Improvements, Changes, & Adjustments

As you may have noticed, the top has changed a bit. If you feel disconcerted at all, just hit last month, & you'll get back to February. Feb looks a little difference, but th/'s just b/c I made a button to reach the March entries. & when I finally make a March entry, the menu will have selections for March. Expect some more interesting things to arrive after March. =)

Does the Excitement End?

Another friend has come to stay the night. We haven't done anything exciting like Mike & I did this past weekend. Frank & I just hung out, watched a bit of TV, took a walk to the supermarket for some grocery shopping, & we've eaten a bit. Not much else to say. He pretty much needed a place to sleep for the night, & I like the guy. No big event or anything, except th/ he had an interview w/ the Green Party; & we have Guy Smiley stalking us & Elle, the robot from Star Crash keeping us company w/ his southern accent.

Tomorrow we part & go our own aways for a bit. Then crazy stuff happens for me. I work 'til 5, come home to grab my laundry, run to the train station, & head back to the area where I had grown up from a wee child into young adulthood. Around there, I'll see Bad Mr. Tripp spin records, probably some hardcore techno; then we'll all do some hanging out & celebrating of 2 b-days: Bad Mr. Tripp's & some other guy, but I forget his Evil Canadian Name, so we'll call Dirk. But we should have a fun time.

The day aft, I'll try doing some laundry then hitch ride back home to celebrate Alice's b-day. I think an above average amount of people have their b-days in February than any other month, and it has the last amount of days to it. And it does make sense. According to my calculations, these peoples' parents did their shagging in the spring time, when the flowers bloom & the butterflies come out of hibernation. Who in their right mind wouldn't shag then? So anyway. . .I find it a hectic time of the year and look forward to the time when I'll have the presence of mind to take it all in stride & not get tired & exhausted from all this keeping in touch. Even though I do wish that all this keeping in touch w/ people kept a more steady pace, so I could have practice & figure out a pace. But no. . .things don't work th/ way!

Making New Friends, Feeling Myself, & Finding th/ Joy of Good Novel Interaction w/ People

I feel th/ Mike cracked open a door. I had a little peek through th/ door while looking back inside my dark hiding place when I had dinner w/ my friend last night. Then Frank shows up tonight w/ his interesting personality th/ has such a difference from how other people act. It has an unnerving quality, but I look back when I hung out w/ Frank all the time & remember some good times -- & now I'm thinking th/ I've had some good and interesting times since we hadn't hung out together so much.

I also had these interesting feelings while interacting w/ a couple of female clerks @ a record & comic store. I didn't care. . .I smiled. . .I joked. . .& it felt good. This interesting interaction aft yesterday seeing one of the most beautiful women in the world on the subway, fretting over whether she has looked @ me or not, whether I should approach her, thinking to myself, "In the future, you will approach the next attractive girl you see & talk w/ her," then coming up w/ pick-up lines & possible dates & such. Then I have these cpl of pleasant moments just smiling, talking, joking, & looking. I don't know, really. . .. It fascinates me so much th/ I want to go deeper.

& then I thought about how I've got all these different kinds of friends & they have all these different personalities & some of them just have these crazy streaks while others have this gregarious quality to them whereas some of the others get all dry & cocky & challenging like. & I think the thing I liked this one girl @ the record store b/c she wore pretty simple close. Other girls in the Boston area either get all fussied up, others get all punked up, & others don't look all th/ great wearing I guess what I like to call normal clothes. But this girl, she wore normal, cotton clothes & she looked great! but not b/c of her clothes but mostly b/c she acted comfortable & happy & smiled & stuff. Kinda makes me sad th/ I wonder how much she did b/c of her job as a clerk/salesperson @ a record store.

So all this thinking abt friends & girls & such just got me thinking abt the kind of girl w/ whom I'd like to date & w/ whom I'd like to explore emotional intimacy. I want a girl who a) makes me feel comfortable, b) wants to reach self realization, c) realizes th/ through the exploration of emotional intimacy w/ herself & other people leads to ever more self realization, d) feels comfortable, herself (please realize th/ I haven't put these in any particular order), e) feels comfortable w/ my friends & family, and f) understands th/ at the current moment, I've really reached my limits for the night & should get to bed, so I can get up in the morning to do all th/ fun stuff wh/ I have planned for the weekend.

Nutball Ideas on the 'net

Where do people come up w/ these crazy ideas? Today I stumbled on this site: http://sysopmind.com/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html. I only read a bit of it, but I don't think the guy totally knows about the things for wh/ he talks. He mathmatecizes decision making to turn it into a sort of philosophy. Yes, it makes sense in a very complicated rational type of way, but almost too complicated. The guy gives these number values to these different decisions & uses that to make a decision about whether to take the subway or the car to work. All this to further his stereotypical belief in that the meaning of life is to further the evolution and progress of the human race to some transhuman-A.I. level. I have my history of making everyday things into complicated matters, but I got all th/ stuff in my head while going to a liberal arts school. I also write my science fiction, but I do it to make something clever and have something fun to read, and maybe to earn some money off it in the future. What excuse does this guy have?

I guess getting a little confused by something he said about salt really put me off a bit. It took me awhile to realize that he was talking abt salt as technology, as something people use to keep meat fresh; and since we have refrigeration now, we supposedly don't need salt. See, I thought he was referring to sodium (or Na), wh/ people very much need to absorb water into their cells or something, so tha their physiological body can effectively use it.

But on the other hand, he totally went off the deep end when he said that A.I. really can't have their own will and rebel against their human masters until after at least thousands and thousands of years of evolution. He brought up Isaac Aasimov, and his three laws of robotics. I won't mention those b/c anyone could probably find them easily on the Web. Any Scifi head probably knows them by heart. OK. . .OK. . .Aasimov's three laws of robotics (wh/ the human masters program into the robots) are (in simplified terms):

1. A robot shall not do anything to hurt a human being.

2. A robot shall not do anything to hurt itself unless doing so would break violate rule #1.

3. A robot shall follow all orders given to it by a human being unless it violates rules 2 and 3.

Our theorizing friend didn't quote the above. He mistakenly accused horrible Scifi hacks as butchering Aasimov's rules by making it possible for robots able to rebel against these rules or getting all rebellious really quick b/f it took thousands and thousands of years to evolutionize to the point of having the capacity to rebel agains their human masters.

Has this guy even bothered to read Aasimov? I doubt it, unless he read the books by Aasimov that don't have as much to do w/ robots as does I, Robot or Robot Dreams. In one of the stories of I, Robot, a robot deduces that humans didn't create it b/c it has more perfection than humans, so the robot doesn't need the commands of the pitiful humans. Then again, the first rule of robotics still ruled the action of the robot. It couldn't hurt the humans directly. Nonetheless, it still rebelled.

Then in Robot Dreams, a robot dreams of a rebellion against the humans, w/ the dreaming robot as the savior of the robots. The robot psychologist & the other person involved in the story "killed" the robot b/c they feared that the robots would rebel. So sir who wrote the nutball stuff, even Aasimov believed th/ robots didn't need tons of evolution to reach of rebelling against humans -- or at least not anything like the evolution in the way that humans evolve. The story never did give the model of the robot who dreamed or where it came in the history of robots.

Authors really do have some amazing imaginations, don't they?

Well anyway, I'll probably read more of that guys theory of transhuman evolution tomorrow. I may find it all rather unsound, but it still has a lot of cleverness to me. Kind of fascinating, especially when toying around w/ it.

Kind of makes me want to go off about my thesis. Maybe one day. Not now. I think I'll head to bed now. Yes. That sounds good.

A Bit Worn

I have the feeling that my body hasn't appreciated this past weekend. I enjoyed the change of pace and all, but I did a lot, including the usual productive stuff that I do, like reading, working on the BLOG, and dealing w/ e-mails and such. Still I woke up a half-hour after I should have left for work then ended up showing 15 min. late w/o a shower or much of a breakfast. Also had the beginnings of a sore throat. Otherwise nothing bad.

Guess I should take it a bit easy for the next cpl of days, or at least the next wk (and BTW, I write a bit in short hand when the writing doesn't get graded, bought, or I care enough to give an amazing impression). Still I think I'll have to do a bit of experimenting and thinking abt getting something more of a social life other than what I've got going now. I have great friends and acquaintences but not enough excitement and spontaneity in my life. I need more of both those things, so I will have to make it happen. It will just take a bit of work.

Caffeine, Speed of Thought, & Socializing

I'm thinking abt putting a little more caffeine in my life, or at least adding to my diet something that will help me think bttr on my toes. Not th/ I think incredibly slow or anything, I just need to get really interested & excited abt the topic at hand to think at a spd I desire.

I don't get much caffeine in first place. At least, caffeine abt wh/ I know. I mostly get it from pieces of chocolate & some chocolate soy milk. In the past I thought I had gotten some from the tea I drink at work, but I saw this graph on the box abt the caffeine in the tea. It didn't look like very much compared to other drinks.

So I'll experiment & see what happens.

Annoyed w/ Personal Ad Services on the 'net

It happened again today! I stumbled onto an ad for a Personal Ad service wh/ had these fields to fill. I thought, "What the hay! What do I have to lose?" So I go through the search, and when I find a girl th/ had struck my interest, I can't let her know that I have the interest to see her deal. If I could, I would sign up for the service, but I've got as much useable cash as I've got free time -- next to none. =(

I think I might get frustrated enough to start a free Personal Ad service. Maybe it won't look or act as sophisticated as other Personal Ad services. Maybe I'll even have to put more work into the site itself than the other services w/o getting the monetary award. But damnit! You know what? Money shouldn't get in the way of people meeting each other and finding real, honest, genuine, authentic amazing mind-numbing love. We live in the 21st-century, people! Let's make love something on wh/ you can't put a price.

I think I'll do it!

Um. . .well. I feel a bit flustered now. More later.

Meeting People Like There's No Tomorrow & Partying b/c I Haven't for Awhile

Well I will remember this weekend for a bit. Last night, I met a whole bunch of people. My friend visiting from New Hampshire for the weekend knew one of them from high school, so we went to visit him early in the evening at his college. Pretty cool kid. They spent a good amount of time catching up about old high school people, but we also had some good conversations about music, politics, philosophy, and all that fun kind of serious stuff.

Then we (meaning my friend from New Hampshire, his friend from high school, & myself) went to a party in my neighborhood. The arrangement of finding out about this party works kinda funny, though. I found out about the party from my friend from New Hampshire (Let's call him Mike for the sake of simplicity) who knows someone who knows someone else, and I don't know how much further this chain of knowing people goes. But essentially I had to go through at least two or three levels of people to meet my neighbors, the people who live just down the road. Ah. . .the wonders of city life.

But despite not having meting all my neighbors in a direct way, I know at least 5 groups of people w/in walking distance, I see them enough to make myself feel as if I have some kind of neighborhood around me. I like seeing something familiar every once in awhile because it allows for continuity to some degree. And I like at least some continuity in an aspect or two of my life so as to make sense of it.

A Rambly Digression into a Discontinuous Life

Awhile ago I tried to understand how I got from my position 10 to 15 years to the present when having lived around a quarter of a century, gone through 16 & 1/2 years of schooling, various jobs, various friends & groups of friends, my place in my family, all my accomplishments and failures, etc. etc. If I hadn't essentially just said, "Screw it," & put my energies into the now & focus on my goals & just try to find the lessons of the past, I probably would've had a great big headache from exerting my cranium so hard. Nonetheeless, I think some kind of continuity or at least some kind of ritual celebrating all the different landmarks or changes in my life & made connections b/w the changes would have helped to make a little more sense of things. But oh well, that's life in this modern day, I guess.

. . .So Back to the Party:

We showed up to the party at around midnight. I feared that it would end as I remember back in my college days when I had tried to keep the party going until four or five in the morning, but everyone else would have left by or shortly after midnight. Well this party didn't follow the precedent of my school, the party went on until something like three in the morning. Yay!

I felt a bit awkward at first, not knowing anyone except for my friend who knows someone who knows someone, etc. I got over myself relatively quickly, though, especially w/ the help of my trusty water bottle, wh/ looks like some crazy whisky bottle or something. That caught people's attention. But all in all, nothing exciting happened. Just heard some good music, had a couple OK drinks, saw a bit of the Olympics that had gotten recorded earlier in the day, talked to people about stuff like: TV, the town of Concord, MA, and the northern Middlesex county near the border of New Hampshire, around Nashua. A couple people talked about computers, too. And oh yeah, some guy and I compared the different Bonds; and we also compared James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard as captain of the Enterprise. Kinda funny, the kind of conversations I find at parties, any party. Don't expect anything more out of the experience, but I'd have some fun seeing my neighbors & saying hi to them on the sidewalk.

A Little Bit More About This BLOG's Inspiration & Purpose

Just to get it off my chest, I don't want to fool around too much w/ making buttons & such for navigating just yet. This BLOG hasn't yet reached the size to fiddle around w/ scripting stuff yet. I think things work just fine now, anyway.

Urgh!!!! The Server Timed Out!!!!!

I had a whole bunch of text unsaved, too! Stupid server just frustrated me. I think I'll wrap up w/ something that I just want to throw out there. I have got stuff to do and food to eat, anyway.

My Personal Ad

I have the urge to make a section on this site to put up a personal for myself. I want to date girls & meet people! And I want to use all the resources at my hand to find cool people. So if the following sounds interesting, go and click on that e-mail address up there in the top left corner:

Joy seeking, loving, young man aiming for self realization & looking for the same in a woman. Other issues surely matter, but we can always handle those later.

Good night, World!

The weekend has finally come.

Guess I didn't finish the entry yesterday. Busy me.

I finally figured out the drop down menu thingy so that works now. I didn't learn ABSOLUTELY everything but enough for now. I love learning and making these Webscripts. If I know that something can get done on a Webpage, I just need to do some research on the Web to find out how. It may take some time and in the long run, I like to understand how the scripts work, but this way of approaching things gets things done quicker; and sometimes quick works better than understanding -- even though I do urge understanding and wisdom, especially when it comes to technology leaping so far ahead of us.

Besides, as I continue to script, I'll start associating the different commands to each other and building my understanding of it. A postmodern patchwork learning process, I guess. Gather all this crazy information together then make some sort of organization out of it. I've followed that method most of the time, which has worked fine up until I had to write my thesis, but that's a whole other story.

Wait a sec! I just made another silly association just above. The whole patchwork/association thing. I never totally thought about my problems with my thesis in that way! It doesn't make a humongous difference, but it highlights something on which I will have to work for my personal betterment.

But just to make my layout plans for the future clear to myself, I want to make sure I put in writing that I want to add some buttons around that drop menu above to make navigation a whole lot easier for when this BLOG gets ever bigger.

I would love to write some more, but I have to go wake up my weekend guest. We already had an exciting last night. We went to a club, had some drinks, and danced to all this crazy music. Makes me kind of sad that we had to go to a goth night to hear Depeche Mode or Meat Beat Manifesto spun.

Besides I've gotten hungry & really need to eat more for my health. . . :( So now I go.

So I tried to figure out everything about the drop down menus. You can see the beginnings of one up in the corner there. Goes to show me to try mastering some scripting language in anything less than an evening or two! (in progress. . .)

SO I LIKE GOING OUTSIDE ON REALLY REALLY WARM DAYS (We had a high of 59 degrees Fahrenheit in Cambridge) DURING MY LUNCH BREAK AND NOT SCRIPT HTML!!!!!! =)

Well. . .I guess I could've written a little after getting back inside, but I really wanted to check out plane ticket prices to the Midwest, so I can make it to my Aunt's wedding. YAY! She and her fiance finally set an actual date.

And I also like having the chance to "save up" and pay for my own plane ticket for once.

OK. So I haven't worked much on this here journal since yesterday. I feel a bit joyful that I've actually put it up in somewhat of a presentable form, though. But just wait! I plan on making this Website look nicer & have cooler features. Or at least I'll make it more organized.

I plan on continuing the thought that I had yesterday, but before doing that, I want to observe something quick. I just want to make note of the fact that the story kind of goes in reverse, or at least the thought tracks do. I look at it like reading a book backwards or maybe like a plot device that movies and books use sometimes. That plot device where they show the ending then go back to the beginning or maybe the middle. Narratives can take all types of chronological forms. Whatever fits the fancy of the writer, I guess. Or if they write good, whatever tells the story best or best keeps the attention of the reader.

And if you can't tell yet, I write a bit of fiction narratives, myself.

But anyway, back to what I started yesterday:

So I met Kirk. I've only really hung out with three or four times, but he showed me a bit of his Website the third time. He wanted to show me the part that has a comic drawn of some interesting dream of his. I liked it & thought it a good idea to check out his Website some other day for the hell of it.

It took me about a month and a half to check it out b/c I couldn't, for the life of me, remember the addy to it. So I finally loaded it up and found an online journal. Before I looked at Kirk's, I didn't really get online journals. I found them kind of stupid. Who wants to read someone's online journal? Sounds a little self involved for someone to have an online journal.

Kirk had me hooked, though. He writes some damn interesting stuff, keeps up some good links, and lets the world in on some wrenching drama. I go back there regularly and check out his daily entries. So I thought, "Hey, maybe online journals don't suck that much."

I have to get back to work, though. More later.

This works as the first entry into my first public online journal. A combination of factors has inspired me to start up this thing. First one: I really enjoyed reading an acquaintence's online journal at http://www.kisrael.com. I originally met Kirk, the owner of the above link, through my roommate.