the finest mofo this side of the west side

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:12:04 GMT

Dear friends, the following is the verbatim copy/paste of a letter I received this evening from my mother. I hope this clears up any confusion as to the attitude with which I regard her.

If you think this letter is sensible, we are no longer friends :)

Dear Ryan,

When I read your invitations to your dinners with "fetuchini alfredo" and "rack of lamb" and other delicious tasting dishes, I wonder why you would serve dishes that are filled with the "american poisons" that are slowly killing the people who are eating these pesdicides and hormones. (cancer producing_ i wonder why, since you are smart, that you still continue to serve and make dishes to serve to the people you invite that are "disease producing chemically infected' and why you don't do the research to prove me wrong. You seem to love it when I'm wrong, so you can verbally abuse me with your ritiousness about the facts and information that you think you know, yet you continue to be "sick" and continue to put disease producing chemicals like dairy/wheat/sugar/cigarettes/alcohol/weed/pills into your beautiful body and even feed it to your so-called friends. You were Never sick when you lived with me, but now you are believing in negativity and ingesting impure things into your body without any interest in research to show what you're doing to yourself. Why are you choosing to slowly kill yourself ?
I love you and i wish you would get over your hate for my attempt to control you when you were a child. I only did it because I wanted to protect you and I love you. You are in control of yourself and your choices now. If you hate me now, I wish you could prove me wrong, so I could stop worrying about you for the unhealthy choices you are making for your life. If you don't give a shit about life or death, i understand, yet I still don't want to bury you before I die, yet I will if you continue ingesting poisons into your beautiful body Whether you like it or not, you are a part of me, and i love you.

meme, stolen from sistrmoon

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:04:05 GMT

The last person you kissed says they love you, you say?
- I know.

How can I win your heart?
- look like you're trying to, without being an idiot.

If you could have one thing right now, what would it be?
- a teleporter.

The boy/girl you truly care about needs you at 3 AM, would you go?
- Fuck anybody who says no.

Ever liked someone who treated you like crap?
- I have liked many who have then gone on to treat me like crap. But generally no, if you are treating me like crap, at least during that period, I don't like you.

Last conversation consisted of?
- Actual: a couple anecdotes about jobs that suck, and dinosaurs with lasers.

IRL: I made fun of my boss for having a ridiculously loud voice, and told her to go into the adjacent room to talk to me. She then left, citing the need to oversee installation of her new granite kitchen countertops. /envy

Is there someone you will never forget?
- There are many that have indelibly inscribed themselves into my heart. Love is a very serious chisel.

Ever cried while you were on the phone with someone?
- Not for a very long time. Probably not since my first breakup with Anna.

Do you have an older brother?
- I have a half-brother who is in his mid-forties and has 6 children. I am an uncle like whoa. But they live in texas so I don't see them much.

What's really pissing you off?
- proprietary e-book rights.

Are you wearing sweatpants?
- I am wearing my standard equipment army surplus cargo pants.

Don't you hate when people don't text back?
- No. Text messaging is inherently passive and should not require response. If you need byplay, call.

Would you have a baby with the last person you kissed?
- that is a question that weighs occasionally on my mind.

Do you find smoking unattractive?
- On the contrary.

Do you think the last person you kissed cares for you?
- without a doubt.

Within the next 4 months, what are you looking forward to?
- christmas parties, new years parties, Lori's wedding, cold weather.

Have you broken the law in the last 3 days?
- I break the law every day.

Who were you last on the phone with?
- um, the internet? The last person I texted was Jenn. The last person I spoke to was... Gordon? No, Kayo.

When is the last time you attended a church service?
- I've attended Wiccan holiday parties. That's kinda close. And my dept chair prayed before the Thanksgiving work party. Does a wedding count? Hmm... Amy & Lee's wedding was pretty non-religious. My grandfather's funeral was pretty religious.

If you could change your eye color, what would it be?
- One bright green, one royal purple.

Do you ever wonder how other people see you?
- I know that some people see me as a hulking unpleasant ogre, and others see me as the beautiful golden paladin I wish I could be. Yes, I always wonder who is which.

Could you go out in public looking like you do now?
- I traveled through public to get here.

Can a boy and girl be friends without having feelings for each other?
- um. no. friendship requires feeling. Otherwise you have acquaintanceship. (ooh spellcheck was cool with that one) (ironically, spellcheck is uncool with "spellcheck").

Are any of your friends taller than you?
- One or two. I'm usually the giant in a group.

Do you think anyone is jealous of you or anything you have?
- This question is flawed. Jealousy denotes the fear of losing something to another. If that's the question, the answer is no: I fastidiously refrain from threatening anyone's possessions. But the question probably means envy. In which case yes, of course. It is the nature of all people to envy all abilities they view as greater than their own. Less knowledgeable people envy my knowledge. Less emotionally balanced people envy my sense of self. Less computer savvy people envy my skill with computers.

If you could seek revenge on someone would you?
- Most people I have wished vengeance against, I have satisfyingly sought. There are a few companies I would burn to the ground, if I could get away with it.

Are you happy with the way things are going?
- content. well.. sedate.

What plans do you have for tomorrow?
- karaoke.

What are you listening to right now?
- Iron and Wine

Who was the last person to call you babe/baby?
- Llewellyn, inevitably.

Have you ever kissed the last person that texted you?
- Alas.

Are you one of those people who are always cold?
- I used to be one of those people who were always very warm. But I have overextended my hypothalamus.

Are your lips chapped at the moment?
- Yeah a bit. I'm usually dehydrated.

Has someone ever called you at midnight on your birthday?
- Sure.

What is the last non-alcoholic beverage you had?
- Motherfucking Loki's dripping venom. Which is the name I've given to how I make Green Kool-aid

What are your plans for today?
- procrastinate heavily. Maybe go to Adrian's brisket night thing. I need a ride, though. And Dina will be there, ick.

Are you a forgiving person?
- deeply. I will forgive any offense that does not describe a concrete character trait, and even those I can sometimes accept if the offender hates that trait about himself.

Another post-worthy dream

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:17:15 GMT

Last night I had another mind blowing mega-intense dream. I dreamed that I was exploring different universes, jumping from body to body through the sixth dimension, like a cross between Quantum Leap and Sliders. Time was not a barrier, nor race, nor age. I don't know if I stayed human. But late into the dream I became some kind of god-like entity that represented the dawn of mankind, Adam and Eve kinda-like. Intellectually, I know that Adam and Eve as the dawn of mankind is laughable, but my dream put some the climax of 2001: A Space Oddessy level intensity to it. I woke up feeling like a time lord, that I was blessed beyond words. I honestly believed for a few minutes that my dream had been an actual journey through an incoherently vast frontier, and as usual when I have a tiny fraction as intense as this one, I was devastated to realize that I was quickly forgetting the details. I cried my eyes out and recounted all the details I could to an extremely freaked out Llewellyn, who wasn't sure if she should comfort me or call an ambulance for a straight jacket.

Drugs, Piracy and the ridiculous law

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:17:26 GMT

While I have a great amount of respect for due process and the american judicial system in general, the primary objection I have against its modern manifestation is in scope. It generally does okay for those middle of the road crimes like grand larceny, auto theft, attempted murder; but I feel that the worst of crimes and the least of crimes are horribly, horrendously incorrectly penalized.

Drugs, for instance, are way over penalized. And I'm not just saying that because I think they should be legal. I mean given that they are illegal, the penalties are ridiculous. Do you realize that in Florida, you can be incarcerated for up to a year for paraphernalia. A fucking YEAR for a pipe that doesn't even have weed in it! Seriously. A year of your life is alot. For what? I mean drug possession is a victim-less crime right? You hurt yourself, tough shit. But paraphernalia? That's like arresting somebody for THINKING about using drugs. And you can go to prison for a year for it.

The Drug Warriors would have us believe that drugs crimes DO produce victims. That the other, more violent crimes, crimes of theft and murder, are BECAUSE of drugs. Drug use makes people crazy, and addiction makes people desperate. But here's a little statistic for you: since 1987, an average 5% of the 17,000 average homicides per year were deemed "drug-related". That is ridiculously little. Certainly a shitload less than Mother Culture would have us believe. The way Mrs Reagan had us growing up believing, you'd think that drugs caused all the crime in the goddamn world. As well as aids, muscular dystrophy, and myopia.

You want to talk victimless, though. How about the redistribution of intellectual property. Whoo doggy does that one make me angry. I understand that creators of great works should be rewarded for their brilliance. I totally understand that. I understand the need for an infrastructure to make global distribution possible and easy. But I also understand that information MUST be ultimately free and unhindered for our species to properly prosper, moreover, the speed at which it transfers must continue to accelerate towards the Singularlity. And thus, any entity, corporation, government, whatever, that interferes with or otherwise shits on the transfer of information is my sworn enemy and imo, the enemy of the entire human race. The spice must flow, bitches.

22-year-old Samantha Tumpach is facing a THREE-year felony incarceration for catching minutes worth of footage from New Moon on the tape of the birthday video she was recording for her sister.

" 'The motion picture industry has encouraged theater owners to adopt a 'zero-tolerance' policy prohibiting the video or audio recording of any portion of a movie,' "
because
"Piracy has been an ongoing issue for the motion picture industry. The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that illegal piracy costs its business billions of dollars every year. "

Look, dickfaces, piracy doesn't COST you anything. Using that word is a fucking fallacy. Even the pirates who do it to make money are selling to people that weren't going to give YOU their money anyway. And there is no fucking way for you to know if they were, you greedy self-righteous fucks.

In 1986, Gary Wayne Garrett, the Airport Rapist, broke into 5 women's house and raped them at gunpoint. He is up for parole this year. For some reason, I just don't believe that Gary has been rehabilitated by his 28 years in prison. For some reason, I don't believe he's going to use his parole to live a clean life as a janitor at Walmart.

But I guess it's good he's getting out. We need that prison space for all the college students downloading divx movies.

Dinner

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:36:38 GMT

It has been a significant challenge to figure out what day of the week I was going to re-situate my dinners. It seemed that Tuesday would allow for nearly everyone I love to attend, but alas, my light-sleeping neighbor-above has deemed only Monday, Thursday and Sunday acceptable nights for a potential dinner party and my respect for her is such that her convenience trumps my own in all matters which serve to maintain neighborly tranquility. Thus, it came down to Monday, which night Katie, Amy, Lee, and Kim Lavender will be unable to attend, or Thursday, which would leave out James, Norma, and Failenn (Carla). Thursday has the additional advantage of being the traditional night And also it's placement in the week is a bit more sensible, that is, more people would probably be able to stay later more often. But alas, I have come to enjoy a couple activities on Thursday during this transition period which I am loathe to give up. Namely, I am on a trivia team and afterwards I like to sing karaoke at brophy's.

So Monday. It is decided. I am very sorry to you four who won't be able to make it, and I hope you'll be able to make it SOME weeks. But basically it was this, or not have my dinners at all anymore. I hope you can appreciate my position. I'll be sure to have some barbecues or some such on some weekends. And anytime somebody has a potluck, you know I'll be all over that.

For those of you who CAN come, I look forward to seeing you Monday night at my new place.

The arrest of my cynical descent

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:55:32 GMT

I have come to a point in my life where I have begun to believe that my life's spark has been leaking out since birth, with regularity, such that by the end of my life I will be a shuffling, joyless husk. Fucking pessimistic I know. But it just feels that I am decreasingly able to experience the kind of soul-rending passion that has marked the high points of my life. Perhaps it is a life of artfully reckless drug use, or, more likely, I believe, it's the inevitable result of getting older; and those who do not feel the same decline, merely lack the self-awareness to have noticed. But there is another possible explanation, and this epiphany occurred to me because of a dream I had last night.

Having nodded off on the couch, before even going to bed, I had this dream. And I am dead serious when I say that it was the most intense dream of my life. I woke up and could not breathe, could not think for I was so aglow with the aftereffects of its blinding radiance. I cannot properly put words to it, but I will summarize by saying that in this dream I am a man who has become so unbelievably deeply in love, that it eclipses all my other emotions to utter meaninglessness. I tasted last night, in my sleep, the distillation of human passion. In the dream, there was some vague plot which required that I, for some reason or other, immolate, perhaps by exposure to a nuclear explosion or some such. And though the experience was torture, like I said, all other feelings were meaningless next to my love. All I thought, as I burned, was how after this, she would be safe, after this we'll be together, and even if not, having been together at all has been more glorious than anyone has ever deserved. Seriously. Fuckin' Edward and Bella shit here; except I got to FEEL it. I got to BE Edward.

I woke up breathless, and as I got my breath, I used it to sob. I felt so complete, so warm and magnificent, but I knew it was going to melt away. I didn't want to go back to sleep, because I knew sleep would wash away any part of the magical depth of my experience. I went to Llewellyn, who slept in my bed, and I embraced her and told her, crying like a maniac, something of how I felt, garbled by my sleep-retardation. I don't expect she even remembers. But I needed to embrace her, even though I was terrified of sleeping. And the experience was similar enough to my dream that the warmth still with me put me immediately to sleep.

When I woke up to the alarm, it occurred to me that depths of passion yet unexperienced are still within my grasp. I imagine that my heart is simply more compartmentalized now, so it's harder for the average whim to move me, but maybe if all the correct locks and mazes built by the years are properly navigated, maybe I can blow away everything come before.

scrabble dictionary

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:49:02 GMT

There are a few words that the scrabble dictionary does not allow that are a source of endless frustration to me. The most annoying is ZEN. Zen is not allowed because Scrabble declares it a proper noun. This is Bullshit. They say it is a proper noun because it is the first word, and general descriptor of Zen Buddhism. Fuck that. Zen Buddhism is only named that because it is the kind of Buddhism that involves the practice of zen meditation. Religions are only proper nouns anyway because they're named after people. Judaism - Rabbi Judah haNasi; Christianity - Jesus Christ; Buddhism - the Buddha; Zoroastrianism - Zoroaster. You get the point. Zen is not a dude. Zen is a thing. Dammit.

The one that pisses me next most often is GI. A gi is the uniform of a practitioner of karate or judo. C'mon. Isn't karate western enough yet that we can consider the fucking outfit an english word? It bothers me because there's so many fucking acceptable two letter words that NOBODY FUCKING USES EVER. EVER. And I especially love the arbitrary decision to accept all Greek and Hebrew letters and the diatonic music scale, but fuck all the other languages. The list behind the cut:

I put the words that are completely ridiculous in red. Every one of those in red is less common a word than GI. Bullshit. I accept all the arbitrary allowances that break their own rules (no foreign languages, and no abbreviations) But I pointed them out to show you how fucked it all is.
AA — rough, cindery lava Oh yeah, don't touch that there aa, it'll burn!
AB — abdominal muscle Abbreviation much?
AD — advertisement Abbreviation much?
AE — one
AG — pert. to agriculture Abbreviation much?
AH — to exclaim in amazement
AI — three-toed sloth
AL — East Indian tree
AM — [be-conj] (to exist)
AN — indefinite article
AR — letter 'r'
AS — to the same degree
AT — in the location of
AW — intj. expressing disbelief and yet EW is not a word!
AX — to cut with an ax
AY — aye
BA — eternal soul in Egyptian mythology
BE — to exist
BI — bisexual Abbreviation much?
BO — pal
BY — side issue
DE — of, from English much?
DO — to execute/first tone of musical scale
ED — education Abbreviation much?
EF — letter 'f'
EH — intj. used to indicate lack of understanding
EL — letter 'l'
EM — printer's measurement Abbreviation much?
EN — printer's measurement Abbreviation much?
ER — intj. expressing hesitation
ES — letter 's'
ET — [eat-conj] (to consume)
EX — letter 'x'
FA — fourth tone of diatonic musical scale
FE — Hebrew letter (feh, pe)
GO — to leave/Japanese board game
HA — sound expressing triumph
HE — male person
HI — intj. used as a greeting
HM — intj. expressing thought (hmm)
HO — intj. used to attract attention to something
ID — part of psyche related to instinctual impulses
IF — possible condition
IN — influence Abbreviation much?
IS — [be-conj] (to exist)
IT — person playing tag/indefinite pronoun
JO — sweetheart
KA — Egyptian spiritual self English much?
KI — vital life-sustaining energy force (qi) English much?
LA — sixth tone of diatonic musical scale
LI — Chinese unit of distance English much?
LO — intj. used to attract attention
MA — mother
ME — pronoun referring to myself
MI — third tone of diatonic musical scale
MM — intj. expressing satisfaction
MO — moment Abbreviation much?
MU — Greek letter
MY — possessive prounoun
NA — no
NE — born with the name of (nee) I don't even understand what part of speech this is!
NO — negative reply
NU — Greek letter
OD — hypothetical force of natural power what?!
OE — Faroean wind what?!
OF — coming from
OH — to exclaim "oh"
OI — intj. expressing dismay (oy)
OM — mantra used in meditation
ON — side of wicket where cricket batsman stands This definition is hilarious
OP — style of abstract art
OR — heraldic color gold
OS — orifice/bone/ridge of sand (esker) what?!
OW — intj. expressing sudden pain Once again, EW is not accepted, WTF
OX — hoofed mammal/clumsy person
OY — intj. expressing dismay
PA — father
PE — Hebrew letter
PI — Greek letter/to jumble
QI — vital life-sustaining energy force English much?
RE — second tone of diatonic musical scale
SH — intj. used to urge silence (shh)
SI — seventh tone of diatonic musical scale (ti) fucking alternate spelling of TI haha
SO — fifth tone of diatonic musical scale
TA — thanks What? Is that an abbreviation or what?
TI — seventh tone of diatonic musical scale
TO — toward
UH — intj. expressing hesitation
UM — intj. expressing hesitation
UN — one
UP — to raise
US — objective pronoun for "we"
UT — musical tone in French solmization systemAre you fucking kidding me?
WE — plural pronoun
WO — woe
XI — Greek letter
XU — Vietnamese monetary unit
YA — you
YE — you
YO — intj. used to call attention
ZA — pizza Abbreviation much?

fuck loudtwitter

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:29:20 GMT

Someone I have adored since I first came across his journal recently expressed to me his irritation regarding twitter feeds to LJ. He was somewhat distressingly contemptuous, actually, and right off removed mine from his list of read journals. And though I dislike simply bitching out, I did immediately agree with him that twitter feeds are annoying and shouldn't be here on my LJ (or probably anyone's). I only had the feed going because after setting it up forever ago I never gave it a second thought.

Let twitter handle tweets. And maybe Facebook statuses, since they're the same thing. Livejournal should be for essays.

So trust, if you were like the aforementioned friend secretly annoyed by my twitter feed, that this journal will henceforth purport only grade-A compositions of thought. Or maybe grade-B sometimes, but no lower!

I apologize, faithful readers, for all the detritus I've allowed here.

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:01:21 GMT

16:12 Just set Facebook's defaul language to English (pirate)! #