly benign title to draw potential reader in.
2. The 20,000 forward addresses to which the letter was sent
3. Assertion by some unknown person proclaiming "I did this and I swear it works!"
4. Incredible story based solely on emotional appeal, concluding itself with an astonishing turn of events.
5. Non-sequitur caveat for those wishing to delete the email, but outlandish rewards for those who don't "break the chain" (a time limit is usually imposed).
6. Smiles on the faces of those who didn't break the chain, irritation on the faces of those who want their five minutes back.

While all chain letters are irritating and downright absurd, the worst, however, are the seemingly religious ones which often conclude with some sort of variation on this typical denouement: "If you love Jesus, send this letter to everyone in your mailbox." Everyone has received one of these little darlings, because everyone has that aunt/grandma/friend who honestly believes that Jesus himself will judge them accordingly if they don't perpetuate this guilt-trip of a chain letter. It's hard to imagine Jesus chilling up in heaven, saying "Well, my faithful servants Sally and Jenny exclaimed their unfaltering devotion towards me by sustaining all those chain letters, but that Josh Nicolay is on a one way ticket straight to hell for denying me via email!"

For those of you reading this who happen to have me in your mailbox, do yourself the favor and "uncheck" my address when vying for the promises of good luck/Jesus' love/exclamation of friendship/etc. found in every last chain letter on the internet. Take my word on it: any email which begins with the subject "Fw:fw:fw:fw:" will not be opened.

"So the story's told beyond our grasp
We were climbing on forever an infinite task
Shoulders straining with the endless toil
We're nothing more than a feather moving in the wind" - Sunny Day Real Estate "Every Shining Time You Arrive

Invention is the Mother of Necessity

2007-09-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

Nintendo's Wii a Hit With the Geriatric Set?

So, it seems that the senior citizen community is finally shaving off their superannuated stereotypes by *gasp* embracing technology (video gaming, of all things). Who'da thought that the elderly are beginning to trade their crochets for controllers, their daily mall walks for daily WiiSports, their hip replacements for...well you get the point.

This paradigm shift, however, raises a curious question (at least in this writers eyes) as to the nature of embracing the new by stripping off the old: is this current generation, the generation which has been raised by the internet and bombarded by technological advancements, going to be remain au courant with the times, or are the times merely going to pass us like they have in previous generations? How will we adapt to the exponential progress made in the years to come? Only time will tell...

"Shame, such a shame
I think I kind of lost myself again
Day, yesterday
Really should be leaving but I stay" - Massive Attack "Dissolved Girl"

A Recommendation to Live By

2007-09-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

Guinness good for you - it's official!

Finally, a "sound" piece of daily health that everyone can enjoy! Guinness is now thought to curtail clotting in blood, which is an important issue for those with a high risk for the sudden heart attack. Granted, the sound benefits of drinking a pint come from a modest indulgence in the "Black Gold," but rest assured: there are those of us who are more than willing to do our part in making sure to compensate for the rest of us who don't take professional advice all too seriously.

Albeit that this may be the most convenient medical finding of the year, it still doesn't change the fact that health "breakthroughs" tend to be transient, and therefore should be taken with a grain of salt. Remember the NutraSweet flip-flops of the Nineties? Enough said...

"Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes." - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young "Helpless"

Coma Divide

2007-08-31T13:36:00.001-07:00

Modern conveniences present quite the dichotomy. On one hand, they give us the ability to either accomplish tasks which take much longer manually or perform something which we weren't able to do at all. The flip side of the convenience coin, however, lies the fact that modern conveniences have made us contingent and lazy. Maybe lazy is too generic of a term, but our use of modern technologies have become a less a quest for creating ease in our daily lives, and more a dependency on the very things which were created with the sole intent of making life easier.

Take the modern calculator, for example. Originally created to speed up the process of basic mathematical computations, the calculator has become a staple household tool. But in our quest to make the simple tasks of multiplication and subtraction infinitesimally easier, we've inadvertently substituted our own ability for that of a machine. Without it we're lost, but with it, we've lost our need for our own God-given ability. A deeply rooted appreciation for our resourcefulness is necessary lest we forget why conveniences are indeed called "conveniences."

"Strange as I seem
I'm getting stranger by the minute
Look in my dreams
They're getting stranger by the minute" - Porcupine Tree "Stranger By the Minute"

Look'd Up In Perfect Silence At the Stars

2007-08-24T12:22:00.000-07:00

With the commencement of another school year just under wraps, the anticipation of graduation conveys a sense of excitement for some, yet to others it brings a heavy feeling of anxiety due to the incognizant reality of post-college life. Although many students began their college career with noble and idealistic aspirations to make their mark on humanity, a large number of college students were pressured to choose the higher education route simply because it was the customary thing to do. Ever since the first days of grammar school, the emphasis on maintaining and perpetuating an education beyond the confines of the high school realm has been a staple ingredient of the public school system's teaching method. Students are told that a college education is important, but the importance of the hard-hitting "why" question is often left out.

Make no mistake: education is paramount. The search for knowledge with the ambition of self-improvement is undeniably important, but what students must realize is why it's important. Many students conclude their college years with a sense of hesitation because the money and time spent over the past four to five years may be more of a speed bump than a booster for their years to come. The key to a successful and frugal college career is to invest in a subject which piques the interests and stirs passion which can be translated in the post-college world. If prospective college students had this hindsight, many would spend less time stumbling and more time enjoying.

"When we look back at it all as I know we will
You and me wide eyed
I wonder...
Will we really remember how it feels to be this alive?" -The Cure "Out of This World"